The Set of 'Timeless'

We did it! We made it through the 4 days of the filming of the thesis project that I produced, 'Timeless'! I know that only some of you know what that last sentence means, so I'm writing this to fill the rest of you in!

This year, I am attending Compass College of Cinematic Arts, a small faith based film school in Grand Rapids, MI. Through the year, I have been learning about film, the process of making them, and how to make good stories. This last third term, there are 5 final thesis films to be made. I was chosen as one of the 5 producers, which has been an incredible honor. It's nice to know that the people around me see me as responsible enough to lead a group through the making of one of those final films. We created the teams that would do the work and were sent on our way. I chose a script, later entitled 'Timeless', about a man who is accused of murdering his wife and is sent to prison. While in prison, he creates a time machine to go back to try to save her. I chose Bri Brincat as the director. She had never directed before, and she is only the second female to direct a thesis project at Compass. She has done a magnificent job  and I am so very proud of the job that she did over this last weekend of shooting!

We went into last week struggling a bit on a couple locations, but we ended up finding our last two locations the day before shooting began. We also were struggling to put together the last of the set art and props.

June 22 and 23, Day 1 and 2-
Our first 2 days took place at Ann Benoit's house, who was our Location Manager. We met at Compass in the morning and carpooled out to location. Travis Babbitt, who was my Line Producer, and I ran over to Gorilla Pictures to pick up some extra batteries for the RED Camera, which was the camera that the movie was filmed on. When we got to the location, people were ready to go. We staged all of the equipment in the garage. Travis and I set up the crafty (food) table, and everyone else set up for the jobs they were to do. Our teacher, Tom Greenberg, stayed around all day the first day to make sure that everything with the camera department and RED Camera was good, as it's a totally new piece of equipment to our school. For the most part, Travis and I were able to relax those first 2 days. Every once in a while, we needed to go get something from the store and such, but otherwise our crew and set was a well oiled machine that I'm proud to say that was so easy to manage on set! Our crafty was put together by the lovely Donna Sawyer, who made the best on set food I've had so far this year by far! We blasted through those 2 days, and though we were tired, we were all very happy to be on that set.

June 24, Day 3-
Our third day took place at Gaslight Village in East Grand Rapids. From the very first time I visited that location on the scout, I knew that I wanted our set to be there. I was ecstatic when we found out that we could shoot on their streets and store fronts. So when we got there, we set up in the parking garage. Because we were always so spread out as a crew all the time, I am so thankful that we had a walkie talkie system going. Because of the good naturedness of the crew, we were able to use code names over the radios. The 1st Assistant Director Mike Campbell went as 'Chicken Noodle', Chad Ice went as 'Iceman', Travis went as 'Papa Bear', I went as 'Mama Bear', and so on and so forth. I know that those code names will probably be brought up in the stories we tell for years to come! That location gave our film such a great feel. I'm still so happy that we got to use it!

June 25, Day 4-
Those first 3 days went so very well! We only had minor hiccups that we were quickly able to fix on the spot. Then the 4th day hit us. In fact, it hit us square in the face. It was the day where we were to use the 2 locations that we had locked last minute. The first part of the day, we used the basement of the Grand Rapids Civic Theater for the jail cell scenes. There was a lot of miscommunications on both our part and the theaters, making for a rough morning. On top of that, there was a lot of tention among the crew, making some tempers flare. But we kept up our professionalism and got through the shots we needed. We were able to get out a little later than we wanted, but we still got out. We all moved  back to Compass for crafty. We had a hard time getting ahold of the actors scheduled for the afternoon because we had gotten out late. Ann and I went over to the other location and they told us that they didn't know who we were and that we weren't scheduled. So for an extremely stressful hour, we tried to get ahold of the head guy at the location. We finally did and he came over. Because of the mix up, our scheduled 3 hours of shooting had to turn into an hour and a half shoot. So we quickly had to get what we needed. We finally got out and wrapped up the film.

