“A Crowd Of ‘Witnesses'”

James Jordan, with Mark Goodman and an assistant — Extras being prepped for a scene in the Interpreter Foundation “Witnesses” film that is currently in production.
(Photo kindly provided by James Jordan)

I share with you a few more photographs from the Upper Canada Village shoots for the Interpreter Foundation’s Witnesses film project, interspersed with some other items of very distantly related interest.

As I’ve said, I wish that I could be there in Ontario for the filming. I really believe in this project, and in the capacity of film to reach and affect audiences. But duty calls. (We’ve just started the new academic year here at Brigham Young University.) Still, the reports that I’ve been hearing from the people involved back east have been very positive: “Things are going quite well,” one of the crew wrote to me today. “Casting is spot on. The performances are excellent!” Two of the actors have even written to me, quite unsolicited and out of the blue, to tell me how much they’ve enjoyed working with our people and how much they look forward to seeing the finished product.

If you’re interested in viewing the result of a previous film venture — one that we undertook, among other things, as a bit of of an experiment — including the same three-man team of Russell Richins, Mark Goodman, and James Jordan that is at the core of Witnesses, take a look at this 25-minute video, which has been shown on BYU Television:

Robert Cundick: A Sacred Service of Music

Joseph Smith and friends — Applying make-up in Upper Canada Village (Photo by James Jordan)

My long-time friend John Gee, a former Maxwell Institute colleague, and, now, happily a fellow member of BYU’s Department of Asian and Near Eastern languages, brought this gem to my attention from the superb and superbly accurate Babylon Bee:

“Local Christian Would Do Anything For Jesus Except Believe Things That Are Unpopular”

Warren Parrish, perhaps? — In the office of the Kirtland Safety Society. (Still photo courtesy of James Jordan.)

And, speaking of John Gee, here’s a piece by Dr. Jeff Lindsay on a recent review that Dr. Gee wrote:

“Further Thoughts on John Gee’s Article at The Interpreter”

At the pulpit — I’m hoping that our films won’t be *quite* this overtly preachy. (Still photograph by James Jordan)

It’s been a long time coming — I myself have been to the construction site twice during rather widely separated visits to Germany — but the renovation of the Frankfurt Germany Temple is finally nearing an end:

“See the First Official Photos Inside the Remodeled Frankfurt Germany Temple + Dedication Dates”

Early Republican cell phones — This photograph, taken from above during a pause between takes, demonstrates beyond question that cell phones were present on the American frontier in the 1830s. (Still photograph by James Jordan)

“A Crowd of ‘Witnesses'”