Creative Ancient Filmmaking

 Before CapCut, iMovie, and VN Video Editor, there was 16mm film. Editing wasn’t done on computer. Physical tape was cut with a knife and spliced with tape.

My father loved it. As a church planter in Montana and Wyoming he prepared films to advertise the progress of new churches, camps they supported, and locations in need of the gospel.

Filmmaking demanded creativity. For one movie he laid the title out in our yard with a long rope. Then he filmed just the rope as someone out of sight pulled it straight. Next, he had the film developed and then sliced it in the right places and reversed it before re-taping. When the film played, it looked as if the rope formed itself into the words for the title.

For another title he pasted words onto the window of our car. He started filming with the window down and the title magically appeared as someone out of sight rolled up the window.

Dad helped with the founding of thirty-four churches during his time as Field Director for the Inter-Mountain Baptist Fellowship. His story is told in his own words (to which I have added some of my own) in “Still Climbing.” He later worked with another thirty-two churches which were established by the Planting and Watering Ministry of the Minnesota Baptist Association where he served as Executive Secretary.

One of those early films is available on the cloud at the link below. There is no sound, but you can see what was used to advertise Camp Bethel in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming some seventy years ago.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/y0lk1hmfqth5sr7u9kdmt/16mm-video-entitled-_Camp-Bethel_.mp4?rlkey=l4kf9izr9v5k4p7uisk6dqhau&dl=0