Am I Crazy?

If you listen when you are called, He will equip you to make it happen.

By MARK PERRY

This could be the biggest project I have ever dreamed of. And bigger than anything that I have seen done by my peers. But there are so many details, is it even possible?

I have always wanted to use my passion for video production to help other people, working with the church, creating videos for nonprofits, or working on documentary work. As I have been working through the first years of college I have been able to develop my skills. I have been able to use work on projects like the documentary I made for the Baltimore Humane Society to be shown at their Black Tie Gala fundraiser, the documentary celebrating the 25th anniversary of the work Civic Works is doing in Baltimore, MD, and the doc highlighting a rising Baltimore musician.

While at church one Sunday this past summer I heard a guy talk about an organization he had started. The goal of this organization is to provide medical care to communities in Africa. He told a story about a little boy who was not doing well. Turns out he had AIDS. This boy was sent into town where he could get the medical attention he needed. His medical needs for the next year were paid by the founder of the organization. The transformation in that little boy was incredible. Looking at a before and after of the little boy it was nearly impossible to tell that they were they same person.

“I still thought it was crazy, but I couldnt get it out of my mind.”

After hearing the stories he told about what they were able to do in that community and the goals that he had for his organization, I had an idea. At the time it felt like a crazy idea and I just kinda put it in the back of my mind. As this past semester came to a close the idea came back to the front of my mind.

I still thought it was a crazy idea, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

After spending some time thinking about it and praying about it, I wanted to talk about it. Bringing up the idea with other people always ended the same way, “This is really cool and I really think you should do it.” This prompted me to start moving things along, meeting with some people and to get the details rolling. Now we will see where things go! There are lots of things that gotta be figured out before this project can be officially green lit, but I think its time to start working on those details.

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15 Minutes of Fame

Our first big screening of the film was with the senior showcase in May 2020. The next step for the film was to submit to a variety of film festivals. We got some great news from the 15 minutes of Fame Festival.  15 Minutes of Fame is a Film Festival based out of Florida, and is a collection of films produced anywhere in the United States or Canada that are under 15 minutes in length. Submitted films were viewed by a panel of five judges and the highest scores became official selections. We got our Official Selection notification at the end of October. It is with great anticipation that we look forward to the digital screening of the festival that runs for the month of December. We are one of two documentaries being screened.

Before being brought on to this project, I had already edited numerous short documentaries and short films both at Stevenson and my various internships. I knew how to organize and prepare footage, but I was only doing it at a semi-moderate level. Most of the time, the footage was on the same hard drive as the project and I was only dealing with-on average-maybe two hours of footage in any given project. I knew that this would be a totally different animal so I had to make sure I was ready.

I like to play with hypotheticals in my down time. It could be what would happen in a class, or writing a project, or a later conversation I’m going to have with a person. They’re easy to come up with and I can think of some crazy hypotheticals when I want to. Going to Africa was no exception. I was going to a place I was unfamiliar with having no experience in Africa with Alang having made the mission trip once before. Since he grew up in Cameroon, I felt better, but that didn’t mean that butterflies went away.

I woke up at 3:00 am the day we left for Toube. My mind was coming up with all types of ideas on what to expect to see in Toube. Would this be when culture shock hits me? Will I feel like I’m starving myself to death? Will I be able to handle some of the sights I see? I didn’t go back to sleep. Everyone else woke up around 5:00 am. The ride to the boat was one of the smoothest rides we had so far. There were actually roads (most of the trip) and they weren’t in terrible condition. Plus, not many cars were out at 6:00 am (understandable). Police/military were patrolling the roads and pulled us over a couple times wondering our reason for traveling. Geh showed his military ID and explained what we were doing as other men shined flashlights into our van. We were cleared to go but it was a little nerve wracking watching men with guns tell us whether or not we could go and wondering what would happen if they told us to exit the vehicle.

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