Tim Frakes on Vision Video
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, Documentary, History, Tim Frakes Productions
Most of my productions serve clients with specific needs. However, some of my work is available for purchase. Vision Video, is a Pennsylvania based Christian and family DVD distributor that offers drama, documentary, live events, curriculum, and rare historical footage among the many genres. I am proud to be associated with them.
Most recently, Vision agreed to distribute People of Faith: Christianity in America. Here is a list of documentaries available for sale through Vision Video that I have produced for the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College and earlier in my career, through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
People of Faith: Christianity in America
Is America now or has it ever been a Christian Nation? What is the meaning of separation of church and state? How can the church be a faithful Gospel witness in a pluralistic society? What will the church look like in the future? People of Faith: Christianity in America brings perspective to these questions and more.
Saving the World?
In 1910 over a thousand Protestant missionaries, theologians and church leaders from around the world gathered in Edinburgh, Scotland for an unprecedented World Missionary Conference. Saving the World? chronicles the assumptions and expectations that Protestants carried into the 20th century and highlights some of the major — and unexpected — developments in the hundred years since that meeting in Scotland.
Glory to God Alone: The Life of J.S. Bach
In this video journey we are accompanied by Bach authorities including classical guitarist Christopher Parkening. They guide us through the development, personal crises, challenges, remarkable work output, and the compelling inner motivation of Bach and show why it was so important to the composer that his gifts be used for the glory of God alone.
Opening The Door to Luther with Rick Steves
Open the door to Martin Luther with public television travel host Rick Steves. He takes us to areas of Germany known as Lutherlands. From Eisleben, where Luther was born, to Wittenberg where he taught and preached, and to several other areas, we learn about the tumultuous events of the Reformation and the monk at the center of it all. We see how this Augustinian monk, who most wanted the quiet of a religious life, was thrust into the center of 16th-century world-shaking events.
The Morning Star of Wittenberg: The Life of Kaite Luther
This video documentary provides an intimate look at Katharina von Bora, former nun, 16th Century entrepreneur and wife of Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation. It is an in-depth look at the life of the woman who helped Luther change the course of history. We learn how she coped with incredible demands and survived the continual onslaught of unpredictable developments.
Zamzam: A Missionary Odyssey
A gripping, true story of faith on the high seas from World War II. An old Egyptian liner carrying 144 missionaries, bound for mission work in Africa, was mistakenly shelled and sunk by a Nazi warship off the coast of South Africa. The passengers abandoned ship, and their precarious plight was filmed by two photographers who just happened to be on board. Here is their amazing — and some would insist, miraculous — story.
Lives Of The Apostles Paul And Peter
In these two programs, author and Public Television travel expert Rick Steves takes us on location to explore the lives of two great apostles.
Tags: Church, Documentary, Education, ELCA, History, Rick Steves, Tim Frakes Productions, Video
Introducing Jesus of Nazareth
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, Education, Faith Based Production, History, Interesting Places, Middle East, Travel
It is Advent and a good time to reflect on the life of Jesus. This production aired on ABC Television in December 2006. I produced it for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with my good friend Peter Marty as host. Jim Quattrocki directed the on-camera sequences. Jim Parks did the editing.
www.frakesproductions.com
Tags: Bible, Gospel, Holyland, Jerusalem, Jesus, New Testament, Peter Marty
DeRose Hinkhouse Awards Spot
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, News, Non-Profit, Tim Frakes Productions
Tags: Religion Communicators Council, Tim Frakes Productions, Video
Peace Not Walls: Making a Difference in the Holy Land
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, Client Production, Faith Based Production, Interesting Places, Middle East, News, Peace and Justice, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
Tim Frakes Productions has won a DeRose-Hinkhouse Memorial Award of Excellence from the Religion Communicators council for “Peace Not Walls: Making a Difference in the Holy Land. The video was produced for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America “Peace Not Walls” Campaign. Carol LaHurd, the ELCA’s Peace Not Walls coordinator and I worked on this project with help from Ben McDonald Coltvet, Barbara Berry Bailey and others.