Obviously this blog is condensing 4 ten hour days into a short post about the experience. What I have written is only the tip of what we all experienced and went through. This crew was by far the best crew I have ever been a part of. It's so cool to work with most of the same people I was with on our first shoot during the first term of Compass. These men and women have grown so much! And it was a pleasure to work with and become friends with new people as well. I have been ready to leave Michigan for a while now, but this shoot makes me sad that I am leaving these people soon.

Thank you all so much once again for making this shoot so awesome! I am so excited to see the finished product! You all rock face!!!

Armor

Armor has been an important concept throughout my life. I grew up as a little boy, like most, playing war in the backyard. One of my favorite games was being a knight. I wasn't too creative in costuming myself, so most of my knightly armor came from my imagination. As a knight, I was invincible, being the hero of the day, saving the princess, and slaying the evil that was plaguing the land I had sworn to protect! Or... something like that.
Then, on another level, I was introduced to the concept of spiritual armor, which is spoken of in Ephesians 6:10-20. It talks about the various pieces of "armor" we must have on as Christians in order to stand strong against our sinful nature and the Devil.

But another form of armor that I think that we all have comes in the form of who we put ourselves out to be, which is over the top of who we really are inside. I have become acutely aware of this armor in the last week. I have gone through highs and lows of trying to figure out who I am and why I sin so very much all of the time. Coming with this has been the realization that people don't see that side of me, that dark side which is mostly covered up by that armor I have on. In Romans 7:14-20, Paul talks about the two sides that we have as Christians: the good side and the sinful side. When we accept Christ as our Savior, His Spirit moves into our lives and starts to move our hearts toward being more and more like Him (that is, if we surrender and let Him do it.). But yet, we still do those sinful things in our lives, those things that we hate. Why? Because the sinful nature is still within us. The only way that we can move towards being like Jesus is to let Jesus Himself to the work. It's the pain in our lives which helps move us toward that, along with submitting ourselves to His will. The more we spend in His presence, the more we get a taste of who God is, the more we want to be like Him!

And that's been hard for me this year. Why? Because I haven't had a strong Christian family around me. I some Christian friends, yes, but it hasn't been an overwhelming presence in my life this year. And that has made things to tough. I haven't had the accountability I've needed. But I'm on the edge of the next chapter, as scary as that is. And I've been praying for a church family to come into my life, and I know there's one out there being prepared for me to come too.

So, which armor is good and which armor is bad? Obviously, the spiritual armor is something I pray for everyday. It's something I desperately need in my life, as we all do. But is the other type of armor bad, the type that covers up who we are to the rest of the world? Yes and no. I think we have to be careful with it. We do need to be real to the world, to be able to show the world that we are as messed up as they are, so that they may see the Lord building us up in our lives and rejoice that He is! But obviously that armor will always be there to shield people from our true selves. No one can truly know who you are completely. I think that armor is there to protect both us and everyone else. But we have to be willing to take that armor off in order to show those close to us a little bit more of who we are as time goes by, so that they may know us deeper. That's why the armor is there. It's built into us to protect ourselves.

As we grow older and wiser, we learn to tighten and untighten that armor, and when to do each. We learn when we need to wear it tightly and when we need to wear it loosely, because both are important to know. We can't tighten up ourselves when we are with those we love, and we can't expose our vital parts to just anyone.

That's what it comes down to, like most things in life: Wisdom.

To My Dad

I have to admit, Father's Day snuck up on me this year! I think I only realized that it was today yesterday, so I hope my Dad will forgive me.

So this is my gift to him.

Greg Friend is my Dad. He is an amazing man of God, a man that I have followed closely as a role model my entire life. It wasn't until I left home that I really realized home much I take him for granted. God didn't have to give me an great father. He didn't even have to put me in a household that stayed together. But He did, and it has been one of the biggest factors in shaping me as not only a man, but as the man of God that I am seeking to be every day of my life.

