Composer Announcement1

We are very pleased to announce Andre Forbes as the composer of the original score for Entrusted With Arrows.  Jurgen Beck needed to step back from his commitment as composer due to his wife's health challenges. Please continue to pray for Shawn's full recovery from her cancer treatments.  Jurgen is now Executive Music Producer, acting as director and mentor for Andre.  Andre was chosen as composer in early March due in large part to the excellent job he did scoring our trailers.  Since that time he has been producing excellent music for the film, which is a joy to listen to.  We can't wait to share it with the world on June 1st! Now we have the talent of two excellent composer collaborating for the success of our film.  What a blessing for us all. Check out Andre Forbes' work at  http://www.MusicManDre.com.

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Greg

Working on Trailers

Dallas is busy putting together a few trailers for Entrusted With Arrows. He has sent a teaser trailer to Andre Forbes, who has offered to compose the music for our trailers! Thanks, Andre!

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Greg

Loose Ends

The locked version is in the hands of our composer, Jurgen Beck. Please pray for Jurgen's wife, Shawn, as she is now recovering from surgery for breast cancer and for creativity and wisdom for Jurgen as he composes the score.
We now have a few other items to take care of.  We are refining all the text portions of the film, which is relatively easy.  One of the most difficult jobs is "cleaning sound."  One of our interviews had an air conditioner running in the background, which gives a very loud hum.  When cutting in and out between others' interviews this hum is very noticeable, so we are taking on the job of removing it.  This is a very difficult process and usually leaves an unnatural vocal tract.  I think of it as an icy sound with lots of pops and other artifacts.  Others liken it to recording in a glass bottle. We need prayer on this one!  We are also working on the special features and trailers.  The special features will include a full interview for each family.  This will be full of the wisdom that had to be edited out of the main feature, so I'm hoping people will take the time to watch these!

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Greg

Locked!

Yes!  We have finished editing and have sent our locked version to our composer, Jurgen Beck, for the score. A locked version is basically a promise to the composer that we will not tinker with any of the time code, so that he can confidently do his work.  Dallas still has a small amount of work to do with the graphics and text, but this won't change the timing of what we sent to Jurgen.  Next is work on a trailer and special features.  I am working on the script of our next mini-project, an educational film about the definition of urban and rural. We have a goal of pre-production, filming and post in one week.  We'll see!  We are also brainstorming for a new major project. Our goal is to be increasingly time efficient!

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Greg

Narration is Done

Last week we recorded the final take of our "readers."  Dustin's good friend, Jason Buzzard, has a nice deep, resonant voice and did a really nice job of reading the male voice.  Shauna (my wife, Dallas' mom) did the female voice.  Throughout the film there are quotes from the web, books and scripture.  Their job was to put voice to the text as the viewer reads it. Thank you Jason and Shauna!  I wish we had taken a photo of your recording sessions!

We also found a fairly major mistake in time to correct it.  One piece of the host's narration was in the wrong place and the piece that was supposed to be there was never recorded!  It was good to find this in time to correct it.  We had a mini-taping session in the backyard in front of the greenscreen, which enabled us to put me (the "host") in the downtown setting where the rest of the narration takes place.  We did it outdoors to have the same lighting as the sun shone in my eyes, making me squint. :0) Fortunately, it was only a few sentences and Dallas did a great job of making it fit right in!

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Greg

Arrow Shots

Today we went out to Erdmans' farm to "shoot" Daryl "shooting." Arrows, that is. We needed a model to shoot for a silhouette of a warrior archer in the act of shooting. We found a nice outcrop of sandstone with bare trees behind. Very nice shot, I think. Dallas will be taking the footage and adapting it for the title sequence of Entrusted with Arrows. We are very close to a locked version, which we will send to Jurgen Beck for the original score.

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Greg

Edit of "Entrusted With Arrows"

We forgot to tell you that last week we got our edit down to 57 minutes! Exciting! (For us anyway :0) ) This took a lot of prayer and thought, as our "interviewees" gave us such wonderful material to work with. The difficulty was deciding what NOT to use. Very difficult! It's a rather unique link we have built with each person we interviewed, as we daily watch and listen to what they had to say as we edit. It is painful each time we have to hit the delete button! We have decided that because there is so much helpful material, and that no audience wants to watch a three hour documentary, that in our special features we will have a mini-documentary for each family. Unfortunately, we are not able to use the children's interviews in the main feature - we're sad about that! But we will include them in the special features mini-docs. I feel badly when we have someone do an interview, then we don't use it. It feels disrespectful to what they had to say. Hopefully people will watch the mini-docs and benefit from the wisdom and experience these people have to share!

