No-Sleep Photography

First of all, I apologize for the long drought of updates. I have been surviving my first semester at Washington and Lee University up in the beautiful mountains of Virginia. In between Calculus, Chinese I, and Political Philosophy, I have had little enough time to breathe, much less post regularly on my blog.

That brings me to the topic of my current post. The Lord recently provided an awesome new camera, a Canon SX10 IS, through a special technology scholarship at my school. I've since been enjoying shooting photos of our campus, reputed to be among the prettiest in the United States.

Last Sunday night I was busy on a Music History paper due the next morning at 9 and was up most of the night--in fact, I had only 1.5 hours of sleep when I walked into class that morning. The upside to this really long night was that I got to see a spectacular sunrise the next morning at a quarter to seven--the photos below were just taken off my dorm steps twenty feet from my room.


R.E. Lee Episcopal silhouetted against the sunrise.

A little wider shot with the Lee House and Davis Hall in the picture, taken across the BDG Quad.

I'm home for the moment for Thanksgiving and greatly enjoying finally getting enough sleep, despite having a major political philosophy paper to write over break. Sleep, politics paper, food and more sleep cover most of my priorities for this week. And then back to school for one more week of class, then finals and Christmas break! Lord willing I should be able to post some more pictures soon, especially over the Christmas holidays. And now to bed, for it is plenty late already...

Incipient Laptop-itis and Calvinism: A Comforting Combination

I am sitting here in the final throes of incipient laptop-itis. The Lord has provided the funds through my work this summer to purchase a new laptop to replace my ailing one. I found a really nice system on eBay (details later) and have my bid in to win it. With 5 minutes to go. With nobody else bidding atm. With me about to fidget to death sitting in front of my brother's desktop, my dead current laptop on the desk. 1 minute 35 seconds to go...

It is at times like these that I am glad to be a Calvinist--it is so comforting. Most people don't understand this--they think that to believe that the Lord knows and controls the future means that they are chained to fate. It's not that way. From our side, we see our free will. From the Lord's, though, outside of time and space, he can see and touch our futures in a way we can only imagine. So it's comforting. He knows and cares whether or not I win the item I want. It's nice to think sometimes in the uncertainty that the choice or outcome we worry about is a known fact in the future--and God knows. It is comforting to have a full view of God's sovereignty in a situation like this--like when you get outbid at 24 seconds to go.

Game over. You didn't win. But the Lord knows, and he may also know if that computer was a lemon, the seller would cheat you, or just that you ought to buy something else. It's far from being restricting--it's freeing to know that the King of all Kings, the Creator of Time and Space, the Owner of the cattle on a thousand hills, has my well-being in mind--I don't have to worry.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

R3 Script for Hitler's Law

First, I'd like to apologize for the script confusion. I submitted the last post thinking I had a copy of the script on another server and I could move it over easily. (My laptop has been down for a few days and I couldn't get to the original file.) I finally realized that the only copy of the R3 script was on my laptop hard drive and I couldn't immediately get to it, so I reposted the link to the r1 script (by now superseded.)

Today I connected my laptop hard drive to another computer with an adapter and was able to upload the current R3 version of the script. Enjoy!

http://www.youngchristianstudios.com/hitlerslaw_r3.pdf

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

Drum Roll Please... Announcing "Hitler's Law"!

The Announcement



At long last, it is time to announce our latest project--"Hitler's Law"! It will be a 7-minute "tactical" short drama targeted at the current deplorable struggle between the German government and Christian parents over the control of their children's education. We hope to shoot during the month of August, 2008, and complete postproduction in time to submit it to the 2009 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival.

The History

Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) Party passed a series of "cultural purity" laws between 1937 and 1939. Among these were laws specifically mandating state-run public instruction for all children so as to prevent the formation of so-called "parallel societies". The whole purpose was to force a homogeneous culture in Germany. The Nazi policy-makers understood that to influence the next generation, they had to control the children.