I'm sitting here trying to remember the earliest memory that I have of my Dad. There are a few things that I can think of. One is going to church as a family at First Baptist. Another is my Dad mowing the lawn on Saturday mornings. But the one that comes to mind the strongest is when he lead me to the Lord. I remember sitting in church the Sunday before, partaking of communion. My Dad told me after the service that I would not be able to partake in communion anymore because of my age and that I hadn't accepted Christ as my Savior. I remember that moment with a huge respect. He saw my age and who I was and knew that my age of accountability had come. That next Saturday, My sister and I went with my Dad in our van to REI in Portland. My Dad started to ask me questions about what I believed and at the end he told me that if I believed what I has just said, I was a follower of Christ. I remember coming home and him telling me to tell my Mom what I had done. She cried :)

The wisdom I have observed in my Dad is something I can only hope to achieve in my future. The ways he has been able to handle my sister and I's various stages of life has been something I only hope to be like one day. Through our childhoods, to fighting between my sister and I, to have to discipline, to puberty, to going through relationships they knew would only end in pain, to watching me have to leave home. Through all of the crazy stages, He has sought God's help through all of it.

Now he isn't perfect. Of course he isn't. None of us are. But I have been so blessed to be able to be his son. I can't even express how thankful I am. As I sit here in this laundromat in Grand Rapids MI, 1857 miles away from where my Dad is right now, I long to be there with him today, to go to church with him, to sit down and talk about things. I want nothing more on this day than to be there with him. But God has me here. So I will carry on with the strength and grace that he showed me and helped me learn in these 20.8 years of my life.

I'll see you soon Dad. I can't wait to show you around Michigan in August :)

Your loving and forever grateful son,
John

SMT: A Year Later

Yep. Two blogs in one day. But that's because all I've done today is listen to sermons and watch 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'. But this one is one I need to do tonight, as short as it will be.

It's been a year since I began my journey of the 2012 Ecola Summer Ministry Team with Matt White, Katie White, Rhianna Moriarty, and Lisa Matz. It feels like just yesterday, yet it feels like a lifetime ago. All of the lives effected, all of the people I met, the ways I would never be the same.

It's been a tough year since leaving Ecola and SMT. If you know me at all or have read these blogs, you know that. It's been a journey into the corruption and mess that is the world, a far cry from the shelter that is "camp". Christian camp is a weeks worth of shelter and rejuvenation, not the real world in the least bit. You get to be under the influence of cool older people, who are mostly college age, and get to know your cabin mates. You get to trick yourself into thinking that you have a long term chance with the cute girl 3 rows up in chapel. You get to go to chapel 2 or 3 times a day, something taken for granted by most young people, but its the part of camp I miss the most. Just me and God. In the woods. Hangin' out. Being loved on by everyone around you. And the opportunity to worship the God of the universe in a beautiful place. I LOVE IT.

Being a counselor is one of the greatest experiences in life. But the experience you go through as an SMT member is the best. Literally. Those were the best 2 months of my life. I gained the support of 4 fantastic individuals and I miss them greatly. They really are some of the best friends I will ever have, and I can't wait to see them. The last time I saw Rhianna was at the Ecola camping trip in August. The last time I saw Matt and Katie was at the Chan's wedding in August. And the last time I saw Lisa was in May in Forest Grove, OR.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say with this blog. Maybe that I miss my SMT family. Maybe to be encouraging to this years teams who just headed out today. Maybe for my own satisfaction. Maybe because I'm still stuck on how much I miss last summer. But God has a plan for me. I'm not doing camps this summer for a reason. I pray that I can go back for upcoming summers in my life and do a camp or two, maybe even some of the camps that I did during SMT. Who knows? But God works wonders at summer camps. He gets to kids, kids who's lives will never be the same. I can't wait to be apart of that again. Until then, I follow His lead, unto the next stage of my incredibly small life. And it may be small, but I am made strong through my weakness. That's how God works. And I can't get over how incredible that is.

Life, Trials, and James 1:2-5

This is a big time in my life. I am on the edge of something big, a little something I would call 'The Rest of My Life'. For the majority of the time, you can wake up every morning and say, "It's another day! It's the first day of the rest of my life!" or whatever positive people think when they wake up. But there are moments in life that you can feel coming, the moments you know are going to change everything about you, everything about how you live and think everyday. And I am just under 2 months from a moment like that.

