That’s the title of a new book by Dr. Shawn Ritenour of Grove City College that I’ve been reading to prepare for a new curriculum series we’re working on. It has been a fascinating read. Dr. Ritenour follows the Austrian school of economics, but looks at it through the lens of a thorough-going Christian perspective. Although I suspect it will be used by Christian colleges as a textbook, I found it to be quite accessible to the average educated Christian who is wanting to understand more about economics. And how exactly does Christianity relate to economics? He explains that “in economics, the object of our study is man. Therefore, the Christian view of man not only instructs us regarding the possibility of perceiving truth and pursuing scientific discovery. The Bible also provides information that helps guide us to the foundation of economic science.” You can read more about economics on Shawn’s blog, or buy it from Amazon.

Today we launched a new Compass Cinema Store and the pre-sale for Visual Latin. We’re offering the first 10 lessons for just $25 through the end of August. If you’re at all interested in the class, I encourage you to go check it out and take advantage of the pre-sale. We think it’s a pretty good deal (if we do say so ourselves).

We’re getting close to finishing the first 10 lessons for our new Latin video series called Visual Latin. We’ve broken down the concepts into bite-size pieces to make them easier to digest. For instance, the grammar video lesson above explains the way gender works in Latin; and it’s pretty enjoyable to watch. On our site you can see the practice sentences video. We don’t do any cuts, so if Dwane makes a mistake, we just keep on going. We think this makes it more realistic (and a bit more humorous). We’ll be offering our presale soon, so sign up for updates at visuallatin.com. The first 10 classes will be available by the end of August for use this semester.

I took Latin in high school and really liked it. When my friend Dwane Thomas, who’s been teaching Latin for 15 years, started talking to me about the paucity (from Lat. paucus, ‘few’) of Latin courses on video, I thought it was something worth pursuing. After a few months of work, Visual Latin is the result. It’s a combination of short videos and exercises that work together to teach your children (or you) Latin. The curriculum is designed so that it requires no knowledge of Latin either by the student or the parent administering the class. Basically, you just hit play and start learning. Take a look at the site and watch a few sample lessons. The first semester of material will be available in August, so if you have friends who might be interested, please forward the link to them. Ave atque Vale!

If you’re interested in creating a marketing video for your company or ministry, the one thing you need to remember is that it needs to be about one thing. This was a principle I heard in screenwriting school and it applies pretty much to everything in marketing. Sure, there can be variations and sub-ideas; but unless the one thing is really clear, then the audience probably won’t get it. Good marketing videos hit the same point over and over again in a simple and entertaining way. In this particular case, we wanted people to associate Fidelity Offset with trust.  The simple argument was this: if major recording labels trust them with their big name artists, so can you. [If you'd like to watch in HD, hit pause and click the link in the corner of the video.]

Along with films and documentaries, we like do unique video work for companies. I spent three years as the marketing director for a small business where I sought to find creative ways to use video to show people exactly what the company did (it was amazing how a good video could increase sales). We currently are doing some work for Fidelity Offset, a commercial printer in Nashville, Tennessee with clients around the nation. Almost 90% of their customers have never seen what their printing plant actually looks like. We thought this would be a fun way to show what goes on behind the scenes, as well as to communicate some key aspects of their company: precision, attention to detail, and beautiful printing. As you can see, a lot can be communicated about a company just with sound and images. The music is from an old 1926 piano roll recording of George Gershwin playing one of his preludes. If you’d like to watch it in HD, just click the HD button at the top right of the screen after starting it.

I think Greg Wilbur is one of the best living composers of music for worship. That he happens also to be the Chief Musician at Parish Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee means I have the privilege of hearing his music each week. (You know his music is really wonderful when your 7-year-old daughter sings it to herself when she’s coloring.) Greg recently teamed up with Ligonier Ministries to create a new CD of his songs called My Cry Ascends. Last week, Parish Pres came together to sing a number of those songs, many of which have been sung by the church for years. I am quite sure Greg’s music brings great pleasure to the Lord, who, like 7-year-olds, takes special delight in wonderful songs. If you have a minute, go to Ligonier’s site and sample some of his music for yourself. [If you'd like to watch the video in HD, just click the button in the upper right corner.]

PART 1 : “Positions, Please!”

A few months ago, we were asked to be one of a number of production companies creating short films on marriage. Our assigned topic was marital roles, and certain parameters came with the request: the film needed to be in four linked parts that could fit between other teaching pieces; it needed to support the subject material surrounding it; it needed to use dancing in at least one part as a visual metaphor for marriage; and it needed to fit in a small budget. I find short films to be great opportunities for experimenting with different styles and methods, always hoping to do more with less. In this post, I’ve included the four parts of the film as well as brief comments on the experiments we did with narrative structure, camera style, directing method, and editing choices. It was a fun little project; I hope you enjoy taking a peek into it. [Click HD in the upper right corner to watch in HD; if it's loading too slowly, then turn HD off.]

