Behind The Scenes of 'When I Became a Christian'
This is a shot of downtown Minneapolis from Lake Como.
Profile shot of Mike with the sun falling on the right side of his face.
Mike in this shot is expressing how he is tortured by his past.
A drone shot capturing a perfect reflection off the lake with a light fog.
“When I Became a Christian” is a short, spoken word video that was our entry into the 2020 ‘Film Your Faith Contest’. Unfortunately we were not selected as finalists, but we want to put it on our website for people to enjoy. Mike Kelly is a talented spoken word artist based right here in Minnesota, and we had such a fun time working with him on this project. Making this video was fun and challenging. Even though we are disappointed with the results of the contest, it was still a rewarding experience.
Mike and I made a different spoken word video for a project at our jobs at Friendship Church. Working with Mike is fantastic for two reasons. One, he is very talented at writing and performing his craft; it is always fun to work with a fellow creative. The other reason he’s great to work with is that he is an audio professional, something that he is more familiar with than I am. He played a big role in how we recorded the audio and how the audio was mixed for the video.
The location of this shoot was crucial. I knew I wanted to have the feel of a Twin Cities metro suburb, but in a place where I knew I was able to fly the drone legally. We thought about some places like Lake Harriet, Theodore Wirth Park, or Tower Hill Park, but for various reasons none of those would work for the desired feel of our video. I used to live near Como Lake and I remembered how scenic it was and that there was a little peninsula that was just a foot high from the water to walk out on. I checked to see if I could fly my drone there and I got the green light for takeoff!
Our first attempt at filming this video took place on a Sunday afternoon over Labor Day weekend. I wanted to hit shoot during evening golden hour that day and hoped that the crowd at this public park would be limited. After navigating various road construction barriers around the park, I met up with Mike and headed out towards the peninsula. For a video like this, I need to get 2 takes of the same performance from a straight-on angle and a side angle. Despite the number of people that were there, we got 2 full takes of his performance without any interruptions. However, the wind was blowing very hard so flying the drone was out of the question. Additionally, a family was struggling to board a paddle boat was just off to our side, so trying to get extra b-roll of Mike and the lake would not produce the clean, quality shots I wanted. We decided to cut our losses and try again a different day.
Mike and I met again at about 6:30am on a cold Friday morning with the perfect weather conditions for our shoot. We got a nice, light, wispy fog on the lake with zero wind and no one was out to bother us while we were shooting. Lighting conditions were also ideal as the sun was creeping up on the horizon and was softly hitting the right side of Mike’s face. We had all the time and space we needed to shoot Mike’s performance, fly the drone, and get some additional b-roll shots of Mike.
When I got to the editing stage of the video, I wanted to use the drone footage I had wisely. I chose to use a couple of drone shots at the start to use as establishing shots and to draw in the viewer. When the music track hits its crescendo around the 1:14 mark, that’s when I wanted to give the viewer chills. I love the first drone shot here because of the light fog that’s on the Como Lake and the near perfect reflection the lake gives. Right before this sequence though I set it up with a couple shots of Mike walking down a sidewalk through a tunnel. I put a film grain effect overlaying the shot to give a grittier, more vintage look. I wanted this look to match his line, “tortured by my past” and the film grain effect was meant to convey the turmoil he experienced. I also had this effect on the last shot. To me, the lake represents Mike’s life being a follower of Christ and the reason I decided to put the film grain on the final shot was for style and also to represent that there are still struggles a Christian faces even after they made the decision to follow Christ.
Even though we didn’t win the video contest, it was still fun and rewarding to make this video. Sometimes you have to take the time to make videos you want to make even though you might not get anything for it. Of course you have to make videos that pay the bills, but sometimes it’s fun to try to flex your creative muscles and create something different for a change. And maybe someday a future client might like what they see in this video and get inspiration for a project with Klein Media.
If you haven’t seen the video, you can click here to watch it.