Family videos and family bonding

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 19th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: family videos turn into family movies.

Most parents by now have captured plenty of growing up years on video. But you probably didn’t have a professional set up with mics, costumes, and sets to produce a feature-length film.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Josh Schumacher caught up with one family who decided to up the production value and make family videos a time to bond.

AUDIO: [Awards ceremony, applause, music]

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: It’s the Christian Worldview Film Festival in Albany, Georgia. For the past few days, Christian filmmakers have been showcasing their movies. Judges have been voting on which films they think are best in various categories.

There’s best music video, best short film, best feature film, and so on.

Think the Oscars, except there are no tuxedos, and no red carpet. People are wearing sports jackets or suits, and it’s in the half-filled auditorium of a Baptist megachurch.

One award the festival hands out, though, is not decided by the judges.

SPEAKER: Okay, the Audience Choice Award winner for this year's festival we want to congratulate Return to New Haven [Applause, music].

A family of 10 walks up on the stage to accept the award. It’s the Steege family. Eight kids and their two parents. Believe it or not, Return to New Haven is their third feature-length film.

Little Crew Studios began about 15 years ago. Here’s Joel Steege. He’s the dad.

STEEGE: Well, it's kind of one of those things where we didn't really plan to do it. It's, it kind of happened.

Steege had been working as an IT Product Manager for Intel, and that had him traveling all over the world—he was gone just about every week.

And well, when you have kids, you realize life’s moving by pretty fast. He didn’t want to miss out on the kids growing up.

STEEGE: And so we were just trying to find something that we could do as a family, where we could all be involved.

And that’s how the moviemaking came to be. The family had done some family movies before, and putting those together had been a lot of fun, so they decided they’d give that a try… With a little bit of a family-style twist.

STEEGE: And then we thought, well, especially using our kids as the actors, well, here's something we could do, we could all do together.

That’s right: their kids—their little kids—were going to play all the roles.

CHILD 1: Who’re you?

CHILD 2: I’m here to help you… Whoa!

And so the filmmaking began. The Steeges did it the responsible way at first: Joel kept his job and burned all his weekends and holidays making movies. And they never made any progress.

STEEGE: So we kind of made the decision, you know what, we're gonna leave the job, we're gonna jump in with both feet. And we did that.

That’s when the filmmaking really began. And that’s when they ran into their next problem: they kind of had no idea what they were doing. They had to learn everything—And not just about the technical aspects of making a movie, like getting the sound and the color balance right.

For one, they had to learn how to make movies with kids as the actors.

STEEGE: Sometimes if you have a memorized everything…it comes out very robotic…And so sometimes you're trying to improvise…And with each one of the kids, it's different, because their personalities are different…

But they also had to learn how to write stories.

The Steeges originally started by writing a parable for their first movie, the Runner from Ravenshead.

STEEGE: And so the first movie was just simply the verse, you know, Jesus says, Come unto me, all you, you who are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. And we thought about the idea of the City of Refuge, and how that's the picture. And so we thought we'd just take that simple idea, and just kind of lay it out in a story, an analogy, or a parable.

They laid out the story, they shot all the scenes, and they put it together. The final product clocked in at 44 minutes. That’s half the length of a normal feature film.

So, they went back and laid out some more scenes to get it to 80 minutes. And? Voila: Their first real movie.

TRAILER: Henry, we need your help in the field until we can get a guide back in. If the Runner hasn’t been caught. Should be able to rendezvous near the red bridge.

And six years later, The Defense of New Haven.

Child 1: Do not let him get to the Defense Force!

Child 2: Quick! In Here!

Both of the movies showcase the parable-style storytelling. And that storytelling style really gets down to one of the Steeges’ main objectives. See, their goal isn’t just making movies that sell.

STEEGE: I think as parents, the most important thing that you want in your kid's life is that they, when we're gone, that they're going to have a walk with the Lord, that's their first priority. And that's the focus of their life.

So they’ve focused on making movies with lessons Joel and his wife Lisa have learned from their lives as believers… Or lessons they’re re-learning.

STEEGE: As we're teaching it to our kids, and we're trying to put it in movies, it's really where it starts to sink into our own lives.

Making movies has also taught them to trust God to provide. When the Steeges made their first movie, they could rely on things like DVD sales for revenue. By the time they were releasing their second movie, everything had moved to streaming. And that meant a change in the business model.

While making their latest movie, they ended up relying on donations—and 40 different times, they ended up getting donations just when they needed them.

STEEGE: ...and if one of those 40 doesn't come in, we probably don't make the movie.

Making movies hasn’t just helped the Steeges grow spiritually, it’s also helped them grow in the craft itself. Joel says he feels like he’s finally figuring it all out.

STEEGE: You know, you put in 14 years of filmmaking and you feel like the lights just starting to come through the door on how to tell a good story.

The family plans to continue filmmaking for the foreseeable future. But as their kids grow up, the Steeges know they’ll have to adapt. They’re not sure what that will look like yet, but they’re thinking about shifting the types of stories they tell, and gearing them towards older child actors. They’re also considering turning to episode-based series, rather than movies.

Even with the uncertainty, Joel Steege says they still feel like this is where God’s got them for right now.

STEEGE: [Applause, music] Thank you a lot we—it's interesting being in a showing here and feeling like the audience is pulling for you. Like they're overlooking your mistakes and they want it to be as good as it can be. And we just want to thank you all.

