How Melissa Etheridge responded to Orlando

I'm a couple days late getting to this, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention a new song by our friend Melissa Etheridge.
How new is it? She had it written and produced just a couple days after last weekend's shooting in Orlando, which left 49 dead and 50 injured. The shooting was at a gay nightclub, and Melissa says once the song is available to purchase, proceeds will be donated to an LGBT charity.
The name of her song is "Pulse." It wasn't until this morning that I realized that was also the name of the nightclub.

Matthew Vines weighs in on Orlando

My friend Lauren Seabrook was supposed to start a new television reporting job in Orlando today. Not surprisingly, they needed her yesterday.
As I was updating this blog yesterday, I still hadn't realized the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub over the weekend was actually a hate crime against gays.

One friend of mine, who is only partially out of the closet, admitted he broke down crying when the news finally sunk in this morning.
I wasn't sure what to say. But I did send him today's TIME Magazine column from Matthew Vines (who is featured in our movie). It's outstanding, and I encourage you to read it, too.

What's stressing me out

Of all the aspects of this film, which would you guess is causing me anxiety? My friends and family hating it? Being sued? Being shot by someone who felt I was spreading the wrong message?
I'm not worried about any of that stuff. I'm laid back, and I just never panic.
But if I forget to thank someone in the closing credits that should be thanked, that's really going to ruin my day.

Football scene is done

If you know our editor and DP, Kenny Linn, be sure to give him a big "attaboy." He just finished the football section of "Out Here In Kansas," which was by far the most complicated scene in the movie.
I've had a specific vision for this scene for a long time, but at the end of the day, Kenny is the one who had to make it happen. After weeks and weeks of working together on it, I finally got out of his hair and let him do his magic. (You'll know what I mean when you see it.)
So that's it for the footage that made our movie. What's next? I'll be writing about that the next couple of days.

In what category is Kenny?

This may only interest you if you're into film making, but I just read this column suggesting there are four types of video editors.
If it does interest you, you might be asking in which category our own editor, Kenny Linn, falls.
Well, I would never categorize Kenny - but if I did, he would mostly fall into "storyteller." He knows the way words are delivered are just as important as the words themselves. He knows sometime you don't need words. He shares my goal of making a story flow. And he's brought terrific ideas to the project that never would have occurred to me.

Back to Central Christian

At the end of our Kansas church tour shoot this week, we arrived back in Wichita just in time for the magic hour (which is more like 20 minutes, according to Kenny). As most photographers know, that's when the light is most beautiful before sunset, and that's when we took our long-awaited shots of Central Christian Church.
I wasn't expecting to feel emotional when we did this, but being back at CCC brought back a ton of great memories from when my kids were small. My son was baptized there. I'd forgotten I sometimes volunteered in their classrooms at Central Christian Academy. Their teachers were simply outstanding. Good times.

Kansas church tour

Kenny Linn, our editor and DP, and I spent the entire day Thursday shooting various churches all around Sedgwick, Harvey and Reno Counties. And when say the "entire day," I mean from 10:30 a.m. to 8:15 p.m.

Amazingly, we were able to work all the shoots we wanted around the sporadic rain and hail showers that hammered us all afternoon. The highlight of the day was meeting up with my crazy friend Rachael, who was more than happy to show us her favorite unusual churches in Hutchinson. We got lost at least three times, and at one point Kenny fell asleep as we were flying down a muddy country road.

This was our last scheduled day of shooting, and the shots were not as easy as you might think. For example, St. Mary's Catholic Church was recommended to us by a handful of former Newton residents, and it is beautiful, but all these power lines prevented us from getting a clean shot of the front. Pictured here is Kenny trying to get a nice shot of its side, but we ended up cutting it in our editing session later than night.

Oh yes, the editing. We ended up doing that at Kenny's house all night. I left his house at nearly 5 this morning.