I am a big supporter of new media and the tremendous potential it has for storytelling. The possibilities of creating, telling and sharing stories across multiple platforms really turns me on. In my other life as an Associate Creative Director for an ad agency, I had championed cross-channel ideas for client brands during most pitches and creative sessions. I believe transmedia storytelling is a great way to give an audience a deeper look into the world and content of the story idea as a whole.
With THE BLACK CHURCH project, what I am doing is building a film idea organically. From the ground up. What I want to do is give the audience a glimpse into the backstory of the film world we are creating FIRST. It’s a way to bring the universe and world of the Black Church into focus and engage an audience in different ways right from the beginning; even before the feature film is screened. Could be a short film, could be web content, could be a web site, could be a traditional Mexican folk song, could be a wiki page; could be anything we create that tells the story and breathes life into the idea. This way, we don’t have to rely only on the film itself to do all the heavy lifting to tell all the nuances of what has happened in the past. It will give us all a larger canvas which to paint our story on. It will give an audience more of the story to become engaged in.
So the photographs I took that I’ve been sharing were taken as my production team and I have begun shooting on-location the first layers of THE BLACK CHURCH’s content. Content that will be used and put together to begin to lay the foundation of the mythology and folklore of the Black Church itself.
What I am also doing is getting myself unstuck. As artists, we all have the tendency to get in our own way. I have the habit of over thinking my ideas to the point where the momentum grinds to a screeching halt. With the Black Church, I am tackling it like a painter would a new canvas. A few splotches here and a few there and then over time… I’ll see what I end up with. I want to build it organically and in the moment. I want it to be shorthand. Basically what I am doing is building momentum and giving myself permission to just do the work no mater the outcome.
Wanted to share The Black Church Prelude. This original arrangement was created for The Black Church project by my friend and film composer Robert Hunt.
It’s in three parts “The Girl” / “The Priest” / “The Church” and it begins to capture and explore the moodiness and tone we are currently working and creating within.
Enjoy.
The way I like to approach a project is by initially creating various elements that inspire my storytelling and my creative process. Things I can use to translate the tone and emotion I am seeing and feeling into real-world elements. Music is such an inspiration to me and it’s usually what I hear first when creating.
I had tasked my good friend and composer Robert Hunt to take the moods and emotions I had begun playing with and create different pieces that captured that soul. This is the first of those musical arrangements.
I know. I know. Why become a fan of something you know nothing about?
Well… because it’s an interesting look into my creative process and how I try and shape something as I go along. It’s not social media mumbo jumbo like a lot of other people post about. You’ll see what aspects I am working on and thinking about.
Some set stills. Music arrangements. Production art. Location scout pictures. Actors I am thinking about. Just stuff you might find interesting.
One of the projects I am working on now is called THE BLACK CHURCH.
“The Black Church” is a psychological horror film that follows a priest, Miguel, who after being banished to a desolate parish in a dusty, Mexican village; finds himself gradually descending into the dark history of the cursed church that has claimed the sanity and lives of the priests that came before him.
We are hoping to shoot this feature film in early Fall in either Mexico, or out West in California, Arizona, or New Mexico. We are scouting locations as we speak.
What I am envisioning with the feature film is both poetic and dark in tone. A psychological horror film set amongst the natural beauty of the desert.