[Applause]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher in Albany, Georgia.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 19th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: family videos turn into family movies.

Most parents by now have captured plenty of growing up years on video. But you probably didn’t have a professional set up with mics, costumes, and sets to produce a feature-length film.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Josh Schumacher caught up with one family who decided to up the production value and make family videos a time to bond.

AUDIO: [Awards ceremony, applause, music]

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: It’s the Christian Worldview Film Festival in Albany, Georgia. For the past few days, Christian filmmakers have been showcasing their movies. Judges have been voting on which films they think are best in various categories.

There’s best music video, best short film, best feature film, and so on.

Think the Oscars, except there are no tuxedos, and no red carpet. People are wearing sports jackets or suits, and it’s in the half-filled auditorium of a Baptist megachurch.

One award the festival hands out, though, is not decided by the judges.

SPEAKER: Okay, the Audience Choice Award winner for this year's festival we want to congratulate Return to New Haven [Applause, music].

A family of 10 walks up on the stage to accept the award. It’s the Steege family. Eight kids and their two parents. Believe it or not, Return to New Haven is their third feature-length film.

Little Crew Studios began about 15 years ago. Here’s Joel Steege. He’s the dad.

STEEGE: Well, it's kind of one of those things where we didn't really plan to do it. It's, it kind of happened.

Steege had been working as an IT Product Manager for Intel, and that had him traveling all over the world—he was gone just about every week.

And well, when you have kids, you realize life’s moving by pretty fast. He didn’t want to miss out on the kids growing up.

STEEGE: And so we were just trying to find something that we could do as a family, where we could all be involved.

And that’s how the moviemaking came to be. The family had done some family movies before, and putting those together had been a lot of fun, so they decided they’d give that a try… With a little bit of a family-style twist.

STEEGE: And then we thought, well, especially using our kids as the actors, well, here's something we could do, we could all do together.

That’s right: their kids—their little kids—were going to play all the roles.

CHILD 1: Who’re you?

CHILD 2: I’m here to help you… Whoa!

And so the filmmaking began. The Steeges did it the responsible way at first: Joel kept his job and burned all his weekends and holidays making movies. And they never made any progress.

STEEGE: So we kind of made the decision, you know what, we're gonna leave the job, we're gonna jump in with both feet. And we did that.

That’s when the filmmaking really began. And that’s when they ran into their next problem: they kind of had no idea what they were doing. They had to learn everything—And not just about the technical aspects of making a movie, like getting the sound and the color balance right.

For one, they had to learn how to make movies with kids as the actors.

STEEGE: Sometimes if you have a memorized everything…it comes out very robotic…And so sometimes you're trying to improvise…And with each one of the kids, it's different, because their personalities are different…

But they also had to learn how to write stories.

The Steeges originally started by writing a parable for their first movie, the Runner from Ravenshead.

STEEGE: And so the first movie was just simply the verse, you know, Jesus says, Come unto me, all you, you who are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. And we thought about the idea of the City of Refuge, and how that's the picture. And so we thought we'd just take that simple idea, and just kind of lay it out in a story, an analogy, or a parable.

They laid out the story, they shot all the scenes, and they put it together. The final product clocked in at 44 minutes. That’s half the length of a normal feature film.

So, they went back and laid out some more scenes to get it to 80 minutes. And? Voila: Their first real movie.

TRAILER: Henry, we need your help in the field until we can get a guide back in. If the Runner hasn’t been caught. Should be able to rendezvous near the red bridge.

And six years later, The Defense of New Haven.

Child 1: Do not let him get to the Defense Force!

Child 2: Quick! In Here!

Both of the movies showcase the parable-style storytelling. And that storytelling style really gets down to one of the Steeges’ main objectives. See, their goal isn’t just making movies that sell.

STEEGE: I think as parents, the most important thing that you want in your kid's life is that they, when we're gone, that they're going to have a walk with the Lord, that's their first priority. And that's the focus of their life.

So they’ve focused on making movies with lessons Joel and his wife Lisa have learned from their lives as believers… Or lessons they’re re-learning.

STEEGE: As we're teaching it to our kids, and we're trying to put it in movies, it's really where it starts to sink into our own lives.

Making movies has also taught them to trust God to provide. When the Steeges made their first movie, they could rely on things like DVD sales for revenue. By the time they were releasing their second movie, everything had moved to streaming. And that meant a change in the business model.

While making their latest movie, they ended up relying on donations—and 40 different times, they ended up getting donations just when they needed them.

STEEGE: ...and if one of those 40 doesn't come in, we probably don't make the movie.

Making movies hasn’t just helped the Steeges grow spiritually, it’s also helped them grow in the craft itself. Joel says he feels like he’s finally figuring it all out.

STEEGE: You know, you put in 14 years of filmmaking and you feel like the lights just starting to come through the door on how to tell a good story.

The family plans to continue filmmaking for the foreseeable future. But as their kids grow up, the Steeges know they’ll have to adapt. They’re not sure what that will look like yet, but they’re thinking about shifting the types of stories they tell, and gearing them towards older child actors. They’re also considering turning to episode-based series, rather than movies.

Even with the uncertainty, Joel Steege says they still feel like this is where God’s got them for right now.

STEEGE: [Applause, music] Thank you a lot we—it's interesting being in a showing here and feeling like the audience is pulling for you. Like they're overlooking your mistakes and they want it to be as good as it can be. And we just want to thank you all.

[Applause]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher in Albany, Georgia.

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