Calendar Marking

Hey y'all! Mark your calendars for the weekend of

July 25-26th

for our next DCFM meeting!

We are making arrangements for another guest speaker and will let you know more when details are confirmed!

Also pencil in roughly the third weekend of each month for subsequent meetings. That is subject to change depending on the need to accommodate speaker and location schedules, but look to the third weekend if you'd like to join us! We'd love to have you! As always, if you need location info, or have other questions, visit our contact page and send an email to the Secretary.

See you soon!
DCFM

DCFMers and siblings at the September '07 meeting.

On Set Once Again!

During the weekend of June 7th DCFMers came together and began filming for our newest project--our currently untitled "mini" series! And it IS mini with an intended four or five episodes at seven minutes each. We began this project to help us all improve our skills as filmmakers, writers, actors, gaffers, sound techs, producers, craft service organizers, cinematographers, boom pole operators (lol)......creative thinkers, and communicators.

And it's been a while since we've been on set, too! While the Measure of a Man crew has been and will continue to be busy this summer, our other projects are still in pre-production. So working on a short series will hopefully keep our eyes and hands sharp!

Matt (sitting), Hannah W (sitting), Steph, Naylor, Truett Billups, Jake Ladehoff.

You'll look forward to meeting the four-some that make up the main cast for the series, played by our very finest, three of whom you'll remember from The Call of Courage: James F., Matthew Bradley, Evan Ramos and Saphrin S.

Matt as Jeremy and James as Roy.

We'll have special appearances from other actors, including Heidi Michelle who not only stars but doubles as editor! We will be giving you more info down the road about the episodes and stories, and how you can view these upcoming videos!

Roy, Mom and Jeremy. Lovely family (well, part of it anyway). 

And don't you love Heidi Michelle's hair pulled back like that? So cute, and fits the mother role so well!

Evan as Kevin. You'll love his role when you see the movie. He and Jeremy have some great dialogue.

But in the mean time, take a look behind the scenes and join us for the fun, fellowship and learning that took place on the shoot.

(Blog credit: Jaclyn S. Photo Credits: several folks. BTS Coordinator: Evan Ramos.)

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On Friday afternoon everyone showed up at my house to start filming in the back yard.

Jake Ladehoff as Cinematographer. 

Things went really, really well! The Lord certainly blessed us! We were able to get things set up and filmed a lot faster than we thought. 

Truett Billups debuted his producer skills and did a wonderful job making sure everything was ready for this shoot! 

John Naylor served as Director.

Being ahead of schedule allowed some nice down time for us to hang out and fellowship while waiting for the sun to go down so we could film the next set of scenes. We had dinner (thank you Susan, Hannah and Melissa! It was great...as always!), played the piano, listened to music, laughed a lot and just enjoyed being together. 

Later that night we went outside to film our night scene,

then came inside again to film a scene in which Heidi Michelle played the mom. She did a great job! It was definitely Oscar-worthy!

Saturday we slept in since we accomplished much more than expected on Friday--so, thanks to our officers, we were able to snooze a little longer after our night shoot. :D Thanks Evan, Naylor and Susan!

Some sort of an attempt at making faces.

There we go! Big smiles!

Officers Evan, Susan (our new Treasurer) and John Naylor.

Big points to them for getting a group picture in the absence of Kayleen who normally puts everyone through the "dreaded" routine.

We filmed a scene in the Garage that we later needed to redo on account of audio difficulties.

Stephanie (and Caleb, who is not pictured anywhere) was boom operator.

We were blessed to have Mr. James Burgess join us over lunch. He helped Stephanie and Saphrin go over things for Measure of a Man.

While we did that, Evan, Heidi and Naylor looked over footage on Heidi's new and very cool computer (Mac, in  case you were wondering :D ). Heidi is editor on this project.

We praise the Lord for such a wonderful weekend! We all had a blast and loved getting to be together!

Thanks for reading!

'Till next time,

Jaclyn

Measure of a Man Starts Production

The big day is fast approaching!! The entire Measure of a Man crew will be heading to California Saturday morning for an entire weekend of filming. Everyone is scrambling about trying to get last minute details ironed out. I can’t even begin to describe how excited everyone is. The excitement is definitely contagious. I can remember the day when Stephanie presented her idea to the group. Her passion for the project was evident then, and has done nothing but grow ever since. God has been a part of the project from day one, and you can still see His hand guiding the Measure of a Man team.

We are currently searching for a head editor, but the scripture that keeps coming to mind is Philippians 2:6. "Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Our God is the God of the universe, and he has not brought this project so far for it to fail for lack of an editor.

Now, for how you can get involved! The entire project needs to be soaked in prayer, and everyone can help with that. The following is a list that contains the areas the team specifically wants prayer for:

1. Safe travels while going back and forth to California.
2. Good sleep in the midst of lots of work to do.
3. Pray that our planned schedule would work out smoothly and efficiently; and for when difficulties arise, that we would look to Him, be creative, proceed with grace, and honor Him in all things.
4. That we would remain open to what the Lord has to teach us on this trip.
5. Continued and deepened harmony as a team and love for one another in the Lord.
6. That we would be a blessing to those we encounter, especially to Nick and his team.
7. For Nick, that the Lord will fill his heart with whatever He wants him to say; strength and blessing; and that this documentary would be a blessing to his ministry as well.
8. That all our equipment would clear security with no problems and arrive unharmed and all accounted for. This is a big one!
9. That we would remain faithful to God's call on our lives to walk holy, and to put forth the message of Truth and hope in this film.
10. For health--some crew members are getting over being sick.
    