We now well on our way to inserting "B-roll" over the interviews. Dallas has created a new "Documentary Snapshot" that has a bit of a different look than it did in November. This due to the new B-roll and the narration placeholders. (We have a still shot of our location covering a rough reading of each narration sequence.) Compare to November 23. Dallas says to tell you that if this one looks longer, it's because it has a more frequent frame capture.

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Greg

Filming Narration

You may recall that after our trip, our camera started to literally fall apart. We are very thankful that we are able to borrow a Canon Vixia hv30 to film our narration sequences. Thanks to our friend, Sharon Krushel, for sending it down from the far north! Meanwhile, during our trip and since, we have been writing and rewriting the script for narrations. It feels a little better each time, but when is it truly finished? I guess the answer to that is - tomorrow, since that is when we begin filming. Our desire was to film outdoors before the snow started to fly, so we would have an autumn look. Two blizzards with four foot drifts and a -30º deep freeze have definitely eliminated all feelings of fall. It is definitely winter! The good news is that Monday's -34º has given way to temperatures around the freezing mark, so it is much more manageable weather for us to film outdoors. We will try to minimize the snow in our shots and still go for the "autumn look" as much as our location will allow. We are also praying for sunny skies and minimal winds. We will film indoors, as well, to see which has the better look.

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Greg

Our New Title!

After much prayer, thought and consultation with you through our survey we have arrived at a title for our titleless film. It is "Homeschooling entrepreurial dads who want to be more active and available to their children in order to seriously disciple them as commanded in Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6." Actually, that was our second choice. The title we will actually use is Entrusted With Arrows. In our survey it was the runaway favourite, which confirmed our conviction that this was God's idea.
It was interesting how God answered this prayer. For months every time we thought of title ideas or key words, we wrote them down. After adding Psalm 127: 3-5* to our script, I wrote down "... Arrows" on the line after "Entrusted with ..." When Dallas was reformatting the text of our brainstorming list "Entrusted with ... Arrows" came up on the same line! When we thought of how our children are the arrows that God has entrusted to us, it made perfect sense. This is what our script had already said about arrows in the narration: "Our concern is not only for our children’s salvation, but also that they assume God’s character, becoming more and more like him as they grow - eventually maturing into warriors for God’s kingdom - attacking the gates of Hell as it shows itself in their generation. Psalm 127 says that our children are like arrows, which we can launch into the battle where we are unable to go." God has indeed entrusted us with these arrows. Will they hit God's target, drop to the floor or fly where we don't want them to go?

*“Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.."
~Psalm 127:3-5 (NIV)

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Greg

Help us with our title!

Can you please help us with our title? Please follow this link to a survey about which title to use.

Thanks for helping us out! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RXLPTMJ

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Greg

Zeroing In

As we work in postproduction, the following is our guide to help us with those difficult editing decisions.

Target Audience:
Bullseye - Homeschooling fathers who sense God’s pull to be greater spiritual leaders in their homes
Circle 1- Wives of the “bullseye” fathers
Circle 2 - Christian homeschooling parents who haven’t yet considered the above need
Circle 3 - Christian parents who don’t homeschool, but need to be challenged to take greater responsibility in discipling their children
Outer Circle - Church leaders who are willing to see the need to teach and support parents in their God given responsibility to train their children

Purpose: to challenge Christian men to take up the responsibility that God has entrusted to them, namely to be the spiritual leaders in their homes, to train up their children in they way they should go, so when they are old they will not depart from it. Our prayer is that, whether they choose to homeschool or develop a home business, they will choose to step up to their calling to be vigilant in their role as spiritual leaders.

Reason: Christian families are losing their children to the world in unprecedented numbers due to the breakdown of the Christian family. We have a family leadership crisis, more specifically, a fatherhood crisis, which is having a devastating impact on the spiritual condition of our children. Parents need to make their children’s spiritual welfare their number one priority. Fathers, in particular, need to make this their personal responsibility and not just leave it to the “experts.”

Synopsis: This film highlights the efforts of a few Christian men who take extreme measures to directly train up their children in the way they should go. They do this by not only educating them at home, but by developing businesses which allow them to be with their children on a regular basis, living side by side with them, following the commands of Deuteronomy 6.

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Greg

Editing!

Our first full edited version of the film is one hour forty five minutes! Yikes! We have to trim about 50 minutes to get down to our time budget. There is so much good material from our interviews that we will have to cut. Please pray for the Lord to give us wisdom as we start to cut it down.

Jurgen Beck - Composer

We are very pleased that today we made arrangements with Jurgen Beck to be the composer of our documentary. Jurgen has a passion for the message of our film, which makes him a real partner in what we hope to accomplish. This is a very exciting development for us, as well as an answer to prayer. We are looking forward to working with him. You can check samples of his work at his website - http://www.jurgenbeck.com/.

