Here we are: The second half of Tuesday’s sessions:

How to win the $101,000 ‘Best of Festival’ Award
Doug Phillips

Some of you might want to pay attention.

Mr. Phillips shared briefly about how the San Antonio film festival has progressed in it’s 4 year existence. The last festival, members of a foundation (unnamed) attended and Mr. Phillips was not sure why. After the ceremony, he got his answer. They approached him and said, “Doug, what you are doing is important, but it’s too small. We would like to change that by allowing you to be able to offer the largest grand prize in the world.”

So, the previous $10,000 prize was jacked up to the enourmous $101,000 grand prize for the 2009 Film Festival.

Over the past year, huge things have happened. Movies like ‘Fireproof’ have won best Independent Film in the USA. That, and the grand prize have moved the spotlight of (inter)national media on the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. Dozens of newspapers will be sending reporters, and several TV stations have requested access. “The world will be watching you.” Mr. Phillips told the filmmakers.

So now on to the session. If you want to know how to win the grand prize in future years, read this carefully.

To win the Grand Prize you must:
1. Learn and take to heart the principles communicated at the Christian Filmmakers Academy.
2. Don’t break the rules.
3. Inspire Us

Doug Phillips pointed out what seems to be a no-brainer, but it actually is a major problem: “If you want to win the prize, listen to what we tell you to do and not to do!” He also stressed the importance of making your movie on something important, something significant, and something you are passionate about.

He then told us that we will not win the grand prize if we:

1. Use the clichés of Hollywood with their humanistic views
2. Copy Christian B movie techniques which are poor, spin-offs of humanistic Hollywood aesthetics.

Finally, to win the prize you must inspire, be courageous, be resourceful and innovative.

Before the Camera Rolls: How to know when your story is ready to become a Feature Film
Geoff Botkin

Mr. Botkin talked about what you should do before deciding whether to turn your idea into a a feature film. What should you consider?

Market Potential: Pick an audience that you are focusing this film on. Who will watch it? Find out how successful similar films are.

Story Potency: Make sure it is theologically sound, and proof the animatics (animated storyboarding)

In every story there is a flawed hero/heroine who “summons moral courage to overcome difficult situations.” As Mr. Botkin put it.

He explained a Three Act Storyline that you should typically follow:

Act I: Set Up:
Act II: Moral Test
Act III: Resolution

Here’s a graph of what the character arc should typically look like during a three act film:

How to Improve Your Movie in Ten Minutes
Isaac Botkin

Here’s a few of the many, many points he had:

1. Take ten minutes before writing your film to ask the question, “What is the point?”
2. Take ten minutes to write a new story treatment every time you do a rewrite of your script.
3. Take ten minutes to detach yourself from the previous versions of the script before you start your re-writes.
4. Take ten minutes to write your main characters bio
5. Take ten minutes to graph your main character’s arc.
6. Take ten minutes mapping out each scene
7. Take ten minutes to do a scribbled stick-figure thumbnail storyboard before you get too attached to your nice storyboards
8. Take ten minutes to analyze similar scenes from other films to see how your work matches up
9. Most films are ten minutes too long.
10. Most films have ten minutes more music than they should.
11. Take ten minutes to lower the final music mix by 50%
12. Take ten minutes to EQ music and effect tracks to intrude less on dialogue
13. Take ten minutes to do a foley test on each scene

The Future of Independent Christian Filmmaking
Geoffrey Botkin

Mr. Botkin began by talking about our role as Jesus Christ’s ambassadors, and how he believes that film is a perfect tool for us.

If we are to be effecive in our world, we must be effective with the weapons of technology, such as film.

Mr. Botkin showed film clips and asked questions about each clip such as “What camera angles did they use? Was it steadycam, dolly, or jib?”

Films included were:
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Last Samurai
The Terminal
Raiders of the Lost Ark

Mr. Botkin pointed out that we should give credit where credit is due. When watching these clips, we should be in awe of their technical and cinematical genius of the creators.

He then gave three reasons why he has hope for Independent Christian Filmmaking:

1. Students are teachable and willing to teach
2. There is an ethic of study and work
3. We can improve on existing techniques and technology

“I have hope because students are paying attention to these distinctive ideas.” Mr. Botkin said.

