Thoughts while my roommate is snoring

At synagogue, I sit next to the same couple every week. They're probably in their late thirties/early forties. The husband is a rather excessively rotund gentleman -- very, very large.
Throughout the Torah study every week, he holds her hand. They're always holding hands, and whispering little comments to one another. I say hi to them every week, and we hold petty little conversations, but their focus never extends too far beyond the scope of each other's interest.

I observe them and I wonder; what force on earth could possibly keep them this close-knit? What type of love is this? How could this have come to be that this odd couple is so profoundly attached to one another?

As we make this film, (and admittedly, it is a bleak film for the most part) I am constantly needing to remind myself what is at the core of our film. The answer is the same answer as to why the couple is so intensely attached to one another.

Paul states that three ideas remain forever, and are of utmost importance: faith, hope, and love. "But the greatest of these are love." Faith and hope are logical to me. For all intensive purposes, they are very pragmatic ideas. Faith keeps Christianity vital and refreshing, while hope forever bears an impenetrable optimism for the future. But love makes no sense.

God loved His creation, so He allowed Himself to be maligned, tortured, and murdered by that creation He loved. It doesn't make much sense. The sensible thing would be to exalt Christ, the only sinless man to ever walk the earth, the only truly righteous man. Yet, because He first loved us, He allowed His son to be denigrated instead.

"Does the Devil Doubt?" skims just the surface of asking God how He could possibly love us as individuals. Love makes no sense, and so we may question it. This is not an act of defiance, but rather, an admittance that love is so powerful and complex that it goes beyond all our abilities to reason.

DtDD is not a curse, or a proclamation against God, but an emotion-driven question of why God loves us -- or perhaps more intuitively, "How can God possibly love me?"

I believe that asking these questions will help us on our journey of sanctification, until the day when God's love will completely define our worth, and clothe us in mercy.

Back in Action!

I'm back and in full force. Both Rochelle and Kasey are online for production design and Rochelle has recommended a great property master.

Unfortunately, Saddleback Church does not have the room in their budget to financially support our film though they do support the film and have encouraged our passion.

I am definitely really excited to be apart of this project as it unfolds.

-Lee

communication

well, i'm here at my internship trying to get some work done on our project, but communication is stalled. we're trying to use this social/film networking site called rushcut.net that my friend justin anderson put together, but it's fairly difficult to navigate...

i really want to get cracking on the creative side of things but we're disconnected... ugh.

mmm... urgency

first of all, dante, i'm really liking this blog so far... the personality. the fact that we're having a discussion with each other framed in the third person...

i'm pretty stoked to work on 'does the devil doubt?' aside from allowing me much more opportunity to rebel against the proper conventions of capitalization, it is going to be a fantastic experience with a group of people i am happy to work with and/or get to know better.

'doubt' tackles issues that i have wrestled with, everything from doubting god to struggling with disaster to death of a friend. one thing i am exceedingly excited to work on-- hallucinations. i LOVE hallucination scenes. yes.

and by the way, dante, i did enjoy the changes in the new draft... do you think it's still improving?

My first post will be about....

...draft #8 of DtDD that I just finished.

In this rewrite I turned Elaine, the no-nonsense producer of David Brock's "Trinity!" into an excessively combative mirage in the final scene of the film. I gave her several curse words to spew out. The positive aspect of this rewrite is that it should bring a higher level of intensity to the last act of the film. The possible negative aspect is that it may a) clutter the final scene with yet another mirage of David's psyche and/or b) give the whole film a cruder feel that may cause people to focus less on the internal questions being asked and more on the external language.

I guess I'll just wait to see how Bradley reacts to the draft before we decide to scrap the new material or not.

Time keeps on ticking...