In 2 months, I will be moving to LA to start an internship. That flight or road trip (which ever we decide to do to get there) will be the beginning. This blog is called "Prequel to Life", and that life will begin the day I move away from Michigan. When I move to LA, it will begin real life. So far in my life, I've been in school. School is all I've known. I don't know what it truly is like to be out on my own and working to stay afloat. I don't know what life is like when it's unstructured. Do you know how scary that is? My entire mindset and views on life will have to change in order to adapt to that change.

I've been thinking a lot about life recently, what with it being a year since I began my summer journey on SMT, really missing home, trying to get a glimpse into what my future holds, and really getting the longing set in to get back to my beloved west coast. I've been thinking a lot about who I am, who I was, and who I want to be. Looking back, seeing the guy that existed a year or even two years ago, realizing how much of a wandering lost puppy I was back then. I thought I knew it all. This year has proven to me over and over that I know nothing of what life is or who God truly is. I can only see glimpses of each. But that's what life is: slowly learning and relearning what you think is reality. The world I was apart of at Ecola was the world I prayed that would be reality. I know now that it isn't in the least bit. The reality of life is that people are not smart at all, fail everyday in trying to reach God (or whatever they think He might be), and have no idea what they are doing. And I am included in that. I want so badly to believe that people are good, but they aren't. At the end of the day, we all fail, we all fall, and we all sin. I want to believe that I will eventually 'get it', that eventually I will stop being stupid, that I will stop being sinful. And the answer is yes and no. As long as I keep seeking the Lord with everything that I am, God will continue to work in my life. He will continue to sanctify me through trials and tribulations.

Even though I've complained a lot this year, I really have no right to. I could very well have gone to a school that would have over charged me and under educated me. Compass College really is a great place to learn about film. The teachers care and know how to teach the right things, and I will be getting a great internship through them and will have the skills to excel. Really, at the end of the day, the only thing I am lacking here is my best friends and a close church family. Sadly, those are the things I rely on in life the most. And God is teaching me to live without them, showing me how blessed I've been throughout my life.

James 1: 2-5 says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

Part of the sanctification I have been going through this year is learning how to be joyful in all circumstances. I am a big believer in believing that every trial we go through, every circumstance we are put through is because God is building us up for a future trial and/or situation. The things I have been going through is just the beginning of a bigger plan in my life. I want more than anything to run this race of life with everything that I am. I don't want to live a "normal" life. I want to be used. If film school was just a tool that God used to grow me, and I'm not supposed to do film, so be it. But at the end of the day, I just want God's will to be done. I have been through enough this year, and watched enough people go through crazy things this year, to know that everything is happening for a reason, no matter how painful.

God has a plan. It's up to us to see that and accept it. And I choose to be apart of it in any way that God will allow me.

Awareness of Evil

As you know if you know me well or read this blog, this year has been an incredibly huge time of growing for me. As time goes on, I seem to be opening my mind up to more and more things, ideas, and views on life. When you grow up as a Christian, it's easy to become very closed minded about things that are wrong or evil. I know, that sounds weird and you're probably thinking "Well duh! If something's wrong or evil, I want nothing to do with even the idea of it!" But let me give you the context of what I'm thinking about.

Growing up, I had a fear of the dark. I had a fear of evil things. I had a fear that things could come out of my closet and take me away. As children, I think it's safe to say that most people, if not all, have fears like this. As we grow up, we lose those fears, not because we grow stronger against them, but because we stop believing in them at all. Yet, when we attend church, we talk about the Devil and his demons who are constantly after us to give us doubts about God and to make us stumble and sin. So why doesn't the idea of that scare us? We can say that it's because God is in control and that we can take heart that He is protecting us. And that's true, but what I think is more true is that we just don't think that that stuff is really a threat to us. Why? It's not like we don't experience demons on a daily basis! We all have felt those little voices that push us into sinning. So again, why? It's because it doesn't feel any different than normal. We're used to it, just like how we can become lukewarm Christians (Rev. 3:16) when we don't have an active and healthy knowledge of the presence of God in our lives. I believe that it's just as unhealthy to not acknowledge the presence of spiritual evil in this world as to not acknowledge the presence of spiritual good.