The scary thing is that these laws did not quietly go away. Although the majority of the Nazis' policies were summarily ended with the unconditional surrender of the Reich in May 1945, many of these measures stayed on the books. Recently this particular law has been revived by the government as part of their program to stop the loss of their unique heritage. Christian homeschool families have been especially hard-hit. Many families have fled to Austria with only the clothes on their backs, mere hours ahead of the police, just as they did in Hitler's day. Homeschool parents have been fined, placed in prison, their property and children confiscated for trying to teach their children at home. One family has even had to flee Europe for Canada to escape the long arm of the government, which in the EU can even reach them outside of Germany's sovereign borders. The situation is very bad in Germany, and getting worse. We who enjoy freedom in the United States need to pray for our brethren in Germany, who still suffer under Hitler's Law.

You can read our news alert blog at http://hitlerslaw.blogspot.com/, and feel free to send news items to news@hitlerslaw.com.

The Film

Hitler's Law is the newest short project of Young Christian Studios. The story follows Herr & Frau Traugott, German parents in the summer of 1938 who must make a painful decision when the local SS officer demands their children be placed in the state schools. Will they cave to the officer's demands and place their children in the schools, possibly losing their hearts forever? Or will they flee in the night from a town and a house where their family has lived for two hundred years with the clothes on their backs and nothing else? They have only a few short hours to decide...

The film then makes the connection to the present day, where the same laws designed to promote a homogenous society in Nazi Germany are being used to force Christian parents to place their children in the state schools. We are hoping that this short film will wake up American Christians and homeschoolers to the terrible plight of their brethren in Germany and will help to bring an outcry of public opinion against Germany's restrictive education policies.

To complete this project, we need help in every area: funding, equipment, casting, costumes, locations, and post-production. If you live in the Triangle area of North Carolina or even if you don't, and are interested in assisting us with this project, please email us at producer@hitlerslaw.com.

We will have a production blog up soon, Lord willing. In the meanwhile, you can read the initial draft of the script at http://youngchristianstudios.com/hitlerslaw_r1.pdf. The upcoming R3 draft will include certain changes, such as conversion of the "Priest" character to Lutheran minister, but I can't get that draft up until I am able to get back into my laptop, which is having trouble.

Please pray for us, even if you can't help with this project. We have an extremely tight time schedule to shoot it in, and it's going to be a challenge. We believe it's a story that really needs to be told, but usually that means that there will be a struggle to complete it.



In His Service,
John Calvin Young
Writer/Director/Producer, Hitler's Law

Harvest Moon over the Lake

My brother Caleb and I got out with the camera tonight and shot some pretty pictures of the harvest moon's light on the lake. My favorite is one I shot with the hammock and the dock silhouetted against the light. I tweaked the RAW image a little to adjust the contrast, noise reduction, and sharpening, and changed the white balance slightly. I wish I could post more pictures, but I'm working on a tenuous Internet link at the moment and it took over a minute and a half to upload the single cropped .jpg.

More pictures, posts, (and the much-delayed announcement) later...

IHS,
John Calvin Young

Murphy's Law of Announcements

Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.

Young's Corollary for Publicly Promoted Announcements: If a definite time for an announcement or a release is made, events will conspire to make it ludicrous or plainly impossible to try to meet the deadline.

Yes, I am here. I am not dead. I am not even dead tired. But there will be no announcement tonight. I registered the domain, I picked the images for the splash screen. I even opened Photoshop and began the layout. That's when my iffy-but-working AC power supply for my laptop decided to fail, apparently irreparably.

30 minutes of fiddling later--still not working. No problem! Web work is by definition portable--I'll just move over to one of the other computers. (BTW, you don't begin to appreciate something like Adobe Photoshop until you have had it and suddenly don't.) So I fired up the trusty-and-free GIMP to finish the job and suddenly it crashes. With an unexplainable error. I download and reinstall GTK+ and GIMP 2.4.6. Twice. With no better results.

