I really know very little about acting. My only time in front of a camera was to drive a truck up to a curb so a small dog could jump into it. But I did direct our six Modern Parables films and we regularly get complimented on the good acting. To set the record straight, I am not responsible for the good acting: the actors are. Yet the process of directing six unique films back-t0-back with over 60+ different actors gave me some helpful insight for directing actors in front of a camera. We’re about to shoot a short film on marriage roles in a few weeks, and the casting and rehearsal process has gotten me thinking about how to get good performances on film, so I thought I’d give my two cents on it. If you’re an experienced director, this will be elementary and not worth reading; but if you’re not, perhaps you might find something useful in it. [click to continue…]
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As I continue to read on family worship for our next curriculum series, I often run across books that are particularly good. 
I recently finished a draft of a screenplay for a short film on the roles of men and women in marriage. (We’re doing it for a family ministry to use in a new curriculum they’re developing.) One of their ideas was to use dancing as a metaphor for roles in marriage. I thought it was a good idea, so I tried to build the entire story around it. I set it in a ballroom dancing class for adults, and the more I pushed the metaphor, the better it seemed to work. By the end, it had become a multi-dimensional (if simple) exploration of the roles of men and women in relationships, including some of the ups and downs that go with them. What I did wasn’t anything new – it’s a method as old as literature – but I think it could be a useful approach to dimensionalizing complex and potentially abstract ideas in film. In literary terms, it’s called a 
