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Christian Filmmaking (not a theological discussion).

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AKABAKA said:
Devil's advocate here...

Isn't there a rule about "adding to or taking away" from Scripture? Would a story that is "based" on, but deviates from, God's literal words be considered a form of idolatry?

Side note: I'm a big fan of the His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman, so I was discouraged when the filmmakers neutered the "Golden Compass" story so as not to offend the fundamentalists, who ended up boycotting the movie anyway. So every time I get an angry email saying the ACLU is an intolerant, anti-religious organization that wants to remove God from American society, all I can think is: I don't recall any ACLU folks calling for a boycott of the Narnia films.
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When you say "God's literal words" I assume "God" is some sort of metaphor, and last time I checked, metaphors can't write, only humans do. No "literal words" can come from an abstract idea.
 
Hey Joseph, I am currently working on an adaptation of a small series of books about a missionary family in the jungles of Peru circa 1950's. The books (and script) focus on the kid's crazy adventures in the jungle. Some of the things they did were ride a log down the river, their parents let them go with the natives to capture some escaped convicts, and the entire family made a crazy trip across the mountain into Lima in an old beat up car. It should just be a solid, fun, family film.

Evolve, if you don't like the thread then don't read it and don't post in it. If a mod don't want this kind of thread then let them say so. Otherwise, just leave those of who would like to talk about alone please.

Matthew
 
Evolve said:
There's no such thing as religious freedom
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The freedom of choice of a religion -"Religious liberty" and "Worldview"- and practice, following, are basically human rights. I´m not saying every country and every Religion respect this human rights.
(Sorry for my bad English)
Marc
 
Wow... The tone of this thread changed quick:) I'd comment but I don't come to this site to debate beliefs...I come to talk about the RED one (Something we all believe in)

We just wrapped on a Biblical project shot in Salt Lake and Orlando. We'll have a trailer soon, here are behind the scenes clips for now...
www.crown.org/shortfilms

To those of you outraged by a belief in God, you might find video journal 6 of particular interest...
 
C.S. Lewis also said... "The last thing the world needs is another Christian book... What the world needs are Christian authors." I'd rather be a Christian making great films in the secuar business of entertainment than putting myself in a box. I beleive being a Christian gives me the freedom to work on things I'm passionate about, whether they are overtly Christian or not...
 
jon erwin said:
C.S. Lewis also said... "The last thing the world needs is another Christian book... What the world needs are Christian authors." I'd rather be a Christian making great films in the secuar business of entertainment than putting myself in a box. I beleive being a Christian gives me the freedom to work on things I'm passionate about, whether they are overtly Christian or not...
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Lewis understood that permeating christianity through metaphor and abstract idea was a far more powerful propaganda tool to getting people conditioned to the notion that christianity is a good thing, then hammering people over the head with theology......kinda like the title of this thread
 
jon erwin said:
C.S. Lewis also said... "The last thing the world needs is another Christian book... What the world needs are Christian authors." I'd rather be a Christian making great films in the secuar business of entertainment than putting myself in a box. I beleive being a Christian gives me the freedom to work on things I'm passionate about, whether they are overtly Christian or not...
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I totally agree.
 
jon erwin said:
C.S. Lewis also said... "The last thing the world needs is another Christian book... What the world needs are Christian authors." I'd rather be a Christian making great films in the secuar business of entertainment than putting myself in a box. I beleive being a Christian gives me the freedom to work on things I'm passionate about, whether they are overtly Christian or not...
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My thoughts exactly... myself I'm a Christian who happens to be a filmmaker... the only thing I've done in the Christian realm have been a few music videos... mainly I do B movies... all secular...
 
Joseph Hutson said:
I totally agree.
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But you don't really agree, because if you did you wouldn't constantly be starting threads about "Christian filmmaking", in your sense of conforming to biblical scripture. C.S. Lewis did not believe the bible was the literal word of God in the way you do, and he would be appalled by the ignorance, superstition and anti-intellectualism of the American evangelical movement.

It's fine to say that anyone who isn't disposed to "Christian" filmmaking can simply ignore the thread, but we know in practice that doesn't happen. Joseph knows it better than anyone. And he knows that many people here find the whole idea of "Christian filmmaking", in his sense, offensive. But he refuses to respect their feelings, despite any number of other places where he could be having these discussions, online and off.

In that light, why blame the infidels for wanting to pull the megaphone off the wall, when they hear this stuff day and night in the U.S.? Not content with thoroughly infecting American life with diety politics, charlatan televangelists, right-wing economic policy and holy war, Christians of a certain type even insist on bringing their theology into equipment forums.

The only conclusion is, you're practicing your religion here.
 
macville said:
Hey Joseph, I am currently working on an adaptation of a small series of books about a missionary family in the jungles of Peru circa 1950's. The books (and script) focus on the kid's crazy adventures in the jungle. Some of the things they did were ride a log down the river, their parents let them go with the natives to capture some escaped convicts, and the entire family made a crazy trip across the mountain into Lima in an old beat up car. It should just be a solid, fun, family film.

Evolve, if you don't like the thread then don't read it and don't post in it. If a mod don't want this kind of thread then let them say so. Otherwise, just leave those of who would like to talk about alone please.