Rather than attempting to do it with Microsoft Paint, I decided to have another go at fixing the laptop. 45 minutes, three rubber bands, a piece of aluminum foil and a Norton Anthology of American Literature later, the power blinks on!

Joyfully I power up the laptop, open PS, and am importing my images when it decides to quit. Going back once more to GIMP, I reinstall it again, witness it crash AGAIN, and seized by some kind of desperation, begin disabling any .dll in my system32 folder that comes up with an error message. Finally, at 11:58, I belatedly conclude that apparently I am not to get this announcement out before midnight.

That is the comfort of being a Calvinist--the Lord must have a purpose of some sort behind this--who knows, possibly forcing me to get some sleep so I can get up and get to work in the morning. So I shall. The announcement will come tomorrow or the next day when the Lord enables me to get my electronic world put back together. Apparently it is also time to buy a new AC adapter...

Until then, a teaser...
What occurred on July 6th, 1938 that would have repercussions for the next 70 years? Hint: it's been in the international news a lot lately.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

Big Announcement Tomorrow!

Anticipate a BIG announcement tomorrow, July 7th, 2008. Today would be better, being the 70th anniversary of a certain extremely relevant event, but it's the Sabbath. So you'll just have to wait until tomorrow.

Hint: it's about a new project. It won't be a big one in budget, but anticipate larger-than-average ripples in the pond.

Until tomorrow...

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

Evening At The Lake

I took this photo while on vacation at Lake Wateree a couple of weeks ago. Subject is my brother Samuel fishing and our dog Martha waiting for the fish.

I love shooting RAW--it gives you such control over the final product. With the camera I was using, it would be very hard to get that picture under the right light conditions, so I actually shot it when it was a little lighter outdoors and adjusted it in post. It was not staged, though--they spent about 20 hours over the week fishing off the dock!

IHS,
John Calvin Young

Big Buck Bunny Released Online!

At long last, "Big Buck Bunny", the short-film animated result of the Peach Open Movie Project under the auspices of the Blender Foundation, has been released online. The Blender Foundation owns the source code and facilitates development of the open-source CG software package Blender. The Open Movie projects were designed to get a number of volunteer animators and filmmakers together to make a film specifically to showcase Blender's capabilities. If the capabilities or features are not present, they are typically developed and added during the project.

Although the organization of the project has been interesting, the quality of the finished project is the most intriguing point for me. Blender has come a long way--I've been using it since 2005, and its capabilities have expanded by leaps and bounds (no pun intended), especially in furs and particles, which are showcased in this film. This software has opened opportunities for many young animators who could not otherwise have made the step into professional-level animation. Some projects are even specifically using Blender for scalability, as it is freely available, such as The Filthy Spoon Project, modeled and designed entirely in Blender.

P.S.--The entire production files are also available, as well as DVDs for sale on the site. In the spirit of open-source software, though, the film is downloadable in up to 1080p resolution for free.

In other notes, the composer for the film, Jan Morgenstern, has released the whole score as a freely downloadable album.
Very interesting for those who might be scoring other short films. A full feature score is very interesting, but scoring a short film (like shooting one) is a rather different art.

Very, very interesting project. And I believe it was done with 7 lead animators. I think a project like this could very easily be done by one or another of the online groups, like CF.org for example.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

Port Out Starboard Home

In the department of interesting movie trivia, I recently heard a possibly apocryphal story explaining both the origins of the word "posh" and the somewhat nonsensical lyrics of the "Posh, Posh" song in the much-loved film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (imdb). As the story goes, rich travelers sailing between Colonial India and Great Britain would pay extra for the priviledge of a cabin on the port side going out and the starboard coming home, as the peculiarities of the route would put the cabin in the shade for much of the Indian Ocean leg of the trip. Only the richest, most picky passengers could pay, however, so the modern definition of "posh" as "Smart, fashionable" with a subtle connotation of picky superiority followed from that original acronym of Port Out Starboard Home, supposedly printed on the higher-priced tickets. There seems to be a lack of concrete evidence for the practice, but the explanation certainly appeals to the imagination--and the rhyme.