The video was recorded on location in Jerusalem, and the West Bank and outlines the ELCA’s strategy for peace in the Middle East and accompaniment with Palestinian Christians.
The DeRose-Hinkhouse Memorial Awards are presented annually to members of the RCC who demonstrate excellence in religion communications and public relations.
Tags: Holyland, Israel, Justice, Middle East, Palestine, Peace, Wall, West Bank
The Best Way to Rock and Roll
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, Faith Based Production, Music
This is story from my archives. Back in the 90′s my buddy Jim Parks and I did a story on Jim and Peter Mayer. The Mayer brothers are the sons of Lutheran missionaries. They grew up in Tamil Nadu, India. Today they play bass and lead guitar for Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band.
www.frakesproductions.com
Tags: Faith, Jim Mayer, Jimmy Buffett, Music, Peter Mayer
St. Peter Goes to the Dump: A New ELCA video
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, Client Production, Europe, Faith Based Production, Interesting Places, Travel
Rick Steves posted this story on his blog. It is the tale of a missing videotape, lost during our recent Rome production on “The Life of Apostle Peter.” For a look at all five of our collaborations go to: http://www.elca.org/communication/ricksteves/.
Posted by Rick Steves, December 13, 2007
Squeezing a few days in Rome between a Greece tour and researching in Istanbul this fall, I met my friend Tim Frakes — who produces videos for the Lutheran Church (www.elca.org) — to finish a video about St. Peter.
Over the years, Tim and I have collaborated on five teaching videos, taking us from Lutheran-funded hospitals in Papua New Guinea to the room where Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin to the people’s German (…really annoying the pope).
For this video (similar to an earlier one on St. Paul), Tim filmed places around the eastern Mediterranean where Peter had lived and worked. We planned to have me “host” the video in Rome by filming (over two days) about 20 “on-camera” bits at the Vatican and in generic ancient settings.
Filming on St. Peter’s Square is always thrilling, with a backdrop of the greatest church in Christendom and so much rich Church history to share. While the square is a crowded mess through midday, it is glorious — rich colors, striking architecture warmly lit by a low sun, and no crowds — early and late. That’s when we filmed there.
(Of course, there is the nagging issue of whether St. Peter ever even went to Rome. Scholars differ on this. And as Lutherans, we didn’t want to anger Roman Catholics by questioning the veracity of the claim that Peter is buried under St. Peter’s Basilica. We proceeded as if the tradition itself of Peter’s work and death there authenticated the story.)
We needed distinct and evocative sites for each of our 15 generic ancient setting on-camera performances. We tried for Ostia Antica, but failed to get permission (without paying the $3,000 fee that they asked). Finally the people at Hadrian’s Villa gave us permission, supporting our church’s educational work (but didn’t quite understand why we were “filming St. Peter” at a place he certainly never visited). As it turned out, Hadrian’s Villa was much better than Ostia Antica would have been for our needs.
Tim and I scouted the site and set out to shoot all the on-cameras. It was an exhilarating day and we were both happy with the work. Exhausted, we returned to our hotel and went out for a celebratory dinner.
Later that evening, Tim knocked on my hotel room door with panic and horror on his face. He asked me if I had seen a videocassette. One was missing.
It was the nightmare of every TV producer: While working at his laptop, he had knocked three tapes from his desk to the floor. He bent down a bit later and picked up two. Then he joined me for our pasta and red wine.
Rome is not a place where garbage moves fast…unless you dropped a precious videocassette into a trash bin. While we were out, the maid came in and emptied the garbage into a big plastic bag that went outside…and then, with incredibly bad luck, the garbage truck came and went.
