Friends and Family,
Several have asked how the video turned out, and why the silence on my end. Well, I feel a little bit like the boy who cried wolf, and that’s why I haven’t written again.
1. I didn’t get the movie done by last Friday. I tried, but it didn’t happen.
2. Though I felt like it was going to be the end of the world if I didn’t hit that deadline, and though it really is not good humanly speaking that I didn’t hit it, I think things still are OK and progressing well…again, humanly speaking, it’s really bad that I’m six days off schedule right now, but I know things will work out in the end.
3. Editing this movie has been the most labor-intensive project I’ve ever done (minus possibly my final Greek paper in college), and it’s this constant ebb and flow of making great progress and then getting nothing done. Frustration, elation, etc. One night I’ll make good progress and think the movie will be done the next day, then the next day I get completely stuck, and think the movie will never get done. I wish I could just stay on the progress track when I’m on it, but inevitably my body (hunger and sleep) holds me back from staring at my computer screen for 5 days straight.
4. I am really sorry to so many of you who have written me incredible e-mails or phone messages, and that I have yet to respond to. Again, I have read them all, and I plan to write back when the movie is done, but as it stands right now, I have more than 200 unanswered e-mails in my inbox, and I’ve been spending 16-18 hours a day (with a little break over the weekend) trying to crank this thing out. So if anyone has written and is offended I haven’t written back, I am sorry, but that’s why. I appreciate your encouragement so much.
OK, so a quick update on progress. I spent a long time trying to find my footing on this project. When I first started out editing, I started out zoomed in on a guy’s eyes who had them blown out by a bomb in the war, and then moved to a girl with flies all over her face, and a kid with a huge growth on his stomach. But upon further thought, I realized this was too bleak and too typical of an approach for this type of thing.
So then I tried starting out with an image of some Sudanese Christians worshipping under a tree. The tree shot was a beautiful image of hope and it’s my favorite shot I’ve ever filmed (second favorite is the tire shot from my tsunami DVD). But this image on it’s own didn’t truly capture who the Sudanese are either, for the image got it’s power by knowing what suffering they’ve been through and that they’re still there praising and thanking God in the midst of that suffering. And I didn’t want to cheapen their suffering…
I was totally stuck and nothing was flowing, and it was driving me crazy. But I got several e-mails from people that more or less said, “Dave, it’s so cool how even in the middle of you sharing your struggles with us, we are able to learn from them.” And then others said, “It must be so frustrating to be stuck like this when you can articulate yourself so well.” When I thought about this, and thought about the fact that several people at EFCA have wanted me to approach this movie almost like a journal – i.e. showing not only what I saw, but also what my reaction was to it – I realized that maybe the reason I have had all these struggles is partially for the purpose of sharing them in the movie. Why try to put together a slick presentation that has all the answers when I really don’t know all the answers, and am constantly struggling through what to think of my experiences in Sudan?
And so here’s how the movie starts now:
Dave’s Voice: “Friends and Family, I’ve been trying to start this movie forever… (and then I launch into what I essentially told you about the two intros…hope, suffering, and the like)”
I’ve heard from many of you that you were touched by my e-mails from Sudan, and so now this movie is a visual e-mail to the EFCA (and anyone else who watches it). This idea was first presented to me back in August after I wrote update #10, but I was resisting it forever. Last week I caved in though when I realized that it just made sense.
So that’s where I’m at. Please continue to pray for God’s guidance on this editing, for me to think clearly (I’m very, very tired right now), and for this to all come together soon. It’s almost there.
Unless something huge comes up, I won’t send another update on this until the movie is done. So please keep praying for this all until you hear from me again…
-Dave