Sherwood's "Courageous"

How exciting to see Sherwood Pictures theme for their next film production. (Sherwood Pictures are the makers of Fireproof, Facing the Giants and Flywheel.) God is leading them to speak about the same issue he has led us to - fathers discipling their children. This is an issue which is close to our heart, as our enemy makes great strides in breaking up the family. Christian fathers are called to be the spiritual leaders of their homes. We are addressing this through our documentary. Sherwood Pictures is doing it with a narrative feature film. Please pray for both projects, that they will have a huge impact on our culture! Check out their announcement at http://www.thenextsherwoodmovie.com/.

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Greg

Bouchards in Des Moines

While passing through Des Moines we finally got to see my best buddy from my young adult days, Dave Bouchard, and his wife, Sue. This is the first time to see them in Des Moines, since they moved there from Calgary 26 years ago. They fed us really well while we were there, highlighted by huge, tender barbecued pork chops. They were great! It was also great to "chew the fat" and get caught up on old times. We were there on a Sunday, so got to worship with them at Rising Sun Church of Christ, where Dave has been music pastor all this time. Beautiful building, friendly people and wonderful worship. Also had the opportunity to be "culterfied" be Des Moines' new sculptures downtown.

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Greg

House Sitters

Thank you to Tracy and Matt for house sitting while we are away. You are a life saver! And thanks to Emily, Timothy, Elizabeth and Robyn for taking care of Kazzie. You are awesome!

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Greg

Aunt Jane and Uncle Joe

While we were in Kentucky we stayed with my Aunt Jane (Mom's youngest sister) and Uncle Joe. As a couple in their mid 80's they are amazingly active. The live independently in their own home which is huge - and beautiful. We enjoyed getting caught up and getting re-aquainted with cousins I haven't seen since we were young. Sharon and her husband, Marty, and Stephen dropped by for a meal and we very much enjoyed our time together. A highlight was one morning when Aunt Jane made a good old fashioned southern breakfast with biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, bacon, and grits with sorghum. It was awesome!

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Greg

Creation Museum

On the last day of September, our family made a two hour drive from my Aunt Jane and Uncle Joe's house in Bardstown, Kentucky to greater Cincinnati where the new Creation Museum is. It is a truly world class museum, which brings a Christian worldview to the world of science. God created all things, so all scientific discovery will ultimately reveal his truth. The young earth theory not only best reflects the biblical account of origins of all things, but is also the best interpretation of all scientific evidence. This museum so clearly explains this along with presenting the truth of God's intervention in history, in Jesus. I particularly liked the part of the museum which explained the creation of Adam and Eve and the events which followed, through the flood of Noah. The explanation was clear and the artifacts were very realistic. Adam and Eve were quite a handsome couple, it turns out. (They were my great, great ... grandparents, after all.)

The film, "Men in White" was pretty awesome, too.

The best part of the day was when we met Ken Ham, the founder, (we discovered that Ken will be speaking at AHEA in Red Deer next year!) and his assistant, Perry Petrushenko, who turned out to be from Edmonton. As we chatted we found that we were both homeschoolers, and that we both knew Greg and Elizabeth King and Ross Haven Bible Camp. The next thing we knew, we were at their house for supper, having a great time like old friends. Wow!

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Greg

The Border

Well, we finally crossed the border into the US. It took over an hour of waiting, interrogation and prayer. I was fine until they invited me into the back room and began the questions while snapping on rubber gloves. After they gave Shauna the same treatment, all eight of us sat forever in a small waiting room - reserved for those of us who feel like criminals (guilty ‘til proven innocent) - while they searched our vehicle and our belongings. The one suspicious substance they found was a small jar of swedish bitters, our family cure all. Once they decided we were not a hazard to homeland security, they suddenly became nice and gave us a thirty day business permit. Our prayers were answered and we were on our way. We are now a couple hours behind our itinerary and are trying to make up time. We would like to see my brother in Chicago on the way through, but are not sure we will have the time!

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Greg

Out of Time!

Both motorhomes failed inspection and we are now out of time. We are leaving tomorrow for Homeschool Camp northwest of Edmonton, then immediately heading east the day after we return, so we need to put the idea of a motorhome behind us. Fortunately, in the spring, God blessed us with a tent trailer that sleeps eight, along with a van big enough to pull it. Our “Plan B” has now become “Plan A.” We were all very disappointed to not have the motorhome to use for school on the road, and our prayers are for contentment with what God has already provided. We also know that the cost of gas will be much less, and it be will easier to navigate urban areas. We also won’t be tempted to keep a motorhome we can’t afford, rather than selling it as we planned! So now we are in a flurry trying to adjust and pack. Can’t wait to get started!

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Greg