Thoughts From The Irish Sea

Fun fact: I am currently writing this post from the middle of the ocean. I finished semester one of my third year of university on Monday and so now I am relaxing on the Stenaline Superfast, on my way back to Northern Ireland to spend Christmas with my family, boyfriend and friends. I could not be more excited right now! It's been a long semester, and I'm ready for what I feel is a well deserved break after all my work in the past few months. After a lot of work including a presentation, a 3000 word essay, two photo stories and a documentary film I am finished! Huzzah!

Yeah, remember that documentary film I talked about making? Well... I made it.... kinda. On the 2nd December I attended the screening on my film along with the films of all of my classmates. At this point I'm going to make a side note saying that I'm so very proud of all my classmates. They all made great films and it was so exciting to see everyone's hard work pay off. Making a film on your own (as I discovered myself) is a very challenging experience, and it was probably the most challenging thing I've personally done in university or school. So to see around 15 films that people made all by themselves, but were also of a really good standard, was really great. Perhaps if enough of them put their films up online I might make a masterpost of some of the films so you can watch them, cause they were really great. Well done guys, you did good!

Anyway, back to my film. At 17 minutes long, with three interviews, my own personal thoughts, some constructed scenes as well as other things, one could certainly make the argument that my film was finished. But personally, I don't think so. When I set out to make this film I was feeling very ambitious, I knew that I could make a really interesting film with this idea. However, as I went on and kept working at it, I realised that even while making a short film, I was never going to have enough time and resources to make this the film I want it to be. That was a bit disappointing, but that's not to say I gave up. Instead I started concentrating on just trying my best to make a film that would do well at uni. I did slightly feel that I was conforming slightly there, and I'm a bit ashamed of that. But, the reason I was doing that was because I decided that I would work as hard as I can and for as long as necessary to make this film the film it was originally meant to be, the film it is supposed to be. I know that it has potential, and I want it to reach that potential. I am now aiming to be finished in Spring. Not many people have seen the 'uni edit' of my film, but the final cut will be bigger, better and hopefully will glorify God more.

And so I'd like to introduce you to my upcoming documentary film - 'Unboxed'. It is an exploration of the gifts of healing and miracles, asking questions like - does God heal today? Why / why not? What can we understand about this concept? How can we be sure it's real? and more. As well as this, part of the film reflects on my own personal journey of faith, as I begin to learn more about miraculous healing. Now to make up for the fact that you won't be getting to see the film for a while, despite many people assuming it would be finished now, I've uploaded a little sneak peek. I'll be uploading more of these as time goes on. 

Unboxed - Sneak Peek 1 from Joyful Mourne Media on Vimeo.

And there you have it. I'll try to be a better at updating everyone with it's progress, I didn't do that as much as I'd like to over the past few months. Right now, with the production of this film going on, seems like a good time to I guess officially launch 'Joyful Mourne Media', the name under which all my films will be made under. For those who are all about the social networking, you can follow what we will be doing via these sites -

Website: www.joyfulmourne.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/joyfulmourne
Twitter: www.twitter.com/joyfulmourne
Vimeo: www.vimeo.com/joyfulmourne

And if you'd like to contact me privately about anything, you can do that by e-mailing me at jo@joyfulmourne.com

On Making a Faith Oriented Film for Uni

Things are starting to happen with this film of mine which is very exciting! I talk a bit about it in this video above here. Again, those who have stories of healing and would be up for talking to me about them, please contact me, I would love to chat!! Seriously, any stories would be wonderful, you evem don't have to be in the film if you don't want to. E-mail: jo@joyfulmourne.com. Phone: 07412330665

So far making this film is proving quite the experience for me, and I haven't even begun filming yet! Never before has my faith come in contact with my university or school work like this before, and it is both exciting and terrifying. It's really quite surreal to sit with your lecturer in a tutorial discussing Jesus' teachings and fundamental Christian theology. Surreal, but pretty cool too. I have to admit, every time I have to get up in front of that class to discuss how my film is getting on, I'm terrified. I'm so aware that people could think I'm crazy, believing in stuff like this. At a few points my lecturer has made me speak about my own personal faith in front of the class. I've spoken about my faith to crowds before quite happily, but speaking about it to a Christian crowd feels quite different to speaking about it in a room full of athiests. I can't remember the last time I stammered so much in anything! But God has been gracious, and my friends have been very supportive, even expressing interest in my film. And if they do believe I'm crazy, well, they haven't said it to my face anyway haha! My hope is that through this film I'm making my friends might be able to see more of this God I talk about. 

I'll admit there's stuff I'm too scared to say still. On getting asked why I want to make the film, which I get asked a lot by my lecturer, the answer 'I believe God wants me to make this film' has always been replaced by '*shrug* I guess I'm just interested in finding out more about healing because I don't know much about it' (which is true also to be fair). I'm also scared of asking people to help me out with it. Most of all I am terrified of screwing up the film. I'm scared that everything's just going to fall through and I will have nothing to show. And I'm scared of it turning out just a badly made film haha! But I trust God, and I'm excited to see how it will turn up.

If you're the praying type, I would really appreciate prayer while I make this film. It's going to be a big challenge for me, one that I know I'll never be able to do without the support of God and also people like yourself. Cheers.

Help Me Make A Film!

Hey there,

for those who don't know me, my name is Jo McClure and I am a student filmmaker. I'm about to go into my 3rd year studying Photography & Film at Edinburgh Napier University and I have big plans for the next year! I want to place a particular focus this year on documentary filmmaking, and I have a film in mind that I would like to make. This is where I need your help. 

I want to make a short film about people being healed through prayer. (This is probably where I am going to lose half my audience who are reading this. "A film about religiousy stuff? Nope. See ya." And that's okay! But for those of you who are still with me here, thank you!) I'm not entirely sure how the film is going to pan out yet, that's something that will become more clear as I get to work alongside my tutors and peers at uni, but I do know a few things. I would really love to get a collection of stories from people who have been healed through prayer, or people who have witnessed it, or maybe you have the gift of healing, really anything to do with it! Seriously, I want to hear about anything and everything. I feel like a lot of people don't realise that this is something that actually happens, and the purpose of this film is to tell them, yes, God is alive and real, he does work and he does heal (tehe unintentional poetry). 

I'll say this - right now this is more about research and getting to know the subject more. Telling me your story doesn't mean it'll necessarily be put in the film. I'm aware that this is a sensitive subject and I don't want to put people in the spotlight who don't want to be. I'm sure in good time God will make it clear what stories he wants spread and it's quite likely I may ask you for a formal filmed interview, but in the mean time all I want is a chat :)

So if you have any stories please don't hesitate to get in touch with me. Or if you know someone else that does, perhaps you could forward this to them. This would mean a lot to me, I would really really love to see this film come to light, and the best way I can do that right now is just by starting to chat to people about this sort of thing. My e-mail address is jomcclure73@gmail.com, or if you see me ever just pull me aside, I would love to talk! I'm also on Facebook and Twitter for those who like the social networking sites. 

Thank you for reading, and I hope to hear from some of you soon!

Jo