Matthew
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This series sounds like it totally overlooks all the damage done by missionaries to native cultures around the world. We can thank missionaries for bringing Mosquitos to Hawaii to get the natives to wear clothes, and for burning 1000 years of Mayan liturature as demon worship. We still have no idea how the Mayans could have built such an acurate calander, and we never will thanks to there being only three surviving, very incomplete, codecs.

Missionary work is inharently intolorent of other religions.
 
jpp said:
And he knows that many people here find the whole idea of "Christian filmmaking", in his sense, offensive. But he refuses to respect their feelings, despite any number of other places where he could be having these discussions, online and off.
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Eh... I kinda disagree with your conclusions here. I'm a very secular guy, but this kind of thing doesn't bug me. My main reaction is bemusement.
 
PerfectOptics said:
This series sounds like it totally overlooks all the damage done by missionaries to native cultures around the world. We can thank missionaries for bringing Mosquitos to Hawaii to get the natives to wear clothes, and for burning 1000 years of Mayan liturature as demon worship. We still have no idea how the Mayans could have built such an acurate calander, and we never will thanks to there being only three surviving, very incomplete, codecs.

Missionary work is inharently intolorent of other religions.
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And we can also thank these missionaries personally for changing the infant mortality from 80%+ to below 20%. I would never say that 100% of what missionaries have done has been good (everyone makes mistakes), but I still feel like there has been alot of good done. There has been alot of evil done in God's name and I don't condone that. That said, my movie is about the kid's adventures and not that much about the missionary work.

Matthew
 
PerfectOptics said:
This series sounds like it totally overlooks all the damage done by missionaries to native cultures around the world. We can thank missionaries for bringing Mosquitos to Hawaii to get the natives to wear clothes, and for burning 1000 years of Mayan liturature as demon worship. We still have no idea how the Mayans could have built such an acurate calander, and we never will thanks to there being only three surviving, very incomplete, codecs.

Missionary work is inharently intolorent of other religions.
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Well said. Nothing to add...
 
For me it's a little too on the nose. I appreciate where Christian filmmakers are coming from and all but why wear on on the sleeve? Just be a good filmmaker first and your message will come through.

Otherwise you will only reach your fellow Christians, who probably need little more than reinforcement of beliefs they already hold true. Not going to gain too many new believers if you put them off at the door by being too 'preachy...' :spidy:

Noah
 
NoahK said:
For me it's a little too on the nose. I appreciate where Christian filmmakers are coming from and all but why wear on on the sleeve? Just be a good filmmaker first and your message will come through.

Otherwise you will only reach your fellow Christians, who probably need little more than reinforcement of beliefs they already hold true. Not going to gain too many new believers if you put them off at the door by being too 'preachy...' :spidy:

Noah
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Couldn't agree more. That's the only thing that I can't really get into when dealing with Christian Films made by smaller production companies or younger Christians.

I don't need to be beat over the head in his name... and it's done way too often, so to the point that it becomes tacky.

There are a lot of films that follow Christian themes and deal with "God" or a supreme being quite personally. And they don't beat me over the head with theology either.
 
Guys, I try my best to not derail anyone else's thread, therefore I would greatly appreciate it if you would return the courtesy and not discuss the reasons why Christians may not connect with other Christians, and get involved with their films here on RedUser.net

If you do want to carry on the discussion of whether I should be allowed to post a thread as I have, please start another one such as "Should we let Christians connect with other Christians on RedUser?"

I have started this thread with the Moderator's permission, so I am not doing anything out of line according to the rules(that I know of).
 
If you want to talk about christian film making go start your own f-ing forum. How many times do you have to go thru the same motions here before you get the hint.

I know you are like 17 years old and live in bible country, but seriously, take the damn hint and move on.

I just got back from a shoot in Israel, and the nuns at the convent I stayed at in Nazareth weren't as preachy as some of the folks on this thread.
 
jpp said:
But you don't really agree, because if you did you wouldn't constantly be starting threads about "Christian filmmaking", in your sense of conforming to biblical scripture. C.S. Lewis did not believe the bible was the literal word of God in the way you do, and he would be appalled by the ignorance, superstition and anti-intellectualism of the American evangelical movement.

It's fine to say that anyone who isn't disposed to "Christian" filmmaking can simply ignore the thread, but we know in practice that doesn't happen. Joseph knows it better than anyone. And he knows that many people here find the whole idea of "Christian filmmaking", in his sense, offensive. But he refuses to respect their feelings, despite any number of other places where he could be having these discussions, online and off.

In that light, why blame the infidels for wanting to pull the megaphone off the wall, when they hear this stuff day and night in the U.S.? Not content with thoroughly infecting American life with diety politics, charlatan televangelists, right-wing economic policy and holy war, Christians of a certain type even insist on bringing their theology into equipment forums.

The only conclusion is, you're practicing your religion here.
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An excellent articulation of what's happening here......the whole point of Joseph putting up the thread "christian filmmakers" is to push the idea of christians and christianity forward.

Joseph, you're actually very rude, and in my house, you'd be out the door, with me making sure it hit you in the ass on the way. And I NEVER ask
anyone out of my house.
So since this isn't my house I'll just put in a request with you: please take your religious zeal, your lame agenda using the red camera as cover, your endless insistance, and shove them, onto your own site.
 
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