So, you ask, where is all of these ideas coming from? The answer is a TV show (go figure). I know, I know... I'm a nerd, but bare with me. Growing up, I came to believe that it was a really bad idea to engage in watching certain movies and TV shows, because they invite evil ideas into your mind and home. And, to a large extent, I still believe that. For example, I will never watch "The Exorcism" because of all of the real life spiritual things that surrounded the movie. Last year while at Bible school, I was told by my good friend Jordan Preston that the show 'Supernatural' was really really good. So I took a look at it. Sadly, I had to watch pirated versions, which sucked. But by the end of the first season, I didn't feel comfortable watching the show, as it's all about two brothers who fight urban legends and demons, which didn't make me feel comfortable. So I stopped.

Fast forward to this year. I have grown a lot, both mentally and spiritually. After going to LA and meeting with Director Scott Derrickson, I decided to watch 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose'. That movie, while not fantastic, had some really good plot points. 'Emily Rose' wasn't a horror movie about exorcisms, it was a movie about the fact that exorcisms are a reality, because it is about a case of real demon possession. There's a great quote in the movie about how it's not that demon possession doesn't happen anymore, its that the western world has chosen not to see it and tries to dismiss the cases as scientific and not spiritual, which is so true. This movie opened me up to the idea of watching 'Supernatural' again, so I gave it a shot.

Concerning the show itself, HOLY COW. The show is so amazingly shot and does such an amazing job with the story of the two brothers who fight evil. On the Behind the Scenes, the creators say that while they fight things every week,  but the show is really about the relationship of the Winchester family. This show really is a gem in the TV show realm.

Anyway, going back to the spiritual side of the show. I truely believe that I wasn't ready to take on the spiritual thought that has come with this show last year. I've been out in the world, outside the bubble of home and Bible school. But I was ready for this show this year, to take it as new perspective instead of just some show about demons. In fact, I'm sure that my parents wouldn't be comfortable with me watching the show in their home, just because of the content being about demons and elements of horror. My parents would ask me "Do you really want this stuff in your brain?" And before this year, I honestly know that the answer would be no, but this year, I know I'm ready to realize what evil is in this world. Plus on top of that, I love a well done story as a film maker.
This show has really opened my mind up to being able to recognize the presence of evil in this world. All of the evil things they fight have either a rooting in Biblical text or legends that all have nuggets of truth in them. And I think it's a good thing, as I said before, to be able to recognize that there are things in this world that happen that you can't explain. All the legends we have, all of the stories about evil has root somewhere. I don't want to give anything away about the plot for those of you who haven't seen it, but there are so many episodes that deal with evil in a way which, while probably not 100% accurate because it's a TV drama, it really opens up your mind to realizing that many of these stories have nuggets of fact in them. Stories of hauntings, stories of possession, stories of selling your soul to the Devil. There are stories that deal with these things in almost every culture across the world and that's hard to ignore.

So what do you do with this information? Take it, use it, make sure you are growing close to God, because God is your protector. He has the ability to vanquish all evil that wants to stand in your way. Don't test the supernatural or evil that is out there; it's real. And while you probably aren't out hunting a demon who killed your mother, we as Christians are the main target of the Devil. He wants nothing more than to immobilize us so that we are not effective for God's Kingdom.

So, my brothers and sisters, "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love." Ooh-rah.
1 Corinthians 16: 13-14

I Don't Know Anything.

It's weird to look back to the beginning of this blog, to see how much I've changed in just 8 short months, and to think that my life is about to radically change once again in about 3 months.

I came here to Michigan, to film school, thinking that I had a handle on life, thinking that since I had been through a year of Bible school, I knew quite a bit about what I life is about, that I knew where my life was going and what it was about. But after 8 months of growing up, I sit here and type all of this out to tell you all one thing:

I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.