This is livin', this is style
This is elegance by the mile

Oh the posh posh traveling life
The traveling life for me
First cabin and captain's table regal company
Whenever I'm bored I travel abroad
But ever so properly
Port out, starboard home
Posh with a capital P-O-S-H, posh

The hands that hold the scepters
Every head that holds a crown
They'll always give their all for me
They'll never let me down
I'm on my way to far away tah tah and toodle-oo
And fare thee well, and Bon Voyage arrivederci too

O the posh posh traveling life
The traveling life for me
First cabin and captain's table regal company
Pardon the dust of the upper crust
Fetch us a cup of tea
Port out, starboard home, posh with a capital P-O-S-H, posh

In every foreign strand I land the royal trumpets toot me
The royal welcome mat is out
They 21 gun salute me
But monarchies are constantly commanding me to call
Last month I miffed the Mufti but you can't oblige them all

Oh the posh posh traveling life, the traveling life for me
Oh rumpetly tumpety didy didy dee dee dee dee dee
Oh the posh posh traveling life, the traveling life for me
First cabin and captain's table regal company
When I'm at the helm the world's my realm and I do it stylishly
Port out, starboard home

Posh with a capital P-O-S-H
P-O-S-H, P-O-S-H...

(lyrics from http://www.lyrics-n-tunes.com/lyrics/chitty_posh.html)

Whether the story is historically valid or not it does explain the song beautifully. I enjoyed hearing this and just wanted to pass it on to you.

John Calvin Young

Making It In Online Video

One of the blogs I read on a regular basis is fxguide.com -- a very interesting blog on VFX techniques, research, and news. Among other things, they post articles that may not be directly connected to VFX, but may be of interest to the industry in general.

A couple of days ago Mike Seymour, one of the authors, posted an fascinating look into what it takes to make online media (whether video, audio, or text) a success, including detailed profiles of several successful website and statistics on the type of traffic it typically takes to break even. It is a long article, but offers useful advice on the types of business models that have turned out to be profitable, to be differentiated from those that have lost money since day one. The inclusion of real numbers really helps those trying to figure out potential profitability of their projects. You can read the full article at http://www.fxguide.com/qt/279/money-webcasts-podcasts-a-few-facts-and-a-few-thoughts.

Additionally, they also have quite a few highly interesting feature articles examining certain film projects in-depth as well as explanations of different VFX tools/techniques such as matchmoving or matte painting.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

Note: I am not aware of anything inappropriate on the site, but I do not personally know the authors, nor have I read everything in the archives, so your mileage may vary. Some content may very well not be appropriate for all readers.

DVDs of A True Patriot at 4:56 AM

I am sitting here at 4 minutes to 5 in the morning, having stayed up all night ironing the final bugs out of the production DVDs of A True Patriot. We got nearly to this point once before, but Encore corrupted our project files and the disc had to be reconstructed. This time, though, the burning went fine after a beta disc or two, which revealed further bugs that had to be fixed.

Today we'll find out the results of the first competition to see A True Patriot--the annual Tar Heel Junior Historians Convention. We've already had the premiere, but I wanted to have at least a handful of production DVDs for sale today, so I ended up working VERY late to complete them. They're beautiful, though--this is the first project we've done full packaging for. I snapped a picture of the stack of DVDs on the table behind me--you are the first to see the final production discs!
Expect them for sale online in the very near future for somewhere between $5-7 apiece.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young
Young Christian Studios

RED SCARLET To Compete With Canon, Sony HD Options

Says it all, doesn't it--except the $3,000 price tag. Yes, that's right--3K for $3K. RED, the maker of the groundbreaking RED ONE digital cinema (read film camera w/o the film--this is WAY better than the camera the Star Wars prequels were shot on) has announced a pair of new cameras at this year's NAB trade show. RED EPIC is a similarly awesome camera, supposedly not to replace RED ONE, which will push the absolute bleeding-edge limits of digital cinematography.

