Give and take
By Casey Gillis on Jun. 05, 2008
385-5525
When local filmmaker Danny Carrales sits down to write a script, he dreams big: elaborate special effects, carefully choreographed fight scenes and scary monsters that torment the protagonist.
But being an independent filmmaker - Carrales, a Lynchburg resident, started DRC films in 1993 - those dreams aren’t always possible.
“We pick and choose our battles very carefully,” says Mike Gilman, a longtime collaborator who worked on Carrales’ latest film, a modern retelling of John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
Take, for instance, a scene Carrales wrote that involved hero Christian (played by another frequent collaborator, actor Daniel Kruse) encountering two lions.
Using real lions just wasn’t possible, and Carrales says he knew they didn’t have the budget to create computer-generated felines that looked as real as they should.
So, inspired by stone lions he saw at West Manor in Bedford, Carrales decided to make them come to life using a little movie magic.
“We have a lot of discussions like that,” says Gilman, a special effects supervisor on the film. “We don’t have $100 million like ‘Lord of the Rings’ did.
“It’s always really about the story. How do we further the story and not get in the way of the viewer?”
“Pilgrim’s Progress” is the story of Christian, a man struggling with his own faith. He’s weighed down by a great burden he gets from reading a book - although it’s never named, it’s clear that it’s the Bible - and eventually, leaves his wife and children in search of the “Celestial City,” or Heaven. Along the way, Christian encounters friends and foes on his path to salvation.
Despite budget concerns, Carrales, Gilman and special effects guru Dana Burman were able to use their fair share of visual effects, including an almost entirely-CGI scene - shot using green screens - of Christian walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Two free screenings of the film are scheduled for this weekend: 7 p.m. Saturday at Thomas Road Baptist Church and 6 p.m. Sunday at Highland Heights Baptist Church in Rustburg.
Carrales isn’t the first filmmaker to tackle Bunyan’s tale, which Bunyan wrote while imprisoned in 1675. It’s been adapted for the screen a couple times, most recently in 1977 with a young Liam Neeson playing several roles.
“It’s influenced a lot of people within our lifetime that are our Christian leaders,” says Carrales.
“(But) our generation has kind of lost track of this great book.”
Carrales wanted to make the film so people can “get a hold of and be inspired (by the story) again.”
Because it’s such a classic, Carrales and his team felt the pressure.
“We wanted to get it right,” he says. “We know (there are) millions of people who love the book, so we wanted to stay as faithful as we could.”
But there were still parts of the story that wound up on the cutting room floor, says Gilman.
“You find yourself … having to make decisions to change the story a little bit,” he says. “We left out scenes that, probably, people would want to see.
“Our hope is that when people see the movie, it will inspire them to read the book.”
The original budget was just under $300,000, but the final tally was nearly double that.
The actual filming took 45 days over a four-month period in the summer of 2006. Everything was shot in and around Lynchburg, with locations including West Manor, the Diamond Hill Historic District, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Blackwater Creek, Peakland Place, Riverside Park and Old City Cemetery.
“Virginia presents a unique opportunity because you have mountains, you have ocean, you have flatlands,” Gilman says. “You have everything within a short distance of each other.”
In addition to the wealth of locations, Gilman and Carrales say they found plenty of local talent who worked in front of and behind the camera.
“It’s always amazing to me how people knock a place,” Carrales says. “There’s a lot of talent here. The city has been generous to filmmakers. The people have been generous to us (too), which is why we stay.”
IF YOU’RE GOING
WHAT: Screening of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’
WHEN & WHERE: 7 p.m. Saturday at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg and 6 p.m. Sunday at Highland Heights Baptist Church in Rustburg
ADMISSION: Free
INFO: http://www.pilgrimsprogressthemovie.com or http://www.reelchristian.com
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