Alternatearts

Matt Seilback

Matt Seilback and his business partner John Pa (not related to Joe Pa, as far as I know) have recently ventured into film making.

I had a chance to view their very nice video promoting The Luminary Center for the Arts in St. Louis. After seeing it I had a few questions for Matt. In this interview, Matt discusses closet organizer supports doubling as sliders, the launch of Anastasis films, and the power of red boots…

Alternate Arts:  Most of the shots are dynamic in the video (pans, focus transitions, etc.) How purposeful are you about this during filming?

Matt: Very intentional. In fact, when I look over my footage after I’ve shot it, I inevitably am wishing I had a couple more still/tripoded shots. I like shots that move. And a lot of this has to do with the fact that I’m still at the early stages of my film career. Young film makers (or at least this one) often want to try and accomplish a ton of dynamism that can’t always be accomplished with the equipment that they own. But they can’t help continuing to try! (I made a cheap “slider” with a small tripod and closet organizer supports turned on their side. There are a ton of different ways to create these DIY rigs). Creating masterful moving shots is actually quite difficult. And it’s easy to overuse them. Even placing too much attention on focus pulls (bringing one section into focus and then another) can very quickly be overused. I’m working to strike a balance, but the truth of the matter is that sometimes a stable close up or wide shot just can’t be beat.

With that said, I think a sense of intimacy is easily gained from the active and dynamic documentary style. That’s mainly what I like about it. Movement often helps to evoke emotion.

Alternate Arts: Brea’s hand on the pole at 2:06 is emblematic of some of the naturalistic communication style that both James and Brea have. How aware of this were you during filming and did you make specific attempts to capture this?

Matt: I came up with this shot as Brea was walking around. I wasn’t sure if it would come off as cheesy, but I ended up really liking it and found a place where it could fit. Brea and James have a great contagious attitude about their hopes for this new building and I wanted to show a very real and tangible physical representation of this by emphasizing their tactile interaction with the place.

Alternate Arts: The montage of the Cherokee area captured a lot of color and was fairly vibrant. Could you speak of your use of color in this video?

Matt: That was really more by happenstance (providence) then anything. I just walked up and down Cherokee street and shot the stuff that I found. It’s a vibrant and revitalizing area. A lot of artists are drawn to the area. Most of the color came from a graffiti mural that I stumbled upon.

Alternate Arts: Speaking of color, Brea’s red boots and the chair she’s sitting on at 0.56 is a dead match. Luck or purposeful?

Matt: This one was a mix. John, my business partner, pointed out that we should film Brea in the photography room because she is a photographer herself and there was great lighting in the room at that precise moment that we were working our way through their current building and filming. The boots were what she wore that day. The luck part is that I didn’t realize how beautiful those boots looked in the shot until I was in the editing room sifting through the footage! It quickly became one of my favorite shots.

Alternate Arts: Is Anastasis Films a new venture for you? Can you tell me about it?

Matt: It is. It’s how I’m going to try and make a living (Lord willing). God graciously guided John Pa and I’s paths together to create this new film company. We are focused on telling people’s stories. Whether it be businesses, retired individuals, non-profits or (hopefully in the future) feature films–story is king. Our desire is to tell these stories in a beautiful and compelling manner. To capture the human experience in whatever little slices of the world that we can get our hands on. We have several proposals out there right now and are hoping (and praying) for some work to come in soon!

To learn more about Anastasis Films, and to view “The Luminary” go the vimeo at: http://vimeo.com/anastasisfilms

The most basic truth of art is that we create because we’re made in God’s image. It might also be the most controversial.

In a future blog I’ll suggest why this is.

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Having layers of depth made this one a shot worth trying. I also like all the crosses in the photo. You can try to count them, but don’t forget to add the cross formed by the steeple against the background railroad bridge.

Timing and desire. Here’s a a passage from Keith Richard’s book Life. Gus was his grandfather.