SCARLET, on the other hand, is a lower-end (but still very, very awesome) camera meant to compete in the market currently served by the Canon XH and XL-H lines, Sony's EX-1 and -3, and others. As announced, it is supposed to be able to shoot 3k frames on a 2/3" sensor (Canon XL-H1s is 1/3"), has an integrated lens, shoot to solid-state media, plus goodies like Wi-Fi control and HDMI-out (HDMI-to-DVI-to-1080p LCD can be done easily for $500, while a good HD-SDI monitor starts in the multi-thousands.) All for under $3000, if we are to believe RED. Of course, "SPECIFICATIONS, DELIVERY DATES AND DESIGN ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE... COUNT ON IT"--from the RED site, but if we look at RED ONE, they over-delivered, for the most part, albeit a bit late.

This will probably shake up the market, as cameras like the Canon XH-A1 will have little to recommend them over SCARLET, coming as they do with lower resolution and fewer connections, except a more familiar form factor, cheaper media and an established name. (Oh, and the XH-A1 is $3999, not $3,000.) Sony's EX-1 doesn't even have all that. If RED ONE didn't establish RED as a player, I don't know what will...except maybe SCARLET. It's not quite the revolution in quality that RED ONE was, with its integrated lens and 2/3" sensor, but it would be quite enough for a lot of us. I can actually see myself possibly getting my hands on one in the near future, while with a RED I figured it would be rental for a long, long time. Cameras like this may change the economics of many film projects. Time to get back to work and start saving--spring 2009 isn't that far away!

(The full information is here. For those that want to absorb every bit of the speculation, possibilities, predictions, and rumors out there--I did--there is a fascinating SCARLET prerelease forum on Reduser.net.)

John Calvin Young

The Patriot Pastor: 2007 SAICFF Treatment Competition Entry

Again, this is a belated update, but I've been asked about it a few times, so I'm posting it here. For the 2007 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival Treatment Competition, I entered the treatment of a film that I have been researching and planning for a long time. The story is pretty self-explanatory, so I'll post it here... The treatment placed in the competition, making it top-10 out of 75 entries, so I am pretty happy. I know a few of the other writers who entered treatments, and it's a real honor to be judged where I was. This project isn't just one I wrote for the fun of it--I've been thinking about the concept and doing the research since 2004 and I hope to see it made in the not-so-distant future.

THE PATRIOT PASTOR

John Calvin Young

© 2007 John Calvin Young

Genre: Historical Thriller

Setting: Colonial America

Target Audience: Families, Churches,History and Military Buffs

Predicted Rating: PG (for battle violence)

Estimated Budget: $25,-100,000 (Low end) $1-2 million (High end)

Premise: A young minister in Revolutionary Virginia has to overcome self-doubt, discouragement, and his own father's opposition in his decision to follow the Lord's call from the ministry to the military. Commercial Viability: Historical epics have risen to prominence in the movie industry in recent years. Past Revolutionary dramas like The Patriot have done very well, but were inappropriate for general
audiences.

Theological Significance: Now, even as then, many in the church believe that those who really want to serve their Lord can do it best through formal ministry. This film examines one man's search for the Will of God in his vocation and his discovery that he served the Lord best by obeying Him, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.”

Concept Originality: Until about 1950, Muhlenberg had been regarded as one of the foremost generals of the Revolution. His very Christian story fell out of favor and has not been addressed except for a “debunking” show produced by PBS which discounted historical sources and completely misunderstood the motivation of the man.

