Who Is It For?

Film.

Movies.

Entertainment.

This is my life.

As an up and coming film maker, it's easy to take your focus off what is important in life. In fact, I'm sure that's true of any filmmaker at any age. It's so easy to fall so deeply into the worlds we create for ourselves. It's easy to forget that we are the weird people who know way too much about films and how they work or should work. It's easy to think that it's our opinions that matter.

But is it our opinions that matter? That's a question I think that every film maker has to discover the answer to. Film makers tend to fall into the 'pompous jackass' category of human beings. We don't mean to be, really! It's just that when you discover the inner workings of the hugest form of entertainment, it's hard not to feel better than other people. It's been something I've been learning not to be this year, and I feel that God is bringing me largely out of that frame of mind. Frankly, I don't want to feel "better" than any one else. That isn't a right thing to do. Just because I know how the 180 degree rule works, or how the hero's journey goes, or know what 'greeking' is, or what exactly a crafty or 1st AD is, that doesn't make me better than anyone. That doesn't make any of us better than anyone. But the feeling comes naturally because it feels so cool to know how an industry works that the majority of people in the world thinks comes about by magic (not really, but you get my point).

So, back to the original question: Who's opinion matters in the world of film? There are a few different parties in this. There are the masses who go to theaters to enjoy a movie, there are the percentage of masses who know what makes a film good or bad, and then there are the film makers. So which one do you aim at? The answer for the majority of films today is to the general masses. That's where the money comes from. That's why things like 'Twilight' and 'Transformers' get made, and are popular, because they know what people want and what they will pay for, even if it is, in my humble opinion, crap. Meanwhile, there are those who understand movies and know what goes into a good movie, but their opinions aren't usually ones that matter, except for when they are the ones to write reviews or entertainment magazines. And then there are the film makers, who are probably the most judgmental of the groups, because not only do we know film and story, but we also always feel like "If I had the chance, I could do so much better..".

So who are films for? What should our motivation be? Should it be money? Should it be quality? Should it be sending a message?

I know what I want my ultimate motivation to be: To bring glory to God. At the end of the day, that should be what we do all this for. I want everything I do to bring glory to God, especially the films I make. I can only pray that I can do that, and I truly believe that if your heart is lined up with what God wants, you also line up with His will.

"Love God and do as you please." If you love God, that means you want to please Him, thus doing what you please also pleases God.

That's what I want.

Ink Off My Chest

When you have a blog which people actually read, you must be careful of what you write, especially when approaching things that you want to get off your chest. As quoted from 'Social Network' by Rooney Mara's character: "The internet is not written in pencil, it's written in ink."

But I need to do this, so here goes nothing.

It's strange the way life works. At least mine is. As a general standard throughout my life, the best times have also been at the same time as my worst times. For example, SMT last summer was one of the best experiences of my life, but it was also one of the most trying. And I have solidified in my mind that, yes, I am an artist. How do I know? Because I tend to be very bi-polar, like most artists. (Just look at David's psalms!)
The same goes for this year. Being here in Michigan has been extremely hard for me. Yet being able to be in a film school, learning the basics with a faculty who actually cares, has also been a huge blessing. Let's face it: not many people get to go into an industry that they are completely in love with.

This last week has been filled with some of the highest highs I've had in a long time, but it's also brought some of the lowest lows I've had in a long time.

Last week, I was chosen to be one of five producers for Compass College's 2012 Thesis films. This is a huge honor, and has been a huge whirlwind of craziness. In a matter of a week, pitched ourselves, been chosen, we've chosen stories, and are about to choose our Directors and Writers. It's a huge amount of stress, probably the most I've been under ever. And this month is the easy month. Don't get me wrong, I want this. I want to learn how to be an amazing producers. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life. (Sometimes I wonder if I'm just plain crazy, but God made me this way for a reason haha)

This last weekend, I got to go to Moran Park Church and ran slideshow for the first time since high school. And boy was it great! It felt so good to be apart of a ministry again, which is something I have longed for for the last 7 months. And the church is filled with a fire for God, an amazing fire you rarely find in this country anymore! I am so blessed to be able to be apart of that church now!

I miss the west coast. I miss Oregon specifically. That's been the single hardest part about this year. The mid-west is just... bland. It's boring. It's entrapping. I've never felt settled here. This entire year, I've felt like my apartment is just some place I'm sleeping. It's never felt like home. And Grand Rapids is the same way. The loyalty that Michiganders have to this state astounds me. And it's a good thing, cause otherwise I guarantee that no one would live here. Cause it sucks. There's nothing here, nothing worth while. And even the things that it does have, other states do it better anyways! So why stay here at all? I see no reason. None at all.

I've been talking to a girl a lot. Not many people know about this. And since not many people read this, I know that after I post this, not a lot of people will still know. We're very much in the beginning stages of being friends, but we both know where we'd like to see this go. She's wonderful! She's been exactly the support I've needed in these last few weeks, and I thank God for her every day. But we both have a ton of growing up to do before we pursue a dating relationship. But that's ok. I want to be the best man I can be before we consider being serious in any way. I pray that God will be glorified in this.

