Where's my blackberry?

Saturday morning required an early start for the aCross Creation film crew. A 5:00 a.m. wake up to be exact. We knew we needed to arrive at Bridal Veil Falls close to first light because by mid-morning, especially on a Saturday, it would be packed with people. As much as we like to share with others about aCross Creation it really is easier to film without an audience. The early wake up along with our scouting work on Thursday afternoon created great success. We didn't see another hiker until we were wrapping up the shoot about 10:00 a.m.

Amy and Nannette Berg were troopers and joined us for the early morning start and we, of course, put them to work. They also brought their dog, Jackson. I don't think he made it into any of the footage on Saturday but he was also around the shoot at the O-Zone Friday afternoon (sorry I forgot to mention that Bubba) and he was probably caught on film there. You can look for him when that episode is used in worship at Woodland on February 27, 2011.

Bridal Veil Falls, though only an easy 1/3 of a mile hike from the parking lot, is a wonderfully secluded and lush locale. It looks like Oregon is supposed to look with a rocky river, a pounding waterfall, ferns and moss covering everything, plenty of shade and cool. Along with being an ideal spot for the episode it was a great place to hang out for the morning. An extra bonus was the name. The meditation was about the nature of love and I used a passage from the Song of Solomon which tells the story of two enraptured lovers. Greg couldn't get over how appropriate it was that we were at a place called "Bridal Veil."

As has become the custom, filming went very smoothly (not that it's fast, you understand, just smooth. This is still at least 3 hours of work on location). We found a good way to tell a short "story" with the video footage even while I was making the preaching point. When we filmed our first episode on the banks of the Arkansas river a year ago none of us really understood how important it would be to have props or interactive elements. We are learning. I can see now that in order to capitalize on the power of using video for preaching we need to have more than me standing still and talking in front of a beautiful backdrop. Because of the medium we can tell the viewers things without having to say them. The better we do that, the more impact the episodes will have.

While we were working away, Nannette took Jackson for a little exploring and found bushes full of wild blackberries. Never mind the fact that they were on property owned by the railroad and access required scooting around a locked gate. Never mind, I said! When Amy Berg heard the words "wild blackberries" she was off like a shot with a small pan in hand to go picking. I followed her and braved the thorns to collect enough blackberries for a post-filming treat for the crew. They were sooooo good. So good in fact that we had to go back for a second pan full to take home. Berg promised me she would make blackberry scones later. And those scones were worth every scrape I got picking the berries.

The work done, the berries eaten, it was time to take a photo of the whole crew and then part ways. I was off to have a few days of vacation and a few more lattes with my friends. Martzes and Sullivans were off to explore Oregon for a bit before heading home to Wichita. It was great to have time to relax and do important Portland things, like visit Powell's, before returning to Kansas.

It has been a great year working on aCross Creation. We have filmed 19 usable episodes (and three unusable ones). I have grown creatively, personally and spiritually by working on this series. I have been repeatedly surprised by grace and bowled over by the support we have received. And I know the best is coming because starting Sept 12 we will finally be sharing aCross Creation with the people we have had in mind all along, congregations and those exploring Christian discipleship. To that end, pray for Greg, would you? He has hours and hours of editing work ahead of him in the weeks to come to deal with all this footage we have been collecting in the past 12 months. Better pray for Janet too, while you are at it.

If you are in Wichita, dear reader, I invite you to come worship at "Daybreak" (starting Sept 12 at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday at Woodland United Methodist Church, 1100 W 15th St N) to see aCross Creation for yourself. If you can't come to worship, stay tuned. We still have quite a bit of work to do to get the episodes ready for distribution to other churches and small groups, but we are working on it! I hope we will have our first release by February.

Thanks for reading all about the Oregon trip, please pass this blog address on to anyone you know who might be interested. Next up, tales of me standing in a sunflower field Labor Day weekend.

Peace.

Belay On!

Once again on Friday we had a slow start to the morning. It was so odd to sleep past sunrise two days in a row during aCross Creation work that I began to wonder if I was still working with Greg Sullivan...

We took our time because the business of the morning was riding in a float plane on the Willamette River, docked just half a block from where we were staying. Steve Martz, our accomplished pilot and flight instructor took a turn in the plane first, getting a lesson of his own and logging the new experience of taking off and landing on water. After Steve's lesson was done Greg and Janet had an aerial tour of Portland. We had hoped to get some footage from the air to add to the Oregon videos but cool weather and a less than cooperative pilot made that difficult (not Steve, the owner of the plane). After the plane business was complete we drove into Portland to meet up with my dear friend Amy Berg. For lunch she had promised to take us to "all the latest rage in Portland" which proved to be a parking lot full of food carts. There were too many good choices and it was easy to see why the picnic tables between the carts were full of people.

