Hey guys! Real excited about this upcoming project. Thought I'd let you take a quick sneak peak at the email I just sent:
Hey Rob,
Thanks a lot for agreeing to work on this project with me. Glad to be working with Spirit Juice Studios, you guys are the best.
The purpose of this video trailer is to get people to see how awesome I am so they invite me to come speak at some big conference or something.
Contained herein are some Director’s Notes to help us during the filming process.
Scene 1
A wide-angle shot of Times Square at street level. The sun is beginning to set on the Big City. Tiny people in the distance walk to and from pagan destinations unknown. Cars are passing. Wait, who’s that left of center strutting toward the camera? A handsome man, 5’11”, brown hair, athletic build. Catholic.
Ok I’ll just say it - Me.
He/me is wearing a shirt that says “Ask me why I’m Catholic” but it doesn’t look lame it looks hipster. I’m carrying a RSV Bible and my pants are too tight in a way that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable but also slightly comfortable in my ability to relate. The Bible is the big leather kind with the icon of Jesus on the front because I’m serious and I’m here to freaking change lives. He/I stare into the camera walking confidently with a glimmer in my eye that says “Hey there. I know you know Jesus knows what we’re doing here.”
Crowds start to gather around me. I extend my arms towards them. Bystanders start weeping uncontrollably. I kiss a baby. I make a man blind just to restore his sight again. Some epic Gregorian chant mixed with dubstep starts playing and now you’re thinking “Holy cats, am I going to crap my pants?”
I walk under a marquee that reads “TONIGHT: Edmund Mitchell and Jesus Christ.” and walk into Madison Square Garden Arena.
Black screen with white text: You aren’t going to crap your pants.
Yet.
Scene 2
Cut to the dark arena bursting at the seams. People are sitting two to a seat and gaze at the empty stage. The anticipation is so thick you can cut it with a thurible. Its the first International Steubenville Conference held in Madison Square Garden.
Camera zooms and floodlights direct to the rafters. Pope Francis drops in from the ceiling on a zip line and fireworks shoot out of his shoes as he flies around the arena with a megaphone chanting “EDMUND EDMUND EDMUND”, hyping the sea of people into a chaotic frenzy.
Matt Maher is off stage playing stuff he didn’t know he could play that’s coming from deep within his Canadian soul and he’s killing it. King David is playing a flaming harp that sounds like Jimmy Hendrix was a Catholic while the bass just keeps dropping and there aren't speakers anywhere because the music is coming from creation itself and even the rocks are crying out: EDMUND! EDMUND! EDMUND!
I enter stage left carried on Jim Gaffigan’s shoulders. The audience craps their pants and the shockwave of decibels created from the eruptive cheers/pantcrapping causes a small tidal wave in Michael Vorris’ hair felt halfway around the world.
No one dares ask me why I’m Catholic because my holiness is electric. I open my mouth to speak as Jesus looks down from heaven and nods approvingly. My tongue becomes incorruptible even though I’m not dead yet.
I’m just warming up.
I speak for 40 days and 40 nights and people are living on my words alone because they’re coming forth from the mouth of God using my mouth to let the words come forth but not in a prideful way. More like in a humble and instrumentally causal kinda way.
Chris Stephanik is speechless.
He’s not there, but he heard from someone who was there that Mark Hart said something funny and no one noticed because I’m speaking and you have to PIPE DOWN Mark because I’m KILLING IT. Ennie Hickman falls out of his chair somewhere in the middle of the woods. Bob Rice gives me a standing ovation and lets me wear his beard. Scott Hahn comes on stage for a few minutes but all anyone remembers is he said “What Edmund said.” Fr. Mike Schmitz gives me permission to start all my talks with the word “So,” and the camera keeps panning as the bass keeps dropping.
The crowd encores me three times and Moses has to get involved holding my arms up while I tell another story that’s hilarious and cuts you to the heart and makes you want to become a Priest and call your mom and apologize.
People go straight to heaven. Everyone. Just lifted up.
Scene 3
Quick montage of clips as Matt Maher continues to play in the background singing a rock ballad to me and Jesus and the bass continues to drop. Just some ideas.
Cut to: I’m in Honduras hiking up a mountain carrying a Priest carrying the Monstrance as thousands of Hondurans chase us.
Cut to: I’m standing on top of St. Peter’s shaking my groove thing.
Cut to: I’m in Africa playing soccer with kids in a sandy field while holding a child all inside a Facebook profile picture.
Cut to: I’m at the UN saying challenging things about Jesus and forgiveness and the true meaning of tolerance. I make Vladimir Putin shoot milk out his nose I’m so funny.
Cut to: I’m hanging out with Zac Effron on MTV and kids think I’m totally relevant and look up to me like that cool older brother they want to be.
Cut to: I’m in Mass levitating as I pray and Cardinal Dolan and Stephen Colbert take me out to breakfast afterwards and ask me to tell them that one story again and pray over them.
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You get the gist. Just throwing out some ideas. I’ll call you in the morning so we can go over this in more detail.
+JMJ
Edmund
If St. Augustian owned an electric guitar instead of a pen and hung out with Ray Charles, then his Confessions might have sounded something like this.
(Wiseblood Records) yesterday.
to read along late tonight while listening to this album with a glass of whiskey.