“You will be my witnesses”

Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Photo by Nathan Jones

This past week I was in Santiago, Chile, helping Jeff Raymond, James Dockery, and Bill Bangham lead the Storytellers Abroad Multimedia Missions Workshop. We were working each day from getting up at 7:00 am until well after midnight each day.

Bill Bangham, Jeff Raymond, James Dockery, & Stanley Leary. Photo by Allison Bayse
Acts 1:8
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I believe we trained the storytellers to be the best witnesses to what they had seen and heard of each person they were assigned to capture.

Jennifer Nelson interviews Julian Pizarra at his church Iglesia Baptist Comunidad Cristiana in Los Ciruelos. RuthAnn Rogers is an ABWE missionary helping us with transportation to the church. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 4500, 1/200, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

The week started with each workshop participant [Storytellers] doing pre-interviews with their subjects to get the story they would later capture on camera/video.

I was teaching the class that you shouldn’t record the video interview until you had a pretty good idea of the storyline. The reason is then you would have a much longer discussion from which you had to transcribe all that content to dig for a story.

Dave Rogers sits in front of the camera to do translation while Michael captures the interview. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 14400, 1/200, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 105)]
Michael, Jaime Palma, & ABWE Missionary Dave Rogers [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 10000, 1/100, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 42)]

Friendships with the subjects we were telling their stories, and the translators and missionaries were being created throughout the week.

Bill Bangham is coaching Jennifer Nelson on her storyline. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 8000, 1/100, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 62)]

In my opinion, the best part of the week was the one-on-one or two-on-one coaching.

All the workshop storytellers are working hard to make the final touches before our showing to the missionaries who helped us produce these stories. Here is Bill Bangham, James Dockery, and Jennifer Nelson as they put the finishing touches on the video. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 3200, 1/100, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 28)]

We also went on location with each workshop participant to give directions.

Courtney Gille with the children that are part of the story she is working on at Santiago Christian Academy. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 2000, 1/100, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 35)]

The weather in Santiago, Chile, was winter while we were there.

The group coming back after eating dinner one night. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 51200, 1/10, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 32)]
Cole Buchanan gets a B-Roll from pastor Rodrigo Cisternas. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/160, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

We spent much time in the field and even more sitting in front of the computers, organizing and editing the projects.

Michael listens to James Dockery as he teaches some of the settings we use in Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the projects. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 14400, 1/100, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

When we were trying to output some of the projects to make the final movie, we ran into problems with the software. I had not seen those particular errors before. This is when having one of the senior editors for ESPN, James Dockery, as part of the teaching team made a huge difference.

Cole Buchanan, the translator they had working with them, and James Dockery. This is at showing the rough-cut videos to the missionaries and subjects that participated this week in capturing the stories. [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 7200, 1/100, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

Please stay tuned for the final videos. I will share them here when we have finished making the final edits.

We believe that packing all we could into one week on the field is worth the effort. We believe “we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.