Left Behind - Producers Diary

Imagine being a pastor and sharing the Word of God every single week. Then imagine being left behind because you never truly believed the gospel in your heart of hearts. Imagine your entire family and most of the congregation gone. How would you feel?

Well, that was the setting for today's shoot with Clarence Gilyard as Bruce Barnes. Of everything we've done I think this touched me the most. In a powerful display of raw acting talent, coming from the soul of a man who has himself wrestled with the Lord, Clarence blew us all away.

The teamwork and talent of everyone working on this project is extraordinary. Despite all the battles, and there have been some huge spiritual attacks on this project, I have never felt more at the center of God's will. I know that God has placed us where we are and it gives me great resolve to just keep my hand to the plow, because when I do that, the Lord works everything else out!

Let's start praying that we can achieve our ambitious goals – so ambitious in fact that there was a sense of embarrassment (just for a moment) when I told the USA Today reporter our vision of winning the box office on our opening weekend and opening on more screens then any movie in history. But, I was quickly reminded of Noah building an ark when it had never before rained and I realized that this is one of the most exciting things about this whole vision – 'if God be for us, who can be against us?' – Now that gets me a little excited just to think of it.

I am reminded this day of David when he met Goliath. All the counselors tried to hand him armor and weapons, but he said I don't know how to use those. I haven't tried them. But then he said the great thing. He said I remember I faced a lion and the Lord delivered him into my hand. Then I faced a bear and he delivered him into my hand as well. So now I am ready for this giant. Well, that's how I feel today. I am ready for this giant challenge. So are my brother Paul and Joe and Bobby over at Namesake Entertainment, so are Kirk and Chelsea Noble and so is Clarence. They have lined up to do everything in their power and in their faith to make it happen. Do I believe we can achieve our lofty goals? Yes, yes I do. I do because I know the great strength that Cloud Ten brings to this project while we have to be faithful to plant and water, it is the Lord who will give it growth!

We actually ended the filming today filming the final moment in the movie. Of course, we are far from done, but the last scene is there.

Wait – hold the presses.

Just as I was writing the last sentence, Paul just walked in and advised me that he and Kirk had just spent an hour going over that final scene and we are now going to reshoot it tomorrow. It is expensive but when I heard their concerns I agreed. We've got to get these things just right.

Please pray for us tomorrow, It is very big day with a lot of set-ups (means moving everything and resetting the lights and cameras). Plus we are now a bit behind and while we can go into overtime tonight (you have no idea how hard it is for a producer to say the word overtime without totally freaking out) we can't go too far because of something called turnaround. What that means is that the cast and crew must have a 10 hour break between leaving and returning to set. And tomorrow is our big airport scene which is a day scene on location with millions of windows. If we go too late tonight and have to start too late tomorrow, then it could get dark and cause continuity problems. The other alternative is a 'forced call' where you get people to come back before the 10 hours time has passed. If you don't do it too often the crews love it because you're paying them just about enough to go buy a new car!

It reminds of the credits to a movie I saw lately where the credit for the continuity director came up as follows:

Continuity: Hardly Any

Hopefully, we will fair better than that.