9/15/2009
Building of a Tour 'Behind the stage' Day 1/ Week 1
CIY productions will be filming this week with special artist Eric Samuel Timm in anticipation for the 2010 spring 'Messiah' Tour. Last year on tour, Eric played the part of God reaching out to a young Jeremiah played by Brent the stunt guy. Eric is back and we are excited to tell you all about what's coming this year! Check in all week on Twitter and Believe staff Blogs for behind the making of a tour week #1.
With a theme like "Messiah", you have to be very careful. It's one thing to have a character embody Jeremiah on stage in a fable narrative. You have to be much more careful when dealing with the person of Jesus. It can quickly become hokey or downright heretical. With that in mind we wish to show the determination, creativity and resolution that God has as he sets His plan in motion to reconcile man to Himself through the work of Christ.
One protective filter we have given ourselves as we tell 'the greatest story ever told' is to use LOTS of Scripture to define the pictures we are applying to theological concepts. In fact, every video will start with a foundational premise from scripture. This will also help simplify every main session for kids to track with.
To personify the Messiah we will be building a mosaic statue depicting physical elements of Christ's body while attaching characteristics of Christ to those attributes (hands, eyes, heart, crown first of thorns and then a King's crown) By starting in the concrete thinking realm and moving abstract we will gently guide kids to process what kind of a Messiah Jesus is. Another point of clarification will be to intentionally use scripture to define what kids are seeing Eric do with paint -both live on stage and pre-recorded for the video screens. The learning atmosphere we are creating this year for your students blends youth subcultures of skateboarding, Japanese Manga art with a far east (orient) theme. No, there will be geisha dancing :) Actually, Eric might. Don't encourage him.
So the mosaic picture of Christ we build on in every session, and unveil in session 5, will be communicated in a manga form. Don't be surprised when you don't get the classic long haired North American Jesus, Thomas Kincaid didn't consult. Although Eric has been consulting and performing on the Believe Tour for 4 years we have never used all our resources at CIY in preproduction with his art form. So this year we're going to kick it up. Every session that Eric paints live, a video will play that perfectly compliments, in sync, the live performance.
Building of a Tour Messiah Mosaic “Jesus sees more” The Messiah Sees more sequence will happen during main session #4. We will be looking at John 4 where Jesus encounters the woman at the well. Our angle of emphasis will be the Messiah's ability to see so much more than we are able to. Just as Jesus sees the Woman's whole life we want to tell Jr high kids that the Messiah sees everything about them too. In every session our concentration will be on how the true Messiah is more in all measurable ways. The main point of Main Session #4 is that the Messiah sees more. Eric will help modernize this idea for Jr high kids. This Messiah we speak of isn't trapped in an ancient world. He is alive today moving about us. His Kingdom is all around you even when we don't see it. The Messiah is asking us to be a part of this unending Kingdom.
The piece of the mosaic sculpture for this session are the eyes of Christ. The video literally starts with God carrying the weight of a huge canvass to the roof of a high rise industrial building. God stretches the material out and labors over a painting that will eventually be revealed from the perspective of a helicopter flying over a large urban city. The Messiah is not an old story only. True, its historical but this History lesson has game changing implications here and now. It is relevant in our current world. He sees more than you could imagine. Sitting on that well 2000 years ago, God saw the heart and deeds of a woman. He also saw airplanes, Internet, iPhones and Jr high kids today.
This spring on tour Eric will have a few more tricks up his sleeve AND tucked in the video. It WILL keep kids on the edge of their seats. Its not hard to do because its God's word delivered with the respect and creativity it deserves. See pics and timeline of the video shoot!
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