There’s going to be quite a bit of material today, so I’m going to go ahead and break it into two posts.

Symposium of Stunts
Jimmy Broyden and Geoffrey Botkin

Mr. Broyden started off by sharing a bit about his early career Vancouver, Canada. He’s had the opportunity to work with famous filmmakers like Jackie Chan. Broyden had wanted to be a stuntman since he was six.

Jimmy and his friend performed a fight stunt scene with cameras rolling. Fight scenes entire entirely on tricks in camera angles, so they performed it three times to record different camera angles. Then an editor took the material and edited it together into a final fight scene. It’s a very complicated process that I can’t really explain with writing. If you want to really understand how it works, you may want to buy the session from Vision Forum. He did mention an important back pad called an “Armadillo” to protect falls on your back (see picture below).

Mr. Botkin took to the stage and pointed out to get the scene right, you must shoot several angles to make it looks realistic. He explained appropriate violence when he stated that violence to defend your rights is biblically appropriate and may be depicted in film. But when we as filmmakers depict violence we must first:

1. Reject the Hollywood theology.
2. Approach every scene with responsible theology.
3. We need to protect viewers from any defiling violence that’s not the execution of justice.
4. Protect your viewers from blurred lines between good and evil.
5. Protect your viewers from the execution of justice being humorous.
6. Degrading sports violence.
7. Protect your viewers from brutalizing violence.
8. Brutal and horrific killing for the thrill of it is absolutely wrong.

Geoffrey Botkin closed by saying, “Violence depicting justice is not only permissible in films, it’s required and it should be firm and forceful.”

Afterwards they displayed a car stunt Jimmy Broyden did where he drove a car through the air at 60mph, car spiraling 20 feet in the air, through a RV, hitting the ground and flipping twice. Absolutely incredible.

The Future of Film and Digital Acquisition
James Finn

The session was by James Finn, a Panavision professional who was teaching the basics of use of the Panasonic Genesys.

Mr. Finn talked about the future of film and digital recording. He believes that film will always be viable because film is still film. “If people want to shoot a movie that looks like film, use film,” He said.

He explained some of the technical side of it, and then opened for Q&A time, answering questions ranging from rental prices, to latitude, and formatting. If any of you are interested in learning everything technical, visit media.panavision.com

(Photo Credit Josh Eddy)

Wow, what a full day! Registration opened at 8:00am and the first session started at 10:00am. There’s over 450 aspiring filmmakers attending the academy this year, which makes for great networking opportunities. The sessions are posted below with short recaps of each.

Biblical Worldview and the Theology of Christian Filmmaking
Speakers: Doug Phillips and Geoffrey Botkin

Doug Phillips started out by sharing everything that has happened in the last 12 months. Fireproof won the best independent film in the United States, and the festival and academy has garnered international attention. He shared that major distribution studios are attending this year’s festival to keep an eye out for the next big independent film. They don’t want to miss out on the next ‘Fireproof’. Big things are happening and they know it.

Mr. Phillips asked the question, “What is a Christian film, and what does it mean to be a Christian filmmaker?” and proceeded the answer it. He explained that a film doesn’t qualify as Christian just because it doesn’t bash Christianity, it’s G-rated, or even that it has some good morals. Either a film is God-honoring in every aspect, or it isn’t. There’s no middle ground. He also pointed out that you can be a Christian and a filmmaker but not be a Christian filmmaker. There’s a big difference.

A common theme in this opening session was the power of visual media. Film has to be one of the most (if not the most) powerful weapon in the world. It effects culture, and Hollywood knows it. Vision Forum hopes to have thousands of filmmakers use this weapon for the advancement of the gospel.

Mr. Botkin spoke the last 30 minutes of the first session. He stated that “film has weakened all the gates.” But you can play a role in changing all of culture by standing up for Christian principles. He re-stressed the point that film is a weapon, and if you don’t know how to use it, you could destroy the Christian culture.

He reminded us that as Christians we will be accountable to God for each film we make, and whether it advanced his kingdom. Then, he left us with one last challenge:

Be the filmmaker who is remembered by historians to as a culture-changer for the better.

