Below are my notes from the breakout session I just attended and they are unedited due to the time constraint of actually finding a place where the post will publish due to my problems acquiring an internet connection (I hope to react to and expand upon these notes in time)…
Barbara Nicolosi – www.churchofthemasses.blogspot.com
Why do movies matter? Movies are not all garbage – the pagans see these as what they are: profound and meaningful. If we see them as garbage – what does that tell them about us? The best Christian films are not made by Christians. If you take the shadows out of life (the cross and sin), there is no need for the resurrection. The topics aren’t the problem, it’s how we handle the topics.
They’re not all idiots. People who are doing wonderful things.
We have to stop the way we talk about the arts. Incendiary language does not help.
Why do movies matter?
Stories – movies have become the preferred medium for the masses for story. Stories matter. Make a list of stories/characters that have made a difference in your life. Battlestar Galactica – one of the best current shows. Brilliant writing. It makes you have to engage social issues that are relevant to us today. It makes us look at these things from different perspectives and challenges our presuppositions. Stories give us heroes – they take us out of the mundane. We are built for story.
Crime and Punishment or Harry Potter? We should be reading stories with heroes of complexity. As the primary storytelling medium of our time, the fact that so many movies don’t matter should matter. Many people have rejected stories and have turned to sports and “reality” television. The problem is that these don’t contain story and therefore cannot change a life.
Entertainment – comes from the French word “for the work between the work.” In your leisure time, you should stretch the parts of your human nature do not get stretched during the work-a-day world. We need empathy, compassion and to be touched by human suffering… we need our entertainment choice to do that for us. Movies are the preferred entertainment choice of the modern culture. Entertainment reminds us that we’re human (at least it should).
Two words thrown about in the industry: product and sausage. Whatever people will purchase or consume. It’s hard to make good stuff and when we make good stuff, you don’t watch it. Many people do not believe their job is a vocation. This is why we need Christians in Hollywood because we would ask the right questions.
Art – art is the every generationals response to the cosmos. Cinema is the art-form of our time. It’s a combination of the four classical art forms:
We are not part of our generation’s response to the cosmos. Why? We should and must be.
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How can we come to Hollywood? Start playing pee-wee baseball. Start small. Start on the local level. Everybody can make movies today. The problem is the story – that’s the hard work. Write a short film. Get together with a group and start making short-form films. We have to walk before we can run. You need to be a storyteller. Pay your dues. Make sure you’re supposed to do this – what do you see in film? Do you want to write? You have to read – one book every two weeks… a classic. Nothing less than 50 years old. Act One was built for Christians: www.actoneprogram.com
Be aware of your audience. Don’t show David Lynch to a bunch of 20-something college Christians – but you probably could show this to film-aware theologians.
Hopefully, you see in these writings a man who is staying The Course and pursuing The Path amidst the pitfalls and selfish ways of being a son of Adam. I pray earnestly that my writing would encourage some of you by showing you that this journey - though arduous and sometimes tragic - is a journey of great satisfaction. A satisfaction greater than our greatest imaginings. The trials and refining fire of tribulation are to be recognized as a small shadow of the suffering of our Savior so that we can rejoice, as Peter and the disciples did, to be counted worthy to suffer for the sake of the Name.