We recently had a chance to sit down and talk to Cris Cunningham, president (and, as he notes, sole staff member!) of Beamer Films. We talked about a couple of his films, the role of Christians in the movie-making business, and the advice he might offer to people hard at work in their own media ministries:

Cris, your company is Beamer Films. Could you tell me a little bit about the company? What's your staff size?

You're talking to him! Beamer's actually not even a year old, so we're still at one. I literally do all the writing, all the shooting, all the editing—I'm hoping to be able to change that soon.

Occasionally, I've had an intern or volunteer; on "Wounded Bride," I asked a 16-year-old guy to come help who had never shot a short film before. And I lived that thing—I was acting in it, doing sound, and directing. It was nuts!

Since we're so close to Christmas, I'd love to hear a little bit about your videos "Christmas Nativity Morph" and "Christmas: His Nativity." To start with, how do you come up with concepts like these?

Well, in general, I think I always love the idea that things are out of balance. Whenever I produce a piece, one of the first questions I ask is, What is out of balance for this character? Or for my audience, How do I want to touch them? What would be out of balance for them? And then, What am I trying to redeem, or What is God trying to redeem through me in this project? That's almost always the angle that I'll take. So, if the thematic component is grace, I'll come up with what's the inverse or the opposite of that. And then I'll "attack" the issue.

Then I'll come up with a topic. In this case, it's the birth of Christ, obviously, and then I will write and write and write and write; then I'll put that script down, and I'll come to the next script, and I'll put that one down, and so on. I keep writing because I think without a solid script, you're not going to produce a solid piece. Later, I'll selectively go through and I'll find which script resonates with me most. And a lot of times, that's at the risk of knowing that, Hey, if I produce this piece, it will probably sell better. But I want to produce the piece that I feel stronger about—that's what I am trying to say in culture and to people that are going to see this.

How does that tie into "Christmas Nativity Morph?"

Well, there's the idea of the "why" of Christ—not necessarily the "what," but the "why." Why did he come? Why did God wrap himself in flesh and come to earth? I think it has everything to do with even the meaning of morph. To morph is to transition or to change, and to change something smoothly. I think that's just a beautiful metaphor, and the concrete images of the nativity morphing from one image to the next is something so lovely and fluid.

Symbolically speaking, the element of "life and life to the full" is in there too. That [John 10:10] is probably my favorite Scripture in the whole world: Here you have Christ saying "I've come to give you life and life to the full." When you reflect on something like the birth of Christ and even birth in general, what was God trying to do by being birthed into the world? Well, one of the first words that come to mind when someone says "birth" is the word "life." So symbolically, even by Christ coming into the world he became life. His birth represented that "life and life to the full" that he was coming to bring.

Where did you find the images you used in the "Christmas Nativity Morph?"

I scoured the web for pieces that are old enough to not have copyrights. The prerequisite to land in my morph video is that an image needs to be in the public domain.

What kind of reaction has there been to the video?

It's been very positive. There have been some "Wow, that was cool" comments, or one guy asked, "How did you do that? What program?" So people like it enough to where they're saying, "Hey, I'd like to be able to take a crack at doing something similar to that."

How does "Christmas: His Nativity" touch on those themes of balance you mentioned?

I think the unique thing about that video is that it really tackles this issue of the symbolic element of God becoming human—specifically God becoming a baby, which has such symbolic power of life. I've had three children myself, and their births were the most endearing, beautiful moments of my life—more impacting than almost anything I've ever experienced. I loved this idea of a baby and then focusing on elements of a baby, like the wrist and the feet—it gives some foreshadowing of what's to come. I watched the video earlier today, just before this interview, and I almost started crying because I recognize that those little wrists are the wrists that would be nailed, or the little feet that would be nailed.

I really like that video. I wanted to take the baby in its natural element … no red bows or ribbons or anything clouded behind it or around it. Just this idea of a baby, period. Black background. A baby. And focus specifically on that component.

What's the first thing you do to actually prepare for shooting or creating a video?

I'd say there are three phases. I start with a preproduction phase, where I'll look at the script and say Do I need actors? What props do I need? What locations? What are the implications for lighting? Will I need lights in the specific location? How many shooters will I need?Will I need a director of photography or can I handle it myself? Who's going to be doing sound? You know, you come up with this list of things, and then you start checking them off. Some of it's easy; some of it's hard. Location scouting is something that I love to do and that will shape the script. Sometimes I'll have a script completed and I'll find a great location that I want to use. I'm actually working on a piece now where I've just flipped it because I like this location over at a beach. And I have to rewrite the script kind of on my preproduction finding. In general, though, I guess it's pretty simple in terms of organizing everything you have to do and then going after and finding everything you need before you begin shooting.

Okay. So the first step is the preproduction. And then … ?

Then it goes onto production. In the preproduction phase, I'll draw pictures of the shots that I'll actually be taking. On set, I literally check off the shots that are on my storyboard. And then if there seems to be another angle or some other situation, some other scenario that I could shoot that might be better or just an addition to whatever I've always done, I'll begin to add to that process, add shots on. But I'm pretty thorough in doing the storyboards, the preproduction, so, for instance, on "Wounded Bride" I probably only did one or two additional shots. I had literally drawn a picture of each shot that we were going to take, and they're all in there.

And then postproduction is just the editing and sounds process?