“Gus was leading me subtly into getting interested in playing, rather than shoving something into my hand and saying, “It goes like this.” The guitar was totally out of reach. It was something you looked at, thought about, but never got your hands on. I’ll never forget the guitar on top of his upright piano every time I’d go and visit, starting maybe from the age of five. I thought that was where the thing lived. I thought it was always there. And I just kept looking at it, and he didn’t say anything, and a few years later I was still looking at it. “Hey, when you get tall enough, you can have a go at it,” he said. I didn’t find out until after he was dead that he only brought that out and put it up there when he knew I was coming to visit. So I was being teased in a way. I think he studied me because he heard me singing.”

Tom Becker and his wife serve as hosts of The Row House, a household-based Christian community within the context of his local church. Think of Francis and Edith Schaeffer’s L’Abri as a row house in Lancaster City, Pennsylvania and you’ll get the basic concept. Tom is a fine writer and cultural observer,  in addition to being an all-around cool guy. Visit therowhouse.org for more about Tom and The Row House. The following is re-printed by permission.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks of the Apple Store as a sanctuary. Hushed wonder overcomes you as you step, hallowedly, into its circles of ever-denser holiness. Are you agnostic? Why not try it sometime? Been there already? Then you know what I mean!

Approach: The glass walls tell you something is brighter on the other side. You approach with anticipation of magical manipulations that dazzle your eyes and delight your fingertips. Perhaps John, Paul, George & Ringo welcome you. Or maybe it’s a giant iPhone. Nonetheless, you are allured by the profound cleanliness of  it all. It’s just the way Steve wants it: Bauhaus-like, lot’s of white space, simplicity, undergirded by magnanimous complexity and power.

Enter: You step through the first separation between mall and store, the uninterested and the willing, the mundane and the holy. Welcomed by an enthusiastic Blue Shirted pal (not a sales person), you are allowed to roam freely in the outer court which consists of limitless time for injesting the newly-roasted sacrifices: A table for iPads, the latest iPhone, and a vast array of daily offerings that will spoil (become obsolete) overnight.

The outer court is a playground, an aspect to Hebrew-Christian worship our culture has long forgotten. Feasts outnumber fasts in the Bible. Jesus wants his people to party, to play, to laugh.

Engage: Strolling “further up and further in,” as C.S. Lewis would say, you reach the help counters. Owners, users and inquirers gather around the Blue Shirts for religious dialogue about software, icons and tasks, all related to furthering the Mac Kingdom. Issues are resolved. Joys are completed. Most worshippers head straight out into the dark world to employ their latest tools, enlightened.

Further back is the Holy Place. Once in a while, like the Day of Atonement, the whole shebang has to be dealt with. Hence, The Genius Bar. Staffed by the inner circle of sanctified Blue Shirts and usually one Chief, magic machines are either traded in or hard re-set, bringing new life to the supplicants who can’t get a leg up without expert help.

Worship: As for the Holy of Holies, you notice a door on the left side that exits The Genius Bar. It leads to the technical guts of the House and is staffed by the elite few. No one goes in there but The Blue Shirt who knows, as it were, the mind of Steve. The Holy of Holies may or may not contain an ark with cherubim above it, guarding the God-fingered tablets of law, but it certainly is the closest thing we have to Cupertino itself in Amish land. A direct link to Apple itself. The door to heaven.

The High Priest: Steve Job gave us compelling reasons for joining the Apple religion. He preached with approachableness. He spoke to our God-wired bent toward glory, beauty and productivity.  The Bible never condemns idol worshippers because their gods are beautiful, handy or awesome. No, they are condemned because they take the elements of creation, that is, good things, and make them lords. And the funny thing about created things is they make wonderful servants. And people make wonderful friends. But they both make terrible gods. The make gods of us, and we suck at what good gods should do: Love people.

I don’t know much about Mr. Jobs, though I intend to read Walter Isaacson’s seminal biography about him soon. He will be missed at Apple, but I wonder, will we see his contribution for what it is? I mean, must we make an idol of him or his machines? After all, it’s public knowledge that  Steve could be roughshod, nasty, and plain old weird in relating to people. The latest Edison? The Wittenberg for a new Millennia? (“Hey, what about me? I’m Bill Gates, and I do great things and act weird too, you know!). In the end, he’s just a dude, and he died, just like I will. You will too. What, then?