The Patriot Pastor is the epic story of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, a village pastor from Virginia who when war broke out in 1776 raised a regiment out of his church and led his men off to fight under George Washington, becoming one Washington's most trusted friends and generals. As the story opens, young Muhlenberg arrives at Woodstock, a Lutheran minister, newly ordained by the Anglican state church of Virginia. As he settles in, he draws the attention and friendship of the great men of the community, even winning the belle of the town as his wife. As the unrest in the colonies builds and rumors of dissent and independence begin to spread, the likeable young minister of Woodstock is put forward for election first to the Committee of Correspondence for his district and then to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

John Peter Muhlenberg goes to Williamsburg, joining his friend George Washington and being swept into the rising tide of independence. In early 1775, just a few short weeks before the decisive shots fired at Lexington and Concord, Patrick Henry gives words to the feelings of the patriots when he speaks out before the House of Burgesses and cries out, “Give me liberty or give me death!” His friend's eloquence brings Muhlenberg to a point of crisis. What is his duty? Should he lead his congregation from the pulpit or from horseback? Would he be denying the Lord's service to reject the mantle of the minister?

This faithful man of God, son of the founder of American Lutheranism, faces not only the disapproval of many in his community and the wrath of the British authorities, but even his beloved father believed that as Americans from German stock, they owed a double loyalty to George III, their king in Germany as well as in the Colonies of England. The young minister goes to his knees in pursuit of the Lord's direction. He steps back from politics for a season in order to listen to that still, soft Voice.

With the colonies in a fever pitch of excitement and the House of Burgesses dissolved by the Royal Governor, his community at Woodstock sent the young minister once again to represent them in the civil realm at the First Virginia Convention. There the final plans are made for independence. They offer him a Colonelcy and ask him to raise a regiment. The choice must be made.

One clear Sunday morning, his congregation gathers to worship. Muhlenberg stands before them and takes as his text the first verses of Ecclesiastes 3. He recounts their sufferings and the wrongs of the king and explained the sacred nature of the conflict that forced him to draw his sword. The king had broken the covenant. Christian men must stand for justice. “In the language of the Holy Writ, there was a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times had passed away. There was a time to fight and that time had now come!” Upon those words, he cast aside his sober robes and stood before them an officer of the new Virginia troops. Calling for volunteers, he raised that day out of his own church the core of the 8th Virginia, over 300 men.

As the first of Virginia's regiments to come to full strength, he and his troops were sent to Southern Georgia on the ill-fated Florida campaign. Caught in lowlands and swamps of Savannah in the heat of the summer, his men began to drop of illness and despair. Doubts begin to rise and he questions his own judgement. He wondered if the Lord had actually called him to this or if his people were suffering for his presumption. He writes to his father for guidance and wisdom, perhaps his father had been right. Falling ill himself, he returns home, to his father's, where his family is sheltering, to recuperate. Father and son open their hearts to one another and are reconciled.

Soon he is called back to active duty, this time to Valley Forge. As winter sets in and the troops begin to suffer, George Washington confides his doubts and fears to his old friend. Muhlenberg's trials have made him strong. With a renewed sense of purpose, he directs Washington back to the source of all their strength. As they kneel together in the cold of Valley Forge, they are reassured that to follow the Lord's calling even into ignominy or death was the only choice for the Christian man. They rose and went forth into battle, placing their trust in the Lord of Hosts.

Comments welcome--I am hoping to write this script this spring. As always, all rights reserved on the treatment.

IHS,
John Calvin Young

Review of National Treasure: Book of Secrets

This has been a while in coming, but I'm glad to announce that my review of National Treasure: Book of Secrets has been published in the John Locke Foundation's March issue of Carolina Journal. I originally wrote a much longer review after I took 14 pages of notes in the opening-night showing, but the editor of CJ, Richard Wagner, only had room for 700, so I cut it down. Editing is tough, but being forced to cut down on words makes my writing better. I've posted the full text of my review below, but I encourage you to browse the full CJ issue above--it's full of good policy/economics/culture commentary and analysis.