I think the biggest thing that's hit me this week has been my best friend here in Michigan leaving. He's been going through some stuff this year, and the drama we've had over a particular story he wrote for thesis made him feel that it was time to leave. I am a very emotional person. I get attached fast. Adam has been a rock for me this year, a guy I can go to with anything, whatever it may be. God, girls, or just complaints about life. And now that's gone. I won't pretend to be happy about it. I'm not. But I know he needs to get out of Michigan more than I do. He is going to be used by God in so many ways! He's an amazing musician and I know for a fact that God will use that to effect a lot of lives, and will influence many people to want to praise God!

God is in control. I know He is for a fact. There's no way He couldn't be, just from watching my own life, let alone everything else! Life is hard. It just is. And I'm learning how to deal with it, situation by situation. I know I'll be stronger for this time in my life, and will soon feel like nothing. I just pray for the strength to get through it.

God is good! And who are we not to trust Him?

VIDEO LINK: Mighty.

Also for this evening, here is the link to a video I made for directing class. It's about our view of God and how limited it is. I love how it turned out :)

Mighty.

Settling

During the last 6 months here in Michigan and at Compass College, I've learned more about myself than I have ever before. I have changed so much in who I am, how I carry myself, what I see myself as. Because of the ever present reality that is Facebook in my life, I see pictures of myself in high school, at Ecola last year, and on SMT. And strangely enough, the person I see in those pictures is not the same person I see in the mirror. Maybe that's because I didn't have the pathetic excuse for a beard then I have now, but I'm pretty sure it runs deeper than that. But one big thing that has stuck itself out to me recently is my ever present desire not to settle.

First off, I will not settle for a 'normal' faith in God. My soul desire in my life and in my prayers is to be more than just an average joe Christian. Too many Christians are stagnant in their faith, lukewarm. I don't want to be that. Revelation 3:16 says "So, because you are lukewarm- neither hot or cold- I am about to spit you out of my mouth." I don't know exactly what that means or entails, but whatever it is, I don't want any part of it! I want to be a man after God's own heart. I pray for that as often as I think of it, which is probably at least every day. And God shows me more and more how He is doing that in my life every day. I'm not perfect, I won't be until I get my new body when we are with Him in Eternity, but I strive to run the race as well as I can, even though He has to help me off the ground when I stumble everyday. I'm so thankful that we have such a loving God!

Second, I won't settle for anything less than the beautiful woman God has personally ordained to ultimately be my wife. I know that God has placed in my heart the desire to get married one day, to have a wife to love and support, and to have a wife that will love and support me. He knows that I will need it in the rough career I have ahead of me. I pray for her often, that she is being molded into the woman after God's own heart, a "P31" if you will. (Proverbs 31:10-31) And I know that she will be the fit for me, and I for her, but only when the time is right for us to either meet, or realize that we've known each other all along. While she will have a strong relationship with the Lord and a strength that I will need, I know that she will be incredibly beautiful. It's something that's been programed into me: a desire for beauty. I've been told here that that makes me shallow, that I look at the outside too much. Is that true? Possibly, especially in my immaturity now. But outer beauty, while inner beauty outweighs outer, is still very much a factor for me, probably because I was raised on the west coast and the way we view relationships is so different from one end of the US to the other. So, what I'm trying to say is that I won't settle for anyone but the beautiful woman God has been molding just for me.

Third, I won't settle for an ordinary career. I'm not the type of person who can just be some guy in a sound department, or a desk clerk in a cubical. I want to be extraordinary. I want to participate in making films that change lives. I want to produce works that make people change their outlooks on life. I want to sore high in life and show off my Creator. I want to be all that God will allow me to be. I want to dream big and see to it that those dreams come true. I want to use the power given to me to grow various ministries, and to grow apart of various outreaches. I want to be abnormal to the environment I will reside in. I want to be peculiar. I want to make people ask, "What is this guy's deal? What drives him?" I want to show the world who Jesus Christ is by my actions and by what I do and by what I say. I want to be all that God's will allow me to be.

I am not one who will settle for less than these. I pray that God uses these ambitions for His glory, not mine.

"Not to us, but to Your Name be the glory."

Art is a Lie.

I was raised in a Christian home with Christian ideals and a Christian viewpoint on what is right and wrong, which, I have to say, I am incredibly thankful for. My parents did an incredible job of raising me and I am eternally grateful to them for helping me turn into the man I should be and the man I will become. I went to Ecola Bible School last year, which was wonderful, and only reenforced those ideals that I had been raised in and even built more upon them, which was perfect timing in my life because during the previous year, I had started the typical "playing with the line of morality" that most teenagers go through. After last year, seeing that my whole world lined up with what right and wrong are, I had no problem holding onto those ideals.Then I spent a summer on the road, being a mentor and friend to various younglings at 8 different camps, only reenforcing everything I had learned that year.

