Film: Do Something Different

Intro

Connect Church was preparing for one of their main yearly events and needed a powerful testimony film to play during the service.

Challenge

Connect Church knew they wanted to tell Stephen Douthit’s story, and after an initial pre-interview it was clear his story was interesting and had a lot of depth. The two main challenged were how to tell this story in a unique way that didn’t feel like “every other testimony”, and how to structure his complex story in a way that flowed well.

Approach

From the beginning we wanted to approach the story a little differently stylistically - both to differentiate it from other testimonies and also to create a world that made sense to the story.

To do this we filmed the main interview with Stephen looking directly at the camera but from his perspective he was looking at the interviewer (Lisa.) We used a contraption called an eyedirect that is essentially two mirrors that allow the person behind the camera to look at the person in front of the camera. This style of interview was extremely effective, and makes the viewer feel that much more connected to the character and feel the emotion in an even more tangible way.

Another main approach was developing the story by themes instead of a chronological timeline of Stephen’s life. The film had several chapters of different themes that defined his life and how one theme affected or lead to another. This approach was also very effective and fit the story well.

Results

The film was shown on the church’s large led wall and was very impacting. There was a great response to the piece, with lots of comments from the viewers.