The Narrative Structure | After musing on the project parameters, I came up with an idea I thought might be useful in any teaching setting. Instead of just employing a simple metaphor between two concepts, what if dancing and marriage could be built into a literary conceit that explored marriage roles in a more complex way? Even more so, would it be possible to take the issues that the conceit explored and simultaneously mirror them in the actions of the characters on screen? (I explain this concept in more detail in a previous post). The basic story looks at the strained relationship of one couple and contrasts it with the relationships of three other couples at different stages of relational development. At one level, the film is just a story; but from another perspective, it offers a more complex view of marriage and relationships. To force the second perspective, try this out: when you watch Part 1, just exchange the word ‘dancing’ with ‘marriage’ and see what happens; this also works with the different dancing situations. (Here is the complete script which may be easier to follow.) In practical terms, I think if you apply this kind of a conceit-based structure to teaching materials, it enables a concept to travel on parallel yet connected tracks. This inevitably gives a teacher more options for exploring a multi-faceted concept within a group setting, and it gives the class a more sophisticated and nuanced look at the topic itself.

Part 2 : Learning to Lead

The Camera Style | Dancing is a notoriously difficult action to film using static cameras, especially if you’re wanting to catch what the characters are saying while moving. The most efficient solution, a steadicam, was introduced in 1976 and mounts a camera to an arm with hinges and balanced counter weights. It’s normally used for small sections of a film, but when we weighed all our options, we decided to use it to film everything. First, we had only two days to shoot all four parts of the film, and a steadicam enables almost instantaneous camera setups from one position to another, greatly speeding up the filming process; second, the steadicam could easily follow our characters’ discussions as they turned across the floor, no matter how quickly or slowly they moved; third, it enabled me to link together dramatic motions from one group of characters to another in planned sequences (something I like to do); fourth, it provided the viewer with a sense of being just another participant in the class; and fifth, instead of shooting individual scenes, I choose to follow individual actors throughout an entire sequence, finishing one actor and repeating the entire sequence from beginning to end with the next. The result was that we shot about 3 times as much footage as we could have had we shot in the traditional way with a tripod and dolly. It was also extremely helpful that we hired one of the best steadicam operators in the country, John Perry, who regularly shoots American Idol and Dancing With the Stars. (We used John before in the opening and closing sequences of Prodigal Sons, as well. He is fantastic.)

Part 3 : Learning to Follow

The Directing Method | One of the great things about living in Nashville is that for a comparatively small town (as opposed to New York or LA), it boasts a strong group of theater actors, many of whom also work in film. We cast some veteran thespians in this piece which enabled us to do a number of unique things. First, theater actors are experienced at improvisation, so I set up the acting situation as if it was a real dance lesson, telling Pierre (Matthew Carlton) to push things along as if in an actual class no matter if it was in the script or not; this kept the action continuously moving so we could shoot through entire sequences from any direction focusing on any character, any gaps being filled with improvised lines and actions. Second, I gave the actors the freedom to do or say whatever they felt was right for their character at that moment, so everyone was always doing something interesting to watch. In most cases, this resulted in different things happening simultaneously in the foreground and background, something more closely approximating real life. Third, this freedom to continue through a sequence from start to finish unhampered (even if a mistake was made) gave the scenes a more natural feel; the actors said they loved the ability to stay in character over an extended period just like they did on stage, something normally impossible in film. In fact, some of my favorite moments were the result of improvisation, which can often happen if you give good actors the freedom to play around with their characters and lines.

Part 4 : Missteps Will Come

The Editing Choices | I have to admit that I have a penchant for long takes. In my opinion, if a long take is supported with good and interesting camera movement that follows multiple linked actions, it accomplishes something more interesting than the traditional editing style of shot/counter-shot. Although shooting the entire piece with steadicam gave us more options in terms of directing and acting, it ended up taking away options in terms of editing, primarily because of continuity between shots. Giving actors the choice to improvise that worked well in general made it more challenging to cut between actions (although not impossible). Personally, I find that longer takes with deeper focus and simultaneous action in foreground and background create a richer cinematic experience. Again, it is more like real life where things happen at the same time, with your subconscious picking up one thing although you’re looking at something else. In light of that, editing was more about finding the most interesting and compelling sequences that worked well with others, and then cutting only where necessary. All said, I think it made for a unique end product that, while certainly not perfect (and few experiments ever are), accomplished what we set out to do.