Always remember Philippians 4:6 - "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

And now, one more thought before we wrap up for now. On behalf of all of DCFM, we are thankful to God for so many things, this is just a short list that we wanted to share with you.

1. We are thankful for this incredible opportunity as a whole!
2. The opportunity to serve in His Kingdom.
3. Filming passes for the airports and a waived fee!! The officials at the airport were so gracious!!
4. Nearly $9,000 raised so far in answer to prayer! Thanks to and for all those who have supported this project!
5. That God is in control. That God IS our God of hope Who has reached down in the Person of His Son to give us the Truth that sets us free.
   

We will be giving many more updates as they pour in, so take a deep breath, and get ready! Also, keep an eye on Stephanie’s blog, because updates will be popping up over there too.

Until next time,

Matthew B.

April Pictures!

As promised, here are some pictures. Enjoy!

Saturday:

Mr. Escobar during his presentation.

You can kind of get a feel for the amount of people that showed up.

John N. working hard to record the audio.



This picture was so cool I had to include it.

Maybe now you understand why it took so long to get set up!

Friday evening:

Watching a movie.

The Morris brothers were able to join us; and believe me, they sure can play the piano!

Until next month,
The DCFM team

April Meeting Udate

April’s meeting was by far the best meeting this year. So many things are happening here at DCFM that it is hard to keep up! Especially exciting this month was a visit by Mr. George Escobar. If you don’t know who he is, let me introduce you.

Mr. Escobar is the founder of the Advent Film Group, a film studio dedicated to producing Christ-honoring films. In fact, their first feature film, Come What May, will be available very soon! Check out the latest info for this project here.

The entire DCFM group was excited to hear Mr. Escobar’s in-depth presentation on filmmaking. He covered such topics ranging from Biblical foundations to legal matters regarding film production to efficient models concerning distribution. We were all ears as he gave practical advice concerning our upcoming project the Measure of a Man. It was truly an afternoon of unmatched learning, and Mr. Escobar, if you are reading this, "thank you".

Mr. Escobar was gracious enough to let us film his presentation. The DCFM team had a three camera set-up and let me say, it was quite an experience! We definitely learned from this. Live filming compared to on set filming can not be compared. However, the footage turned out nicely; and if anyone is interested in obtaining a copy, they will be available on Mr. Escobar’s site soon.

Let me say right now, that if anyone has been thinking about coming to a meeting, but just hasn’t yet—now is the time! No matter what role in filmmaking you play, or even if you don’t even know if you like filmmaking, we are here for you! The group has dramatically grown since its founding last year, and we love to have people drop by.

We all love pictures, so we will be getting some of those to you very soon.

Until next time,

The DCFM team

An Update from the Producer

Hi everyone, it's Saphrin! A lot has been happening on our end. We are 21 days away from heading to LA to film the majority of our footage for The Measure of a Man. The team is EXCITED! We are right now working on fine-tuning the details & placing all the necessary reservations (plane tickets, hotel, rental car, etc.)

An answer to prayer has come in the form of Dallas Jenkins & Stephen George, two Christian filmmakers who have made themselves available to our many questions! Just knowing that we have two very experienced filmmakers to ask for advice, oh it makes my job seem so much easier!

Funding. Known by most filmmakers as the "yucky" part of a project, it can be long, hard & frustrating to no end. But thankfully, we have almost all of our $8,000 budget! On April 18, five of us are headed down to Houston to attend and film a fundraiser that the highschoolers of Northland Christian School are coordinating for us, which should put us well above the needed amount of money. Praise the Lord!

The more Steph & I have had the chance to discuss, pray about & further define our ideas for the project we have realized that we want it to expose the emptiness of our lives without Christ & show the fullness of Nick's life with the Lord. We are now attempting to clarify our questions for Nick & the Life Without Limbs team with that in mind. It has by far been the hardest part of pre-production, but we are slowly but surely making progress.

Please be praying for our entire team as we prepare to head to California in less than a month!!

Until next time,

Saphrin

Mark Your Calendars

For April 18-19th when we will be having our next meeting! Everyone in DCFM is extremely excited about the April gathering as we will be welcoming George Escobar all the way from Virginia to speak to us from his years of experience in the filmmaking industry. If you haven't ever been to his site, go check it out and see why we're so excited!

More to come, hopefully, but there you have the dates. For logistical info, contact the Secretary on the Contact Page.

The March Meeting

Just about everybody!! Including special guest James Burgess of the new Pilgrim's Progress movie and Max VO2, a film in currently in production.

This month we mainly just took care of stuff on the home front, as well as made progress on a special project....that we'll tell you about later! So stay tuned!

Measure of a Man crew meeting

What coffee and cookies can do for you when you have a lot of work to accomplish!

At The Nodding Dog cafe and coffee shop in Dallas. Great place.

Stephanie. The Director.

Such a nice shot, had to include it.

Saphrin is Producer.

Steph and sister Michelle listening carefully.

Discussing music with Executive Producer and composer, Evan.

Chase is our Director of Photography.

Brian, our second cameraman. Both Chase and Brian will be our editors.

Kayleen (in green below) will be set photographer.

After a wonderful Italian lunch.

Almost forgot our other crew member! Lisa, our GPS guide.

Meeting This Week

Friday, March 21, 2008
Fellowship Dinner 6pm

Saturday, March 22, 2008
Meeting 9am-5pm
Dinner out afterwards

If you plan on joining us in person and need directions, or joining us online and need in, send the Secretary an email from the Contact Page.

Hope you can join us! See you then!