We got lovely Annamaria from our hotel (The Aberdeen) to go into her building’s garbage room. With plastic gloves on, she emptied bags on the floor, analyzing the empty jugs and so on to determine which bags were from Hotel Aberdeen. All her bags had already been picked up and taken to the Rome dump. Heroically, Annamaria and her husband actually drove to the dump…only to find that all had been smashed together. Our cassette was hopelessly lost.
Tim felt so bad, considering how hard we had worked. We just agreed not to punish ourselves, changed our morning flights home, and arranged to return to Hadrian’s Villa to re-shoot the 15 on-cameras…which were absolutely critical to the production.
Back at Hadrian’s Villa, the weather was as good as the earlier day. But there was a different man in charge. We explained our story (with the help of our gracious driver and Annamaria on the phone). The bureaucrats running the site seemed to enjoy watching this humbled American film crew begging for a chance to enter and reshoot our lost bits. They said no.
I couldn’t believe this. The light was perfect. We were permitted the day before. I had a flight that night to Turkey. And the gate was closed to us and our camera. We sat there looking like abandoned little puppies, sad faces, trying to stay cool…until noon, when they finally agreed to let us in “as tourists” and re-do our work.
With time ticking away, Tim and I lined up all 15 stops efficiently and, with precision focus, re-shot the entire list. The work went perfectly, and I was impressed by how easy it was to call back the lines I had previously memorized. I think my performance was actually better this time around. By 3:00 p.m., we had shot the last bit — just in time for me to zip out to the airport and resume my itinerary in Istanbul.
Tim flew home with all the footage to complete his St. Peter video. A week later, I was home and recorded the general voice track. Within about a month, the project was compete and a new teaching video was in the mail to all 11,000 ELCA Lutheran churches.
Our friends at the ELCA website have organized all the videos Tim and I have done into one fun page at www.elca.org, so anyone can click on over and see our work.
My favorites of this work have been the Papua New Guinea show (even thought it’s pretty old…our first collaboration, which let me share my thoughts on First/Third World relations) and the Martin Luther story (since I had to sit through the old-fashioned, black-and-white versions when I was a kid in Sunday school, and this would pump up the color and energy for kids warming those same little chairs today). And for understanding the work that St. Paul and St. Peter did in the formative early years of the Christian Church, the other videos tell that story.
If you’re interested, I hope you can enjoy our latest work: The Life of Apostle Peter.
Tags: Rick Steves, Rome, St. Peter, Tim Frakes Productions
ELCA News Release: Uganda: Ready to Forgive
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Award winning video, Faith Based Production, Peace and Justice
CHICAGO (ELCA) — NBC television stations and affiliates will begin broadcasting “Ready to Forgive: An African Story of Grace” on Dec. 2. The 60-minute documentary about the faith and spirit of the Acholi people of Northern Uganda is a production of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Through 21 years of war, death, rape, torture and child abduction, rebels known as the Lord’s Resistance Army forced two million people into internally displaced person camps. Yet, the Acholi people are united in a belief that the only real solution is reconciliation and forgiveness.
“The program was recorded on location in Northern Uganda,” said Tim Frakes, writer and producer, Tim Frakes Productions, Lombard, Ill. “In this story, the Acholi people offer lessons of forgiveness that we can learn from,” Frakes said. “Most stories from Africa emphasize western nations helping Africans,” he said. “This is an example of Africans helping us.”
The host of the program is Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and author of “Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.”
“The Acholi people of Northern Uganda have been through so much and to be able to capture this amazing story of forgiveness and reconciliation was truly a blessing. Now our task is to bring their story to a wider audience,” said Ava Odom Martin, director for public media, ELCA Communication Services.
“If the Acholi people can forgive the Lord’s Resistance Army for the torture and massacre brought upon their community and get on with their lives, then hopefully someone else may be touched by their action
and find forgiveness for an injustice done to them,” said Martin.