Full of good food we headed off to the filming location for the day: a rock climbing hot spot called the O-Zone. It was on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge and not too far outside of Vancouver, WA. We met up with two friends of Amy's (Amy Berg's that is...don't get confused by multiple Amys) Drew and Karen who were more experienced rock climbers.

It's a good thing that I had planned in my meditation to talk about how poor my rock climbing skills are because, guess what? They are REALLY poor. To be fair the climb Karen set up was a 5.9 (That's on the Yosemite Decimal System, translation: hard for a novice). I had never even attempted a 5.9 route before. I've had limited success on 5.6 and 5.7 climbs and this one was, obviously, a lot harder. I asked Greg to try and make it look as if I was high in the air by adjusting his camera shot. I hope he managed it because truth be told, I never got above 5 or so feet off the ground. Even when Drew showed me how he made the first 4 moves up the rock, and he showed me in flipflops without a rope, I still couldn't get past the first few holds.

The setting was beautiful (do I even need to say that any more?) and Karen and Drew were excellent climbers, providing us with good footage of people ACTUALLY rock climbing. Amy Berg wasn't too shabby herself.

One exciting moment came when I was scrambling up to a ledge (not roped in, I might add. I got higher without being attached to safety gear) and dropped my part of the wireless microphone. Down it tumbled past the film crew and into the forest, down the slope toward the Columbia River as we all just stood and watched. A nearby climber must have heard the commotion because he sauntered down the path, scrambled through the trees and found it, pack, battery and battery cover in all. He acted like it was no big deal to help out, that's the ethic around rock climbing, it's one big community.

We finished filming in time to get cleaned up and grab a coffee before heading to dinner. Next time you see a member of the film crew congratulate them on getting down the trail to this filming location (and back out to the car). That in itself required some rock-scrambling skills, it was a 5.3 at the least!

Thanks for reading of our travels. But we aren't done yet! There is one more day of Oregon Adventure to come.

Coffee, Peaches, Flies.

Thursday morning of the Oregon adventure began sloooooowly, which seemed to be the preference of all the crew. Our task for the morning was to find a picturesque section of the Pacific Crest Trail to film. Considering the trail travels the entire length of Oregon from south to north and considering Oregon is BEAUTIFUL, it was not really a difficult task.

Janet (the travel guru) had found an access point for the trail near Lolo pass. It was indeed beautiful, with minimal traffic and a great view of Mt Hood! Like any high mountain, Hood can "make its own weather" and a few clouds obscured the peak all morning. But it was still a great backdrop for part of the episode.

Filming went well though it took a while as we hiked further and further down the trail for each successive scene. We also had several interruptions to reapply bug spray as the mosquitoes that had haunted us at the Chapel the Spruce in CO returned. And they brought their friends, the flies. Greg said at one point a fly flew so close to the camera lens that it looked like a bat. There were many retakes to try an get an insect free version of each scene.

Along with being insectville, this shoot was actually rather hot, probably because of the direct sunlight and lack of any wind. I was wearing a backpack for much of the time since I was talking about...well...backpacking. Backpack+hot day+no wind=sweat. Lots of sweat. My film crew kept telling me that my sweat stained shirt was a sign of authenticity. I just thought it was gross. I sure hope they were right. So with the sweat and flies, there will be no doubt that this episode was shot outside instead of in a cushy studio with green screen.

About half way through our work two hikers came down the trail, moving at a pretty fast clip. We asked how much of the trail they were hiking and they said the whole thing! They had started at the California/Mexico border 10 weeks ago and weren't going to stop until they reached the Washington/Canada border. Considering only a handful of people thru-hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail each year I was astounded that we were in the right place at the right time to meet them. Not that they stopped to chat or anything. You don't walk 2650 miles in one summer by dawdling.

We wrapped up filming by 3pm and headed to Government Camp for lunch, which was long past due. The Ice Axe Grill turned out to be a perfect place to rest and refuel. It also provided my first latte of the trip. How I made it more than 24 hours in Oregon without a latte is still a mystery.

Our original hope was to film a second episode that afternoon but time was quickly running out. We decided to head north and scout out the waterfall location we would need but wait until Saturday morning to actually film the episode. This turned out to be genius planning because we were able to get lots of bonus footage while having a little more time to explore the waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge without the pressure of needing to get an episode filmed.