Going into the theater to watch the much-anticipated sequel to the 2004 hit National Treasure, I expected an action film with an emphasis on golden treasure and historical mystery. Surprisingly unlike the first film, Book of Secrets is not really about the treasure, or the mysterious Book at all; Ben Gates couldn't be less interested in actual gold--he is far more concerned with clearing an ancestor of a heinous crime than with the “find”. The film isn't all that concerned with the history either—the focus is more on what the hunt does to the principals of the drama than either the clues they follow in their quest or the treasure at the end. Despite these departures from the original film's format--or rather because of them--Book of Secrets is a stronger film overall.

The story opens a few months after the conclusion of the first film. Historian Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his girlfriend, National Archives conservator Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), have broken up and Ben has moved back in with his dad, Patrick (Jon Voight). Geeky sidekick Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) has published a book on historical mysteries and urban legends, while Patrick and Ben are collaborating on a speaking tour.

The Gates' lectures tell of an ancestor Thomas Gates, who was asked by Lincoln’s assassins to decrypt a coded document the night of the murder. When the loyal Gates realized the document contained the key to a treasure which could rejuvenate the Confederate war effort, he tried to destroy it. Gates was shot by the conspirators, but the mysterious document, missing 18 critical pages, survived.
Their narrative is challenged when a rival historian, Mitch Wilkerson (Ed Harris), comes forward with a missing page from the diary that implicates Thomas Gates in the conspiracy. Dumbfounded, Ben and Patrick realize that they must disprove the authenticity of Wilkinson's artifact or lose their family's good name—and a mysterious cipher transcribed from the fragment offers a clue to an older mystery that may validate the Gates legend.

The trail leads on to the titular “Book of Secrets”, a shadowy volume for Presidents' eyes only that Riley claims holds the answers to dozens of mysteries from prehistoric America to Area 51. Ben all-but kidnaps the President to ask him for access to the Book, but unexpectedly it is not the Secret Service but Wilkinson who nabs the group. They quickly find their lives, as well as the Gates family name, depend on foiling Wilkinson's scheme to affix his name to the greatest pre-Columbian discovery of all time.

The action of the film skillfully highlights the thematic focus of the film: the value of reputation and relationships, and how both may have life-or-death implications. Ben’s desire to redeem his ancestor’s good name drives the story. Later on, he appeals to the President’s honesty to gain access to the Book, and pledges his own word of honor to gain Abigail’s release from Wilkinson. Ben's assurance in the innocence of Thomas Gates, and his willingness to risk all to prove it, is based on his trust in his ancestors’ honesty. The restoration of trust in Ben and Abigail's relationship is integral to the story as well, underscored by a parallel reconciliation between Patrick and his estranged wife Emily (Helen Mirren).

Historical purists will probably prefer the first film, as the plot of its sequel leaves documentary history early on and leaps from conspiracy to conspiracy with gleeful abandon. Detective fans may wish for a tighter mystery. Overall, though, Book of Secrets hangs together very well and improves on the first film in many ways. While there are a few suggestive lines and spooky moments, more than the first film, the filmmakers have succeeded very well in reprising their family-friendly action thriller with a historical twist. The cynicism sometimes seen in National Treasure has been replaced by a welcome emphasis on heroism and nobility in the sequel, the constant repartee is back, and yes, there is a hook for the next sequel, if you can find it.

IHS,

John Calvin Young

The Filmmakers' Night Before Deadline

Sometime last Tuesday or Wednesday night, mired deep in the middle of the edit for A True Patriot, poetical lines of frustration began seeping into my mind around my concentration. I took a few minutes off to write them down, and it quickly morphed into the Filmmakers' Night Before Deadline. Thankfully not EVERYTHING in the poem happened to me this time, but a good bit of it did...including multiple power failures due to a bad AC power adapter during the edit and ...

It's rather rough, and some of the lines don't really scan, but this is more-or-less just as I wrote them down. With no further ado...