Yeah, exactly. And then you'll add the Foley, noises, and other things. If you need wind sound or something, you add them there.

So then, how much time would you say you spend on an average, three-minute-long video?

A three-minute video … boy, it depends on the video. Let's take "Wounded Bride" as an example. The finished video was about four-and-a-half minutes long. I probably spent a day on the script once the idea was formulated. I probably spent eight hours shooting it. And then I spent another day-and-a-half or two days in postproduction, and then fine-tune editing took another day. It probably took a full five days to accomplish the finished product.

What about the "Nativity Morph" video?

Oh boy. Morphing images from one to another takes a very long time. The first morph I did ("Names in Christ") took two weeks, if that gives you an idea. And the "Nativity Morph," took about a week because I'm a little better after doing the first one. I think the end result of the nativity video is about a minute and fifty seconds or something.

Do you actually do that individually or is there a program that does it automatically?

I wish I could say it did it automatically! There is a free program that I use; basically, you drop one image in, followed by the next image you want in the video. Then you have to select the morphing areas. I will literally select each individual eyeball, nose, and mouth; then I'll do the hairline and the surrounding head. I'll do hands and arms, and then legs and feet, and then I'll do a test run of the whole and see how that looks. And I always have to do something different because each image has subtle differences—where they place the wise men in one shot might be on the opposite side on the other. So I have to figure out how to deal with that, because it will smear across the screen and completely ruin the morph. Sometimes you'll work on something and you spend two hours just morphing one little image that's just going to be four seconds of your video, and you have to ditch it because you cannot get it to work.

Once you get the script polished and everything, how long does it take you to actually shoot?

It depends on the project. With "Wounded Bride," we took two four-hour sessions to shoot, which was kind of quick, I think. I'd say we put eight to ten hours into the shooting on that. I think the end result is about four-and-a-half minutes, but I probably spent sixteen hours on it.

Where do you get your actors if you're doing short films like "Wounded Bride?"

Well, in "Wounded Bride," it was my wife and myself. She took an acting class a few years back, but that's the only acting she has done. She's pretty intuitive, and I think with some more opportunities, she'll turn out to be a fantastic actress. Otherwise, as we move forward, we'll do casting sessions and then go out into the community, hopefully. Eventually my hope is to branch out and hire nonbelievers to be a part of the productions, just so we're impacting our community—especially the community of artists. I think they have such needs, spiritually especially. I ask myself, Who am I going to resonate with most? Well, since I'm an artist maybe that's a clue.

Well, Beamer Films has seen a lot of growth in one short year. So I'm sure that will be something that will come down the pipeline soon.

Definitely. Not only that, I'm interested in exploring the more parabolic story form like "Wounded Bride." I definitely want to get more into performance-oriented type pieces—I think there's a nice niche there. I love it and feel compelled to go that direction.

In your ministry and your mission to the church, what's a challenge you face that might not be obvious to someone outside of the video production world?

Let me reshape the question a little bit—let me start with this idea of mission, and get into the challenge.

My journey in life has led me to believe that motion pictures are one of the most pervasive, dominant communicative forces of all time. And they're packed with power to affect the imagination; they're able to inspire; they're able to nurture, challenge, amaze, and awe—everything that a good teacher might want to be. And so I think the challenge lies in this idea that when I produce a work, I'm a teacher: I'm responsible to this form of communication that God's given me.

In today's world, there are many filmmakers making many movies, big or small … I mean, you go to YouTube or GodTube and watch something, and you run the whole gamut. Or you go to a movie. I would say many, or most, motion pictures fall short of delivering a valuable message at all. They speak nothing to life. I would say that most motion pictures concentrate on content that holds very little importance.

So then you have any filmmaker who's a Christian. My conflict or hurdle that I want to jump over is the apparent need for Christians to find their role in this culture or in culture's creative landscape and then to reclaim artistic expression on some level—reclaim artistic expression as a means of glorifying and even enjoying our Creator and God. So it's not just "I want to change the world." I want to do something that brings life and life to full in my endeavors. So that's part of the challenge as well. I have to make sure that this is truly my call or who God has cut me out to be. What am I wired to be? So I would say that's the big challenge there—making sure that I'm doing that.

If you could say one thing to people who work on their church's media ministry team (either as volunteers or paid staff members), what would it be?

I would say take risks with your work and take risks in other people who are artists. Believe in other people enough to allow them to take risks in their artistic endeavors. Because if there's someone who's delighting themselves in God, we don't know what God's saying to that individual. And so if they produce a piece of art via a drama or poetry or a media piece, if we allow them to be who they are and who God is setting them free to be, it will come out in their work. So don't put a cap on yourself. Don't put a cap on other people. I think freedom in your creative endeavor and risk-taking to make a difference is something that we should strive for.

So then, what would you say to a person in their church who's really struggling and feeling like they're not being given permission to be creative?

I would tell them that they have to be creative, regardless of what the people around you are saying or doing. Now if you're on a staff, you're under the authority of the leadership, so you can't take your work time and go do your own thing. And a lot of people are married, so then, outside of work, where are you going to do it? You have to know in the deepest place of your heart where God is leading you. And if that is in a riskier environment for your creative endeavor, then you have to weigh that prayerfully and consider it. I don't know. That's a tough place to be. That's a tough place to come from, and I think it's a difficult place to leave as well.