One caveat: this post is designed purely for self-inspiration. Unless you are either A) a screenwriter frustrated with a screenplay he’s been working on for over a year or B) interested in what goes on inside the head of a screenwriter frustrated with a screenplay he’s been working on for over a year, then it may be of minimal interest to you. I do not have three exact ideas in starting this, but hope they appear somewhere in the midst of composition and so ultimately relieve my larger problem. As a bit of background, I am 80% finished with the plot of a new feature length screenplay. But it has been like walking through boot-deep mud much of the time, with the tugging tiredness of legs giving way to the slurping sound of mud allowing a few more feet of progress. Every now and then, I try to pull up a boot and it doesn’t move. So, here are my three ideas for getting unstuck.

1) Don’t allow yourself to start answering emails, surfing the internet, or doing busy work: this is procrastination, the gentle whisper that calls siren-like for you to do something – anything – other than stare at your monitor, pace about the room, and question the motives of your characters. I do not know why this happens to people who really enjoy writing, but I know it does and is quite endemic. The uninspired solution is to block off a long section of time in a place where you won’t – better yet, can’t – be disturbed and start writing (or thinking, musing, pacing, playing with a pencil or whatever it is you do to prepare to write). Turning off the internet is necessary here. (Turning off the rest of your life and its sundry demands would be nice, too, but probably unrealistic. A few undisturbed hours will have to do.)

2) Now that you’re sitting in a place where you might actually be able to write, if nothing comes to you immediately, then go back and review what you’ve already written and remind yourself that it’s not half bad. You can even tell yourself it’s pretty good. (If it’s really not, you can deal with that later once the first draft is finished. Somehow editing is easier than writing the first draft.) Think about where you characters started and where they are headed. Do you use outlines and sketch out plot points and character development? If so, review them. Who are these people you’re spending so much time with? What’s the one thing they really want? If you were sitting in a dark theater having just seen what came before, what would be different and unexpected if it came next? Was the prior sequence exciting, does there now need to be a rest, or does the excitement need to ratcheted up one more level? I realize this is pretty uninspired, but looking at what I’ve already written seems to give my characters new life that often translates into what their next actions will be. When your characters start talking to other characters on their own, it’s great just to sit back and listen. Like a long distance runner, it’s the “writer’s high.” Sadly, this doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. Instead, my characters often just sit on the page and stare at me, blank-eyed and quiet.

3) Blank-eyed and quiet characters are the worst. And the white nothingness of the page below the last bit of typing is so completely frustrating. So my last uninspired idea is to take my computer and throw it out the window-  no, although it could be cathartic for about 5 seconds, that emotion would be quickly followed by a sinking nausea: much worse than the frustration of an empty page. So, my last uninspired idea is to write something you just grab out of the air, something you completely intend to change, but something that puts black marks across that empty white. And, honestly, that unthinking, unintentional motion will often stir loose some decent ideas that have become lodged together in the pathways of my brain. It reminds me of a story I heard from a guy I met who was an incredible kayaker. He was completely focused on it, working desperately hard to become good enough for the Olympics. (Apparently, he was very close.) During his training, he did some kind of roll and broke his shoulder (or maybe it was his back, although that seems severe – how do you recover from a broken back?). The long recovery ensured that he was no longer in the running for the Olympics, so he had to give it up. After a number of months, he got back into kayaking and started working again on his form and technique, just for the fun of it without the pressure of performing. And something amazing happened: he got much, much better than he ever had been before. He realized that it was only when he stopped focusing on his craft that it began to come naturally. Translated to writing, it means we have to stop worrying about outside pressures and just enjoy the fact that we’re doing something we really like. So what if it’s not incredible – do it for the enjoyment of it, and perhaps it will end up being decent after all. But focusing and worrying about it will likely just thwart the entire process.

Oh, and I guess I should add a final uninspired idea that came from remembering that great scene in The African Queen when they are stuck in the shallow mud and they have to pull the boat back to the river (or something like that). I honestly have been in a situation exactly like that, walking through waist deep water in the mud pulling a big boat behind you as other people push, and hoping, always hoping you can find deeper water. The one uninspired idea I got from that was simply this: You cannot give up. If you do give up, then you’ll always be stuck in the mud. So just keep pulling and pulling – there is a channel out there somewhere.

We’re glad you stopped by. Since I can’t walk you through our office here in Nashville, I can at least give you a quick tour of our site. We’re constantly doing new things, so our bloggish home lets visitors like you peek and poke around wherever you want. Everything you need is to your right. For instance, look under ‘Watch Our Work’ to see some of the stories we’ve already produced. The links are pretty self-explanatory; most just take you to more posts that let you dig deeper into what we think and do. Which is a good metaphor for Compass Cinema: there’s a lot more to us than first meets the eye. After looking around, if you’d like to ask us some questions, just drop us a note. We hope you enjoy what you see. [For our regular readers, you may be interested to know we ran a little ad in the June 5 edition of WORLD.]