Our drive north did provide a quick peek at Mt Adams and also the beautiful scenery of local vineyards and orchards. One orchard looked too good to pass up so we stopped to purchase some fresh fruit. The peaches were divine. And I say that as a religious professional.

After the snack break we headed west along the Columbia River Gorge, and turned onto the Historic Highway which is wonderfully maintained by the forest service. We stopped first at Horsetail falls, beautiful but much too close to the highway to be a good filming location. A short but steep hike up the side of the gorge took us to Pontytail falls, actually just an upper portion of the same river as Horsetail Falls. Ponytail is a unique waterfall though because the trail actually travels behind the water spray.

After leaving Horsetail Falls we took a quick stop at Multnomah Falls to grab some bottled water and then drove a few more miles to Bridal Veil falls. Hiking just a few minutes down the trail we knew that Bridal Veil was the perfect spot for Saturday's shoot. It was a great discovery since we were out of waterfalls and also out of daylight.

We drove home and after a light dinner of fruit (mmmmm peaches) and cheese we called it a night.

And to think, there are two more days of Oregon Adventure to come!

aCross Creation is in ministry with Woodland United Methodist Church. Episodes will be shown at Woodland's "Daybreak" service, 9:30 Sunday mornings starting September 12

Portlandia

Having the thermometer register 108 and 109 the two days before we left, it wasn't very hard to get on a plane and head to the West Coast for more aCross Creation work. I must say that the Sullivans are master packers. They had all the equipment organized as efficiently and securely as possible for our air travel. Add that to the long list of their skills. If you ever find yourself stuck in a "how-will-this-all-fit-into-the-car" moment, I suggest you call Janet.

Thanks to the time change flying west we landed at the Portland airport at 10:00 a.m. meaning we had plenty of daylight for filming. After checking into our rental house in Oregon City and grabbing lunch we headed to the coast, about a two hour drive from the Portland metro.

By law the entire beach along the Oregon Coast is public. No part of it can be blocked off or designated for private use only. Since the focus of the episode was on the Pacific Ocean we had miles and miles of coast line to find the best spot. We chose to film at Cannon Beach, near the picturesque "Haystack Rocks." They added some good contrast to what was an otherwise dreary and gray scene. It was overcast the entire afternoon and evening, not unusual for the Pacific Northwest, even in summer.

This is obviously not a sunbathing beach but we were far from alone. Though we walked down the beach and away from most of the crowd we were still interrupted by the occasional bicyclers, joggers and curious people who were strolling down to look at the recently beached sea lion corpse near us (and no, he will not be featured in the episode). The traffic did give members of the film crew plenty of opportunity to pass out aCross Creation business cards. The small cards turned out to be a very handy way to explain the series. Janet and Anita even talked at length to one man who is a member of "The Woodlands" United Methodist Church in Houston. Oddly we met a family from the same church at Paradise Divide in Colorado last month (though with thousands of members at that church I doubt they were friends.) Lesson learned: Texans are everywhere.

Most of the beach traffic was well controlled but as we shot scene two, I was busy preaching away when I noticed that Greg and Janet were failing miserably at stifling their laughter. I turned around to see some goof running backwards behind me, in full view of the camera. Later footage revels he turned around just as he came into view, oblivious of us or anyone else. I hope he had a good workout. We will save a prime place for him and his ridiculousness in our outtake reel.

We shot a few scenes right at the ocean's edge. I had thought the tide was going out but either I was wrong or it changed as we were filming because more than once we were sent scrambling up the beach to keep dry. The waves weren't that fierce and I didn't mind being in calf-deep water but it was COLD and I didn't particularly want to fall over and get drenched. Everyone but Steve had on sandals though, so we dried out quickly. Perhaps we should get some sponsorship money from Keen shoes, they seem to be the perfect footwear aCross Creation.

We wrapped up filming by 6pm or so (make that 8pm Wichita time) and headed up to Cannon Beach (the city) to find dinner. Our quest was for seafood, obviously, and we found the perfect spot where Janet and Greg could feast on crab while Steve, Anita and I enjoyed fresh salmon. After the drive east we arrived back at the house a little sandy and a lot tired after the long day of travel and work. I was so thankful to be in beautiful Oregon and excited about the days to come.

Many, many thanks to Steve Martz who is responsible for all the pictures posted on this blog. He really does come on these trips, I promise, but we rarely have pictures of him because he is always documenting!

Coming up...reports of days 2 thru 4!