It might sound like I'm complaining, and while I am a little frustrated with a cold that won't go away, I am enjoying every moment of it. I am witness to something wonderful that the Lord is doing and I am just thrilled that He has allowed Paul and I, and Bobby and Joe from Namesake Entertainment to be at the heart of such an exciting project.
Guess where we were today? Well, if you are to believe the majic that is film, you'd believe that we were 30,000 feet above the Atlantic on a Pan Con flight to London! The truth is that we were on a soundstage seven feet above a concrete floor.
But, while the plane wasn't flying high, I was. I marveled as I sat and watched the filming of a vision that the Lord bore in Tim LaHaye's spirit over a decade ago and in Jerry's mighty pen seven books later. It was an awe-nspiring and humbling day to see Rayford and Hattie and Buck on that plane. And, I can promise you this – our actors are very much Rayford, Hattie and Buck.
If you can picture it, the plane is actually not even a plane. It a giant set where the sides of the plane can pull away and windows can be removed, and aisles widened, to allow the cameras access for the kind of close ups and dolly shots (camera on railway like tracks) that make the scenes look so vivid. Though the days are going a little slow and we are starting to run into some expensive overtime, Vic Sarin (our director) is doing a great job at getting us the big screen, feature film look that this film needs to have. The camera is always moving, the lighting is superb and the sets are expansive and rich feeling. There really is a great team working away here.
We also had our first bit of adversity this week when some disgruntled union members released a press release to the local media that we had used illegal extras in our shooting on Saturday! The anonymous release was sent to every media outlet and generated a ton of calls to our production offices. However, we had done nothing wrong by allowing fans of the series to appear in the film and had even checked this with the local 'extra's union.' Fortunately, when we contacted the union leadership, they immediately came to our defense and helped defuse the attack .
A reporter from Entertainment Weekly magazine was on set yesterday and today for a feature they are doing.
