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I guess when you get inspired to write, there is no stopping you. Session #4 was just like the first 3 - extremely productive. Only this time, the vision was revealed for the opening 4 minutes of the movie. I really can't explain it - but the visions of every second of the film was so vivid in my head that it was like I was watching the completed version. I usually don't work this way - trying to write down the action and camera movements and all visuals as we are writing the narrative - but I couldn't stop what I was seeing. And so, when our session started, I just had to walk everyone through it as I was seeing it. My biggest fear was that, some of the events would not be Biblically accurate or the timing would be off or something. But in the end, it got the blessing of Dr. Gage. I know we can nail this and we have to pull it off exactly as I'm seeing it. If we do - then this is going to be spectacular.

Sam and Kendell have had great input too and I'm so proud of this team for pushing this in the direction that it's heading. Before this session, I was thinking that the scene where Mary is cured of her 7 demons from Christ would be a scene that we could cut. After all, there is no description in the Bible about how that looked or what took place. Only a mention that it happened. However, after Sam's input and a suggestion by both Kendell and Dr. Gage, I think we found a way to make that moment so powerful, that it has to be in there - it might be one of the most powerful scenes in the film, so there is no way it's getting cut. And that's why these creative writing sessions are so important. You never know what's going to come from them. In this case, it might just be the highlight of this project.

I'm a little late in reporting the 3rd Session - time goes so fast! But much like the first two sessions, this one was extremely productive. To the point where, in just 3 short sessions, we were able to come up with the whole outline of the story. It's amazing what can be accomplished with God's help. We had a lot of discussion about the start of the film (where is the best place to start and what should that look like) but came back to the original idea.

One of the coolest things about this project is the parallels between old and new testament. We will be highlighting them in a way that will hopefully cause even those very familiar with these stories to go "Wow! Never thought of that before." I'm so very grateful to have Dr. Gage on our team. It's one thing to just make up something that's cool, but it's another to come up with a really cool idea (visually and conceptually) that is Biblically sound. Otherwise, how do you defend such things? Well, Hollywood does it all the time. They just take "creative license" to make something entertaining. Well guess what? There is a way to do that and stick to the truth as well.

Some of the narrative was changed in certain parts and now I'm much happier with how this flows. I know I'm being vague with a lot here, but don't want to give too much away. The ending is awesome and brings the film to a point that kind of mimics the beginning of the film, only on a more positive, higher note.

Just know that, even if you don't know much about Mary Magdalene, or the story of the Resurrection, you will hopefully be very entertained by this film. And you just might learn something too. Forget about the fantasies that Hollywood has sold you on who Mary was - this is the real deal!

Next up, Sam and I start digging into this film scene by scene to break it all down.

So I have to confess, I was a little nervous about how my Narrative for the opener would go over with the rest of the team, especially Dr. Gage. But he gave me a great compliment in saying that he thought it was a really great start. I had a few inaccurate sequence of events in there, but hey - I'm trying to put together one cohesive story from four accounts, so... Plus I'm not a Theologian - that's what Dr. Gage is there for.

One funny event from the night was when he told me to be careful not to stray too far from the story or pin myself into an area of contradiction. I said that would be impossible to do, because nothing will be finalized without his blessing on the story. We can't go wrong :)

Anyway, the more we talked about how to shape up the story that I had laid out, the more clear the visions started to come to me again. This is going to be such a powerful movie I really can't wait to get started with it. I just wish we were doing this as a feature film, but I'm a little glad we aren't because we would be scrambling to stretch the content and that would not be good.

My next round of writing went even better than my first and last night I was actually able to finish a full first draft of the outline of the story. I really like how it reads but I guess we'll find out next week whether I missed anything or not. I'm sure I did. And even if I didn't, there's always room for improvement. So I can't wait for the feedback to begin so we can start shaping this into the finished product.

I really didn't think we would be as far as we at this point. Must be the hand of God! :)

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