Despite what our culture wants to make of Jobs, I think the ancient faith conveyed to us by generations of witnesses ought to fire our imaginations even more than his relics of technology. As the late Francis A. Schaeffer would often tell his students in regard to any cultural advancement or religious contribution: They are fine as far as they go. They are rooted in God’s reality. But they are limited. They merely point to a bigger Story.

The most significant reality is that Jesus is Lord. He, therefore, can get us further than Cupertino. His crucifixion on the Roman “technology” of death secured an atonement with a holy God who is really there. His resurrection broke open heaven and is the down payment on an overhaul of the cosmos that dwarfs anything any genius can do to affect change in culture.

I’ve been a Mac user since 2000, and will likely never turn back. I’m typing on my Lion-breathed MacBook presently. I can’t afford to be a gobbler of each new product, but I totally dig Job’s design language and interface obsession. And I enjoy the Mac Store. I’m just giving us a little reality check.

There is a tabernacle in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. I’m pretty sure you can enter it without going to the Mall.

Hope McKeever provides some fine viewpoints on “needs,” based on her experiences in Cameroon and elsewhere.  Can’t say for sure, but it sounds like Hope is suggesting that, not only does the Lord meet us as the highest point of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the Lord is, in fact, the provider and sustainer all the way through…

We were created with needs. Food, drink, shelter, and clothing. These crucial needs define our lives. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. They don’t receive a headline in the paper or a news story on the BBC website only to be watched or read. They are forgotten. Death’s cloak is slipped over their innocent bodies unheard of by the outside world. Their cries are muted by the bustle of society. Globalissues.org states that nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. The statistics are endless. Humanity constantly suffers from needs.

Every individual on this planet also has unquenchable needs. Needs for love, acceptance, power, and respect. Family, friends, and political positions all aid in filling the void that these needs produce. We strive to have these needs fulfilled. That is why humans create countless distractions and ways to overlook these needs. From my history of living on three diversely different continents, I have a need in my soul for belonging. My friends are faithful, yet they do not fully understand my history. Living overseas is all that I have ever known. It is not a feat that I have accomplished. It is a childhood past that haunts my existence and my dreams at night. I will never be the care-free, barefooted, African-American girl with long braided hair and a mud stained face that I once was. I have had to learn over the years how to take my past and apply it to my future instead of wallowing in my past. This idealized version of my childhood, created by my dreams, results in a longing in my heart to give to the starving children that I used to hear banging on my gate, but now hear crying on sugar coated news stories.

Reflecting on my experience in Cameroon, West Africa, I have come to the conclusion that the poorest Cameroonians are the individuals with the biggest hearts. They have nothing to lose by giving. My family’s village father or chief in North West Cameroon spent an entire month’s salary for a dinner of rice, sodas, and meat for my family and I. He sacrificed his family’s needs to provide for friends. What I have also come to realize is that the richest people on earth are the coldest. The thought of giving their hard-earned earthly inheritance to others who have not worked the same way to earn their income is unthinkable.

My uncle is a multimillionaire. When my parents were raising support to leave for the missions field, they did not receive a single penny of his money. My parents’ decision to leave for Africa was seen by my entire extended family as a mistake because they were not earning a high salary. My parents gave up their comfort zone to serve people that needed hope. My experiences in Cameroon could never be traded in for all the Coach purses or diamond rings in the entire world. My observation that the poor in this world are the richest in love leads me to believe that all needs are unable to be quenched by earthly solutions.

I am constantly hungry for satisfaction that is intangible by earthly means. Every need points to a greater need and longing for God. In John chapter four, Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan woman at a well.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

The woman’s need for water points to a greater need for the water of life. The eternal satisfaction that God offers does not compare to the frail needs that constantly overwhelm our lives. Earthly wells dry out; however, the springs of eternal life do not. When we come to Christ on our bruised knees with human needs, he reveals to us our true need and hunger for a relationship with our creator. Our inevitable sin shows us a deep need for the grace of God.