Twas the night before deadline, and all through the house,
Every timeline was rolling, and I burned out my mouse.
The titles were perfect, animated with care,
But the effects shots were not--in fact far from fair.

I was still up; could not go to bed,
Visions of transparency danced in my head.
When I the spacebar to output did tap,
My camera decided to take a short nap.

Then from my laptop the hard drive did clatter,
After Effects had eaten the RAM and crunched on my platter.
I sprang to my desk and quick as a flash,
Shut down iTunes for the fast final dash.

As soon as free resources had hit a new low,
The circuit overloaded and my power strip did blow!
Thank God for Autosave; my files were fine;
My nerves were not--I 'bout lost my mind.

My rendering sure wasn't moving too quick,
Time, on the other hand, was continuing to tick.
Faster than sound the deadline approached,
But then I remembered how I'd been coached:

"Bake cookies!" I shouted up, "Raisin!"
"Chocolate, Oatmeal," to tempt the mailman!
Let me print up the cover, clean up that shot,
Finish my render, and you'll have the lot!...

Hope this helps relieve some stress for a filmmaker rapidly approaching a deadline!

IHS,

John Calvin Young

Completed Project: "Richard Caswell: A True Patriot"

Friday noon we shipped off A True Patriot to the first competition we're entering it in--we were racing to complete it before the deadline. After four 8AM-to-midnight days of editing, studio recording, and post-production, we finally exported it out to tape Friday AM. This is the first film I've shot in widescreen, and I really enjoyed the experience. I learned a lot while DPing and editing this film, as it has been a step beyond anything we've ever shot before. Shooting interviews/narration is especially hard as well--when you are both the narrator and the one lighting and shooting the scene.

The film will probably be released on DVD sometime late this spring, but I may be able to put together a short trailer before then. Hopefully a website and pictures will follow as well, but I'm already getting tied up in my next project...

IHS,

John Calvin

My Daughter's Dates

I know this is late, but here is our film...it's taken me this long to catch up on sleep...



It was great working with everybody on the project: Paul and Sheilah Munger, Ryan Bruce, and Chuck Fultz, plus the cast. The film website is at www.mydaughtersdates.com. We placed 18th out of 71 entries in the rankings by points but in the first couple of days up we were #2 in total views...not sure where we are now. Hope you enjoy it!

In His Service,

John Calvin Young

Another 1 AM Post

I'm sitting here at 1 AM with three other great brothers in Christ working over the script for our entry in the Christian Filmmakers.org 24-hour film contest. Unfortunately, the majority opinion of the team holds that I can't even disclose the title 6 hours before we get the security elements for the shoot. Ah well. $500 top prize, 24 hours, four laptops, a desktop and a XL-2...plus a great crew of Christian guys and girls... it's going to be an interesting Saturday. Off to bed now--if I can get a wifi connection on set I may be able to post some updates during the day.

In His Service,

John Calvin Young

Film Shoot + Life = Stress & Sleep Deprivation

Ohh...It's 1 AM here at the Studios, and I and my brother are deep in the throes of Film Shoot Eve-itis. You've all been through this before, and will recognize the symptoms--red-rimmed eyes at 9 AM on-set, the D.P. (me) falling asleep standing straight up, and...storyboards that made "perfect" sense at the time, but will probably look like a script for "America's Funniest Home Videos" come daylight. There's a mic shockmount that needs to be fixed, software which needs to be reinstalled, and the final storyboards to finish before we go to bed. And that's with approximately 5 hours and 17 minutes until we HAVE to be up in the morning to leave for the shoot. Thankfully this is only a short project, but it seems the simpler the project, the closer the deadline... I guess I'll post more information later, including some fantastic shots from our trench set for the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge that we shot last week. Teaser: it includes a live-firing field gun and muskets. Right now I just need to get the storyboards approved and make a decision about the shockmount before we go to our belated rest...and we'll leave the rest in the Lord's hands.

IHS,

John Calvin