CHASM
An interview with filmmaker Josh Herum from Saint Louis, MO about how he made his short film CHASM for Waypoint Church.
First things first - great job dude, really enjoyed this, very well done. You said this was based on the book of Romans, but what was this video created for?
Thank you! This film was to play on the final week on a long sermon series in the book of Romans that took around 12 weeks to go through Romans 1-8. This film played on the final week of that series as a culmination piece.
Really it was my way to break out of a rut of a bunch a talking head videos during COVID since we were shut down for three or four months and hadn’t been able to do any kind of creative video content.
So how did you/your team pitch this idea and get the church on board to pivot away from doing another talking head?
So a lot of the talking head videos were mostly like announcements about COVID and our plans for re-gathering and that kind of stuff, but I basically went to the senior leader and shared my idea of making a film that’s based around the book of Romans personified in a modern way.
The senior pastor loved the idea and he basically told me that Romans 8 would be kind of a pinnacle to focus on as far as the transformation that Jesus brings in our life. Once I had his approval I started coming up with the concepts and started reaching out to different crew and setting dates, etc.
So was he like, “You’ve got the green light, go for it.” or how involved was leadership in approving specific ideas or versions during post-production?
Yeah basically he was like go for it! So then I went and conceptualized it with our communications manager and came up with a rough outline for the film. After that we got the actors and crew lined up, and shot it.
For the voice over narration, I sent the script to a couple of our pastors to make sure it was in line with Waypoint Church’s theology and that was about it!
They trust my creative vision because of the work like this I have done in the past and Bob Ingle, the senior pastor, really wants to push the boundaries on creativity used for the glory of God.
That’s awesome, what was the reception like?
We got a lot of great feedback from congregants saying how well done it was and how it spoke to them.
I am the only video guy Waypoint has and when I arrived there just under two years ago they had never done this kind of creative video production with cinema cameras and larger crew etc., so it is definitely a slow process to show the value in story telling with excellence, but I think Waypoint is catching on!
I think a lot of churches miss a great opportunity to leverage content created for Sundays for use in other additional places, but I see that the official Waypoint IG account is not only encouraging people to share this film, but also noted that it was shot on the Ursa Mini Pro with Leica lenses, so that right there sounds like a big win to me, ha.
What was your camera & lighting package for this film?
CHASM was shot with the Ursa Mini Pro and Leica R lenses. A lot of the film was on the 19mm. We used a Dana Dolly with 10’ rails to move the camera. For lighting we used the Aperture 120D, some Quasar 4’ Crossfade Tubes, and a haze machine for a lot of the indoor stuff.
We also had a lot of props, like the wine, mirrors, and then the helmets and swords which were made by another staff member at Waypoint.
Is that your normal kit, or was it rented specifically for this project?
The Ursa Mini Pro has been owned by Waypoint since I got there. The Leicas were rented and the Dana dolly was rented, but all the other gear is owned by the church. However, I just switched out the UMP for the Red KOMODO 6K and purchased a set of Contax Zeiss lenses personally that I will probably use for some future productions.
What informed your gear choices?
Really the budget honestly, and I had used that setup on a previous project and loved the look that it gave.
Looking back on the project now, what did you learn from it? What would you have done differently?
Honestly not too much, I’m pretty proud of it. We had a great day of production, really had good times and I’m happy with what we were able to achieve. Probably if I had to re-do anything it would have been to get more takes from the narrator to be a little more lively at times.
Wait, so you shot the whole thing in one day?
Yep, I did a lot of planning and scheduling to make it work. We basically had three locations, the house in the morning, the studio in the afternoon, the street/parking lot and apartment in the evening.
This was my .pdf for the concept, schedule, mood board and script.
It took about 3-4 weeks of work before filming and then another 2 weeks of working with the composer, colorist, sound designer.
I need to hear more about your pre-production process. How are you culling your mood board material and how are you communicating what you’re after with the rest of the crew?
For the reference frames I use film-grab.com.
For inspiration I read Romans a few times, listened to it, and read a commentary on Romans 8 and wrote down themes and words. Then I listened to music and just started to write. After that I grabbed the screenshots for the mood board and met with the DP Rickie Ross a time or two at a coffee shop and discussed it and we came up with additional ideas together.
Then with the rest of the crew, I kinda just keep that .pdf on me on set and just knocked out the shots on the shot list while trying to keep the look that I had in mind when setting up the lighting or choosing the time of day to film the scenes.
If you’re the only video guy at the church, who was the crew? How did you find them and had you worked with them before?
Yep, before I got hired at Waypoint in April 2019 I was a full-time freelance cinematographer and photographer for three years and had worked on a number of narrative short films and small commercial stuff here in St. Louis and all the crew are people that I’ve worked with over the years.
I still do freelance work and personal projects even while working full time for Waypoint. My passion definitely lies in narrative filmmaking.
How did you find your on-camera talent?
Friends of friends. I had actually wanted a female modern dancer and asked around, but couldn’t lock one in for the date I needed so when I found Kevin the b-boy I thought that could work also. I wanted very puppet like, robotic movements for the first half to represent the “I do the things I don’t want and the things I want to do I find myself not doing verse”. That made me think of the sin as a puppet master pulling our strings and I thought the style of breakdancing Kevin does could do that well.
For the father and son, I knew I wanted a certain age and heart and the Tuckers were perfect. They are missionaries and come to find out that Romans 8 is Brian’s life scripture “adoption as sons” so that really confirmed that God had set it all up.
That’s awesome! What advice would you give to someone making films for a church that wants to branch out from the week-to-week videos and make something more conceptual/narrative?
I would say don’t let gear hold you back. Come up with an interesting concept that you know you can pull off with the resources you have and the people you have around you. Go to your leadership and share why you think this will be impactful to the people who see it.... and go shoot it!
A few more quick questions for you…How’s the Komodo? What are your thoughts on that vs. your old Ursa Mini Pro?
The Komodo definitely has a lot of positives over the UMP. The size, the image, the color, the wireless capabilities on an iPad or iPhone. The UMP does have the built-in ND and XLRs which were nice though.
I probably come at most things from the mindset of a producer so I always value things like ease of use, post workflow, flexibility when it comes to gear, which has always caused me to avoid systems like RED as much as possible, ha. How do you approach your gear decisions? It sounds like maybe you’re more intentional in your planning which maybe plays better with more cinema style camera and lenses?
Yeah I mean definitely for church stuff having the ease of XLR and built-in ND filters is key, but a lot of it is run and gun and the Ursa is a bit big for just day-to-day interviews, event recaps, etc. The RED Komodo got rid of a lot of proprietary gear, so now it uses the same batteries as the Canon Cinema cameras, I can use my SmallHD 702 Touch monitor to actually control the Komodo, whereas the UMP you always had to open the LCD screen or use buttons.
The Komodo also now uses CFAST cards and honestly the RED post work flow is better than with Black Magic BRAW. There was a lot of little kinks in BRAW with Premiere and Resolve. So overall, I felt like this was the first RED camera that would work for a one-man-band church filmmaker.
Awesome, anything else that we didn’t cover that you would like to share about the project?
Hmm… I would just say that this piece really came alive due to working with the music composer, colorist and sound designer. There was a lot of back and forth with me sending notes to dial in the look and music to my liking.
Ah yes! that was the first thing I meant to mention - it’s amazing how good sound design makes your work LOOK a lot better. Not sure how that works in the brain, but sound affects the way we perceive the imagery so much. And the sound on this project was on point!
Thanks man, definitely agree.
You can connect with Josh on Instagram @joshherumdp and check out more of his creative films at JoshHerum.com & WaypointChurch.com
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