The twelve most common mistakes by a new director
Geoffrey Botkin

Geoffrey Botkin spoke in the next session and shared a list of the 12 most common mistakes that a beginning director can make. Here they are:

1. Choosing projects for the wrong reason
2. Failure to properly consider an audience
3. Refusal to consider alternate mediums
4. Failure to plan theologically
5. Failure to study the art and the craft
6. Careless attitude towards the current industry
7. Failure to be objective
8. Desire to be too creative
9. Desire to be too derivative
10. Jumping the gun
11. Having an unrealistically large vision
12. Having an unrealistically small vision

Watch out for bad production design (i.e. voices, costume, lighting, framing)
Storyboarding is important, make sure to storyboard your entire film before moving into production.. Mr. Botkin gave examples of how people would storyboard films, and then showed the final product which was very useful.

It’s important to convert your storyboarding to animatics so you can realize what your film will look like roughly. Remember to integrate disciplines. Allow the departments to interact.

Cinematography Part 1
Isaac Botkin

C: Composition
C: Contrast
C: Color
C: Class (Quality)

Isaac shared examples of good framing and composition. Clever ways of using cinematography that isn’t distracting.

Cinematography Part 2
Isaac Botkin

In the second session Isaac Botkin shared his suggestions on high-end cameras. The list contained Red One, Sony F23, Panavision Genesys, etc. Afterwards he moved on to post production lighting and effects. Showing how to properly light different shots, and point out what is wrong with others. Most of it was really technical, so it probably wouldn’t make sense to some of you.

Symposium of Science Fiction and Christian filmmaking
Doug Phillips

Doug Phillips shuffled through Relevance, defininitions, theology, history, and vision of Christian Science Fiction. He said, “Science fiction is possibly the most expressive genre” since it displays the writers view on the future. Science fiction is such a force in our culture that we either have to attack it and denounce it, or take over it. Mr. Phillips believes it would be beneficial to use this powerful genre.

Defined properly, Science Fiction is not only a lawful genre for Christian filmmakers, it is a helpful, creative and necessary genre for cultural influence.

He explained how modern science, admitting that evolution doesn’t explain everything, concludes that it must be extra-terrestrial life because they could never admit that there might be a God. This is not just believed by the simple minded either. Richard Dawkins, one of the leading evolutionists in the world, stated on film that life probably was started by extra-terrestrial life that planted it on the earth.

The summary of his teaching is, Science Fiction is a genre that is powerful enough that should and will be used by Christians. It can portray what we understand the bible says will happen and the future, and what happened in the past. But we must be careful to always portray it in a biblically solid way.

(Photo Credit Josh Eddy and Isaac Harris)

If you want regular, brief updates on particulars, check out this Twitter page by Jeremiah Warren. Next post will come approximately 8:30-9:00pm CST. God Bless!

Hey guys, this is Isaac here from San Antonio. We landed at the airport yesterday at 4:30pm and joined up with our group at the hotel. There’s been a bit of trouble with our internet connection at the hotel, so we had to resort to drastic measures (see above) but it shouldn’t be a problem in the future.

Today the film academy starts and will be continuing till the 7th. Training includes hands-on experience with HD Camera Red One, stunts, and everything else ranging from lighting techniques, to getting your film ready for the big screen.

Let me briefly explain how the live-blogging will work: I’ll be posting a recap at the end of each day. I may post more than once a day, depending on how much there is to post about. If any of you have special requests, or questions, go ahead and post them in the comment section below, and I’ll get to them if and when I can.

Thanks for all your comments, encouragement, and prayer. Hope you enjoy the blogging!

It is with great excitement that Alex and I bring your attention to the fifth annual San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and the fourth annual Christian Filmmakers Academy, two growing projects of Vision Forum Ministries. These two events, slated for January 5-10, will draw maverick Christian filmmakers from around the globe to challenge the status quo presented by Hollywood.

This year we’re continuing our tradition of live-blogging the academy and festival on TheRebelution.com — only this time around we’ll be turning the blog over to a 14-year-old who is both a budding filmmaker and our little brother: Isaac. We hope you enjoy him as much as we do. Love ya’ Isaac!

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