But then I came to film school. I went from an environment where everyone I knew believed the exact same thing I did. (Now, that probably sounds like a cultish environment or whatever, but I assure you, it's not. When people come together to learn more about why they believe the way they believe, especially when that way is the truth in life, it's mind boggling how much God works.) First of all, Christianity feels different here in the mid-west than it does back west. I can't put my finger on what exactly it is (trust me, I've been trying to figure it out for 6 months now), but it just is different. Of course, it also may be that I have no ties to this place previously, and that I've going to a school where pretty much everyone around me believes something different. Anyways, as I dove into the world of film, I discovered that life isn't as black and white as I had previously thought.

First off, the very idea of art is a lie. Art is taking something, anything, and using it to invoke a particular emotion, thus manipulating the audience. And I would say that film is an extreme of that. In my opinion, film is at least one of the most powerful of the arts, if only because it is the furthest reaching and causes the most impact on people's lives. So if art is a lie, does that make it right? Well I would say that it's a different type of lie. After all, God is perfect AND an artist. I believe it's what you do with that art that determines whether the lie that you are telling through your art is wrong or not.

Which opens up a whole other discussion: What should we be ok with watching? We accept seeing so much violence in movies, yet threaten death at the thought of seeing sexual content or homosexual content in movies. God says that whether it's a small lie, committing adultery, or killing someone, it's all bad. It's all sin and all separates us from God. For example, one of my favorite movies is "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World". Many Christian people condemn the movie because of the homosexual content it contains, yet, we are ok watching something like "James Bond" or "Firefly" because it's "not as bad". I disagree. Frankly, "James Bond" and "Firefly" are WAY worse, content wise.

Going beyond that, here's another question: As an artist, what is ok and not ok to do in art, specifically film? Where is the line between artistic choice and immorality? For example, if I put swearing into my film, will it lessen of intensify the impact? A film example of this is the contrast between "Ides of March" and "The Grey". "Ides of March" had quite a bit of swearing in it, which really put me off because it didn't seem to fit the movie. I felt like they were putting it in there just to put it in. Meanwhile, in "The Grey", there was twice as much swearing in it as "Ides", but it fit the movie, and thus made the movie feel more accurate, powerful, and meaningful.

These are all things I'm grappling with this year. If art is a lie, where is the line? Should I be even be paying attention to the line? Or should I be trying to stay away from the line completely? If I do that, will my art's impact on the world suffer because of it? What should be my goal? And how am I supposed to ultimately use it for God's glory?

My entire goal in life is to praise and reflect God in my craft, without shoving what I believe in people's faces. I believe that God has put a passion in me for using film to reach people where they are. And I desire that so incredibly much.
But life isn't black and white. As much as I want it to be, it won't be until Christ comes back. So until then, I will keep seeking the answers I desire, and pray that God will show me them, so that I may apply them to the craft I am shaping, so that I may be used to create the most impact in people's lives.

Dreams for the Future

Dreams for our lives. We all have them, or at least have had them at some point.

We grow up all looking to people beyond and above ourselves, and we aspired to be like them. As boys, it's firemen, policemen, superheroes, etc. (I don't know what exactly girls consistently aspire to be, but girls reading this will understand what I mean.) As we grow older, our dreams start to change, turning into things that line up more with who we are growing to be. Then, so many, there's a dead zone at about the middle of high school where we have no idea what we want to do. Some come out of that quickly, some don't figure out what they want for years after that. I was blessed enough to figure it out during my senior year.

Film. Movies. TV. Most people can't even imagine all of the work that goes into media, and thus they take it for granted. And that's ok! Media has two extremes to being there. On one end, it's there to be art. And on the other end, it's there to just entertain. Some what to think too much about it, and some what to not think about it at all.

I desire to tap into both sides of that spectrum during my life. I want to go out and make films that people can enjoy, that will wow people, that will take people to a place they have never been before. I also want to make films that make people think about their lives, what sort of consequences their actions have, and about who we are deep inside. Most of the movies we see today are shallow and story-less, only really there to make money. I hate that. I want to bring back good story telling, to bring back life to Hollywood. People don't even realize that when they attend 'Transformers' and 'Twilight', they are feeding the machine of soulless crap that has taken over Hollywood. I want to show the executives that we need good story and good characterization back, that we need to have a reason to make films besides the shallow reason of making money.

I desire, above all, to bring glory to God. So many think that Christianity is irrelevant to life and culture, that it's all just a crutch. I assure you it's not. It's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle that, if approached in the right mindset, is more grounded in reality than most non-Christian thinking. And that's all we need to show the world: That God knows what's up and wants to help us through this life. He wants to guide us to Himself, but we have to let Him.

As Christians, we come across to the world as "in people's faces".
That's not what we're meant to be. We are meant to reflect God's love and show people the good news that He has for them.

So that's my dream. I write this today for not only you, but for myself in the future. I can't wait to see how God changes me to more like the man he wants me to be, and to be more like Him. I can't wait look back years from now, see what God has done in my life and the lives of others around me, and return the praise to Him! :)

VIDEO LINK: Art Vocation Worship Video

This is a worship video Bree Brincat and I made for Art Vocation class. It's not nearly as good as we wanted it, but it's pretty :)

Art Voc video on YouTube

I hope you enjoy it!