The ELCA is one of 35 member communions of the National Council of Churches of Christ U.S.A. (NCC). The NCC is a founding partner of the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission (IBC), which provides television programming to the affiliates of three major broadcast television networks. NBC’s “Horizons of the Spirit” provides four hours per year for documentaries produced by the IBC faith groups.
Martin said “Ready to Forgive” will be available for broadcast through May 31, 2008. “Please contact your local NBC station for specific dates and times in your area,” she said. The production was made possible in part through a grant from Faith and Values Media, she added.
– — –
Information about the television program, “Ready to Forgive: An African Story of Grace,” is at http://www.elca.org/readytoforgive/ on the ELCA Web site and http://www.frakesproductions.com/ on the
Internet.
Tags: Africa, Forgiveness, LRA, Peace, Uganda
The Life of Apostle Peter with Rick Steves
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, Education, Europe, Faith Based Production, History, Middle East, Travel
Join me in Rome as we video blog our way through a shoot September 29 to October 2. We are recording footage for a new ELCA documentary, “The Life of Apostle Peter with Rick Steves.” I’ll be writing production notes, posting photos and video clips.
This program is special for several reasons. First, European travel writer and PBS television host Rick Steves will be our guide, lending his unique on-camera talents and clever pen to the project. Rick is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church, Lynnwood, Washington. He has contributed as guest host to past Mosaic Television programs including Opening the Door to Luther, The Life of Apostle Paul and Faithful Travel with Rick Steves.
Second, this is the last hurrah for the ELCA Mosaic video series, and we are going out with a bang! Mosaic is a staple in many congregations, a tradition that goes back to the first days of the ELCA in 1987. Twenty years is not a bad run for any show!
To make this program even more special, the Mission Investment Fund of the ELCA will distribute a DVD copy to all 10,500 ELCA congregations as a special gift.
Ciao! Tim
Tags: Apostle, Italy, Peter, Rick Steves, Rome, Travels
Frakes Documentary wins De Rose Hinkhouse Award
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video
Understanding the Roman Catholic Church, a Tim Frakes documentary produced for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American (ELCA) has won the 2007 De Rose Hinkhouse Award of Excellence from the Religion Communicators Council. The DeRose-Hinkhouse Memorial Awards are presented annually to members of the RCC who demonstrate excellence in religion communications and public relations.
Understanding the Roman Catholic Church was distributed widely throughout the ELCA in 2006 and has been viewed more than 11,000 times on Video.Google.com.
www.frakesproductions.com
Opening The Door to Luther Production Blog Day 1
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Award winning video, History, Travel
Wednesday, September 20
Traveling alone, I set off for a visit to Lutherland. The purpose of the trip is to produce a documentary on the life of Martin Luther in the German reformation cities of Eisenach, Erfurt, Eisleben Coburg and Wittenberg. Martin Luther, of course, was the 16th century Augustinian monk who sparked the Protestant reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church.
Several years ago, travel expert and public television host Rick Steves and I were working on a project in Los Angeles. Rick is known for his “Travels in Europe” guide books and TV show on PBS. Since Martin Luther is at the center of the Lutheran story and Rick is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) most famous travel expert, it seemed the two should go together. Rick agreed and three years later the project took off.
From the beginning, my basic idea was to create an entertaining education tool for Sunday school. Specifically, I dreamed up a suburban Lutheran congregation in Texas. My target audience was the husband of a 35 year old woman originally from Minnesota. Her husband is Texan and does not know much about the Lutheran church. Now that their two kids are out of diapers, the wife has persuaded her husband to come to church with her and the kids. Signing up for the new members class, the husband will learn why Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation changed the course of western civilization.
Typically, our United Airlines flight to Frankfurt, Germany was delayed an hour and a half to change a tire. I sat next to a German about my age. He spoke perfect English and we talked about business, politics and the differences between life in America and Germany. He was flying home after a software convention in Fargo, North Dakota. Further evidence of the new globalized economy.
Tags: Church, ELCA, Faith, Germany, History, Lutheran, Travel, Video