Glory to God Alone: The Life of J.S. Bach
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Europe, History, Music, Travel
This is a documentary I produced while working for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I re-post it here, in honor of J.S. Bach’s birthday! Soli Deo Gloria!
Tags: Classical, Eisenach, Germany, History, J.S.Bach, Leipzig, Music, Weimar
The Isle of Arran in HD 720 24p
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Education, Europe, Interesting Places, Nature, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutions This is an image essay recorded on the Isle of Arran, Western Scotland, July 8-9, 2009. Locations include the ferry crossing from Ardrossan, Blackwaterfoot, King’s Cave and Lochranza. The Isle of Arran is known as “Scotland in miniature.”
Tags: Arran, Europe, Isle, Kings Cave, Lochranza, Scotland, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel, Video
The Rock Churches of Gokyurt, Turkey
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Europe, History, Interesting Places, Middle East, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
Find more videos like this on Creative Worship Tour
High on a hilltop in rural Turkey is the ancient village of Gokyurt. It is called Lystra in the Bible. The book of Acts tells us that Paul and Barnabas were hailed as Gods when they healed a lame man here around 64 A.D. Later, the town’s folk turned on them and they were stoned.
Dotting the ridge around the village are limestone rock outcroppings. Nested in the rocks are caves once used as dwellings and early Christian churches.
For the next two hours, two locals showed us around. In the years after Paul and Barnabas, a small Christian community developed here. One cave is a carved rock basilica. Archeologists have excavated other caves; their entrances blocked by iron gates. Some are used to store hay for the sheep. We couldn’t communicate very well with our hosts, but they gave us a grand tour anyway. At the conclusion, we offered to pay them for their time. They refused, shook our hands, waved good-bye and walked back into the village.
Tags: Apostle Paul, Bible, Gokyurt, Lystra, Rock Churches, Turkey
Roman Ruins, Perge Turkey
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Europe, History, Interesting Places, Travel
Perge, Turkey is a world class archeological site. An important Roman shipping port during its heyday, it was abandoned centuries ago. Now, the only visitors come on tour busses from Side. It must have been a large city. The ruins include a stadium, a theater, public baths that still hold water and a colossal arched city gate.
New Testament characters Paul and Barnabas passed through here on the way to Antioch in Pisidia around 50 AD. It was also at this point that Barnabas?s nephew, Mark, decided to turn back. Maybe the sight of a major Roman city and its garrison of soldiers gave him second thoughts? Paul and Barnabas pressed on, so did we.
This footage appears in “The Life of Apostle Paul with Rick Steves.”
www.frakesproductions.com
Tags: Apostle Paul, Perge, Roman, ruins, Turkey
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
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
Women in the Early Church
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Education, Europe, Faith Based Production, History, Interesting Places, Travel
Who were the women of the early church? What was their role in the formation of the faith? Why do we know so little about them? We recorded this documentary on location in Rome, Italy. The video tells the story of women in the first three centuries of Christianity. We tell stories about women like Perpetua, Helena, Thecla and others. Go to more videos produced by Tim Frakes for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
www.frakesproductions.com
Tags: Christianity, Church, History, Thecla, women
The Life of Apostle Paul with Rick Steves
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Education, Europe, Faith Based Production, History, Interesting Places, Middle East, Spiritual Journey, Travel
I recorded this documentary in 2004 in Greece and Turkey while working for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Travel expert and faithful Lutheran Rick Steves came along as on-camera host. Rick also did most of the work on the script. Jim Parks edited the footage.
About two thousand years ago Roman soldiers executed Jesus of Nazareth. The story appeared to be over. But it was just getting started. Within a generation, pockets of Greek, Roman, and Jewish members of a new faith, developed communities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean world. In time, that new faith, Christianity, became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This is the story of early Christianity’s greatest missionary and leading theologian – the Jewish Pharisee and tentmaker from Tarsus who became the Apostle Paul.
Tags: Apostle, New Testament, Paul, Rick Steves, Travel
The Morning Star of Wittenberg
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Education, Europe, Faith Based Production, History, Interesting Places, Travel
“The Morning Star of Wittenberg: The Life of Katie Luther” is a documentary I shot in Germany, September 27-29, 2000. I was in Wittenberg, Germany shooting a documentary on the life of Martin Luther with PBS Travel writer and host Rick Steves. After we finished with Rick, ELCA colleague Kurt Reichardt and I met with Luther expert Martin Treu at Luther Hall in Wittenberg. In addition to the Luther show, we wanted to produce a shorter video on Luther’s wife, Katharina von Bora. Katie Luther is quite a story in her own right.
As a young nun in a convent near Nimbschen, Katie and her fellow nuns heard about Luther and fled to Wittenberg in the dark of night. Showing up in Wittenberg the nuns were taken in by Luther and his friends. In those days the affair was scandalous. Things really got juicy when Luther married Katie. Prior to this, priest didn’t marry. Luther and his friends changed all that. At least, outside the Catholic Church.
Kurt and I arranged for some local actors to dress up in period costume and record a few scenes from Katie’s life. Together with a horse drawn cart and the picturesque backdrop of Wittenberg, it may actually look like the 16th century.
We also shot in the medieval city of Torgau where Katie Luther is buried in the city cathedral and at the convent ruins in Nimbschen. This program was a bit of an afterthought, but it turned out to be one of the most popular programs I ever produced for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Back in Chicago we interviewed The Rev. Dr. Kirsi I. Stjerna, Professor of Reformation Church History and Director of the Institute for Luther Studies at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Kirsi did a great job of telling this story.
Tags: History, Katie, Luther, Martin, Reformation
Opening the Door to Luther with Rick Steves
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Culture, Education, Europe, Faith Based Production, History, Interesting Places, Travel, Uncategorized
Tags: Faith, Luther, Martin, Reformation, Rick Steves, Travel