God knows that if he constantly grants our human needs, we will be hungry again. Our earthly bodies are an example of this. We are never fully satisfied physically. Even elvish lembas bread wears off after one day. No make believe cuisine or food that can be obtained in the frozen section of our local grocery store can fulfill the hunger in our souls.

Just as the Samaritan’s need for water points to a greater need for the water of eternal life, my need for belonging points to a greater need for a heavenly home with Jesus. Through my family’s counsel, I came to realize that no place on this planet can satisfy my deep need for a heavenly home with my Savior. This is a point that my frail emotions do not understand. Although my earthly brain cannot comprehend the reasons why God put this unending trial before me, my soul leans on the grace and assurance of God’s never ending faithfulness to carry me through my overwhelming life. Jesus knows how to challenge me so that my earthly needs are constantly pointing to him.

Kia Lockett is originally from Philadelphia and now a student at Millersville University. She shares her perspectives on movies and television at Kia’s 2 cents.

I think most Christian films are a slap in the face, especially to non-Christians. They slam Christianity on you and it can make you feel like you’re being attacked. They basically tell you that you are a bad person unless you read the Bible and go to church. The way they present the Christian faith isn’t done well. People don’t want to feel attacked; they just want to be entertained, and it’s nice if they learn something in the process.

I also think that these films are very predictable and unrealistic. Most Christian films that I’ve seen follow the outline of someone’s life that is not going according to their plan. They get “right” with God or become a Christian, and then all the good things they want to happen, happen. Now, being a Christian I know that this doesn’t always happen. Yes, God does bless us but it doesn’t always happen right away, or it’s not always what we expect it to be.

The other outline that Christian films follow is the Prodigal Son story. This is where someone grows up in the church, then they stray from the church and that life isn’t what they expected it to be. Once they realize this, they go back to the church and everything is good again. I’ve seen this happen in real life, but it doesn’t happen in everyone’s life. This is what makes these films unrealistic as well. I have also noticed that most Christian films don’t touch on topics like drinking, drugs, sex, etc., which does happen in the real world. Now, I guess this would depend on the person making the film and how they feel about these issues, but these are important issues that aren’t really addressed in Christian films as often as they need to be.

If I were to make a Christian film, I would focus on the problems facing many people today. I wouldn’t follow the same guidelines previous films used. I would try to make it as realistic as possible by mimicking daily life as accurately as possible. I would focus on the many problems people are facing today and include Biblical ways to overcome these problems. Basically, the only way to overcome any situation you are in is with God and I would make that very clear in my films. I would also make them in a way that both Christians and non-Christians can learn from without feeling like they are being attacked.

Some people who I feel have done this well are Tyler Perry with his many films like Why Did I Get Married?, Deitrick Haddon with his film Blessed and Cursed, and Brian Baugh with his film To Save a Life.

Steve Jobs did it all and fascinated us every step of the way. His entrepreneurial skill, creative spirit, and insistence on excellence impacted almost every aspect of our technological lives.

And yet, of all the things that Jobs accomplished, what will last? Not just for the next years, decades, or even centuries. But forever.

My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun

Long after the diodes die, the integrated chips chip, and the screen loses its touch, what lasts?

Jobs was a creative marketing genius. We will greatly miss him and his extraordinary vision.

But, as Jobs slips into eternity, we as creative individuals would be wise to remember these words, still flowing to us across millennia…

“And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Creating something when you have skin in the game – when you are sacrificing something to do it – is like walking off a cliff onto a wide plank. As you go forward, the plank becomes a balance beam 4 inches wide and you get scared. Then the beam becomes a rope and you have to keep walking across to get to the other side, but you feel like you’re going to fall off any moment. The rope becomes string, then a thread. It turns dark, and you hope to heaven you can make it.

 

when i get home, i’ll write you a sonnet
but i haven’t left yet

when i get home, i’ll sing you a song
and wrap it around your finger

you’ll hear the mountain lion’s roar
as it echoes in the valley

you’ll see the fleeing eagle
as she brings food to her young

you’ll see the sky split and thunder
when i come home

when i get home, i’ll write you a sonnet
but i haven’t left yet…