I thought I did. I really did. I got to go through one of the best Bible programs in the country and made friends with some of the best people I've ever known. I got to know the Bible pretty well, and I thought I had finally had the means to become a "good Christian person". HA. The very reason we need Christ is because we aren't good people, because we are SINNERS, because we turn our back on God constantly. Now, I'm not saying that we are destined to stay that way once be decide to follow Christ. Not at all. The second step to following Christ is to allow (yes, allow) God to start changing us on the inside out. All my life, I felt like a good person. I felt that I was doing well and that being a Christian was just logical. Who wouldn't want to be friends with the Creator of the universe? That's what I thought it was all about. you read your Bible, you pray, you go to church. It felt like there was a formula and I was following it well. But it always felt empty. I didn't understand why, but it did. When I went to Ecola, something clicked. God took me by the hand and lead me towards where He wants my relationship to be with Him. Slowly, over the course of those 7 months, He showed me things about Himself, about who He is, about what He wants us to be. And I rode that high, that feeling that God was physically with me all the time, that He wants me to walk with Him daily, that there was no way that I would possibly leave His side.

Then this year hit. Right out of the summer, I felt good. I was still riding the high, still loving God all the time, still wanting to constantly walk with Him. Then school hit. I got busy, distracted. It was easier to watch movies on my down time than to study the Bible or pray. I felt lonely, like I had nobody. I fought with impurity and swearing, and all of the things that entrapped me before Ecola, and even some things that still entrapped me while I was there. I prayed as much as could, but God felt distant, like He didn't want to be with me in Michigan. I had to constantly remind myself that God doesn't leave us, its us who shift our focus from Him.
And I still struggle with all that to an extent, actually to a very large extent. This life is hard. As Christians, we seem to think that our life will be roses and puppies, but it won't. We have chosen a path that is hard, a path that challenges us, a path that is not of this earth. God uses all the times and circumstances to teach us and grow us into the men and women we are destined to be. We may not be able to see what it all means for us right now, but it's building to something huge, whether that thing happens here in our lifetime, or in heaven.


I've also learned that I really don't know anything about myself.

Every time I think I know who I am, I am disproven. This year has been a big time of learning about the ins and outs of how the human brain works, how my brain works. What turns me on, what puts me off, what makes me who I am. And it's a hard experience. It's tough learning about how corrupt you are. If last year was about learning about God and His incredible grace, this year has been about learning where He applies it. And boy does He apply it. We took a test this week in a class about how ethical we think we are. And it was hard because I know where I want to be, but I also know where I actually am, so I gave myself a rough score. Yet, I was thought of by some as one of the most ethical people in the class. That's hard to hear in many ways because I know who I am deep inside, and it sure as heck isn't ethical at all. I know how much work I have to do, how much pain and fire I will have to go through in my lifetime, because I am a sinful man, I am a corrupt man. God has plenty of work to do in me before I'm ready to stand before His Throne.


And then there's film itself.

I really don't know anything about film. We grow up, we see a lot of movies, we read a lot of books. As we get older, we seem to think we know about films and the way they should or should not be made, and we get upset when a movie is terrible or when the right movies aren't made. The whole industry looks manipulated and we are forced to go see things we don't want to see. I am here to tell you that that is all wrong. We don't know how Hollywood works. We don't know what makes a good movie or not. Hollywood is there to make money, pure and simple. And the reason most films get made is because of money. Its all based on whether something will make money or not. I've learned this year that I know nothing about how it all works. And I still don't. I know nothing about Producing, about film, about people. I still have a long journey ahead of me.

I've also learned that the film industry is really really weird. It's such an off the wall industry. Most of the time, I don't even know why it exists. But people want an escape. People don't like the real world. That's why there's film. People want a way not to think about their life. They want their lives to be more exciting than they actually are. So we watch sexy stars save the world and get the girl, because deep inside, that's what we all want.

This all probably seems like I'm lost. Maybe I am. In some ways, it's true. But I think that these are the times that God needs me to go though. These are some of the things God wants me to understand before I go off into the real world next August.

And since God's behind all of it, good. I'd have it no other way.