The Common Cold

1. Where is the first character supposed to be? The first characters and all the characters are residents in a cold fictional town.

2. Is there a spiritual side about this? Yes. The town is cold because of their selfishness and they try to get warmth from blankets but it ends up not curing them, but actually making them more selfish.

3. Is it from a Bible verse? There are certain parts that were directly inspired by Luke 3:11-13, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." (the guy with a drawer full of gloves even though his neighbor has none, etc) and "Don't collect any more than you are required to" (the blanket salesmen)


4. When/where did you come up with the concept? There is a song called "A Comet Appears" by the Shins, and in that song there is a line that says "there is a numbness in your heart and it's growing", from that I started thinking about how numb we can be to loving people, sometimes we feel really compelled to love but then we bury it with something else, which makes our numbness grow. We distract ourselves from our true needs. Kind of like when we feel lonely we buy things for ourselves, instead of hanging out with people, we self-indulge, which makes us only more lonely.

5. What kind of camera did you use? I used a HVX-200, I borrowed it from The Red House arts theater, they are a Syracuse arts theater that helped me out so much with equipment.

6. Did you have help writing/brainstorming about it? Anything I write I run by friends and just telling them a verbal story helps out so much, but there are a few friends that really give some awesome advice so I call them all the time.

7. Whos' the older guy supposed to represent? The guy shoveling snow? He represents everyone's neighbor, the neighbor Jesus tells us to love. He has a need, and the first character sees that need, but decides he likes to keep his gloves for himself.

8. The guy stops when he comes out of the house, was he planning on shoveling and then saw the older guy and changed his mind? The first character leaves the house so he can meet the truck at the lot, on his way out he sees the shoveling neighbor and thinks about helping him but sees the truck and realizes that he doesn't have the time.

9. Were they expecting clothes or actually expecting blankets? They were expecting blankets. I didn't successfully establish that that box truck coming through town is a routine for them, they are used to following it to the parking lot.

10. Did they expect to pay for it? They did. If you notice the first guy that pays had money ready, but it ended up being more expensive than he was used to.

11. Is the house a metaphor/symbol for something else? The house is just a house, but in this story houses don't provide the warmth you expect from a house. Some people buy the nicest houses, with the nicest heaters and nicest carpets, but don't have any warmth in the house and it still doesn't feel like home. So in this film I wanted to show that if the cold is in their hearts, all the blankets and houses in the world won't warm them up.

12. Is the cost of comfort killing us? Sometimes, yes. Leaving a comfort zone is how you experience life. You cannot experience a roller coaster if you are too comfortable on the ground. And you won't experience the outdoors if you are too comfortable on the couch. This happens spiritually all the time, if we are too comfortable with what we know about Jesus, we don't challenge what we know to learn a bit more.

13. Do people think to much about their own comfort? I think so.

14. What are the blankets supposed to represent in the video? The blankets represent something different for each viewer. Some think they are drugs, TV, money, food and anything else. I think of them as addictions we have, they are different to each viewer. But the main point is they are just a quick distraction from their real need.

15. If we learned to show love more would the "coldness" go away? The people that don't love in real life are the ones that seem the most miserable and cold. The people that know how to love their neighbor because God, love himself is showing them, that is when you find someone with true joy.

16. How can we make the "cold" around us go away? I think we need to realize that all the blankets in our life are just distractions and turn away from them.

17. Is cold representive of Hate or loneliness in this video? I think selfishness is why we hate and hating is why we are lonely. I see hate/loneliness/selfishness in the same boat. There is a song by 4:37 called "Samuel's Son" in that song there is a line I think applies, "is it possible that loneliness is just a tomb, a symptom of our separation from you?". He is referring to separation from God. I think we all were born into a separation from God, just like cold is a just a lack of warmth, hate is a just a lack of love, the God that says 'I am love' we are separate from, we lack him, so selfishness is the lack of that love. Hate and love can't come out of the same source. If we lack true love and joy and we know it, I think it's important to face it instead of distract ourselves from that desire.

18. How long did it take to film? It took 4 days to film. The main shoot with all the extras took 12 hours in -10 degree weather, (it got colder when the sun went down).

19. How long did the whole production take? I released it one year after writing the script. I had the first draft edited within a month of the last day of shooting. It ended up taking a year because there was no budget, it literally cost me $50 bucks to make, (we had to fill the gas tank in the box truck), everything else in the film from cameras, to camera-cranes, to actors, extras and everything else were friends and family wanting to help out. Since the composer is a professional producer/sound engineer, and I couldn't pay him, he had to make the music when he wasn't working on other jobs. What also took time was that I have learned a ton about storytelling after I wrote this so I tried to fix a lot of the plot holes in the editing. I also had to color correct and other things. The composer, Elias Gwinn, finished that awesome score a long time ago, but I wanted to have real violins replace the midi/fake violin sounds, because we just had the midi violins as a temporary solution, but it got to a point where I though, "I need to release this film before it's out-dated on the things I have learned about storytelling and filmmaking". So I released it, nearly one year to the day from the first day of shooting.

20. What are the pictures near the end of the video that are covered up? The blankets on the wall arm attempts to insulate the house. In those attempts to warm things up they are separating themselves from their family photos and love. They are forgetting the memory of warmth and togetherness in attempts to warm up the house.


21. When they're covered up does it represent what we do with our loved ones sometimes, we shut them out? Yes, Exactly.


22. Do you think everyone will understand it? I don't, I think of 'The Common Cold' as a parable, Jesus told a bunch of parables and a lot of people didn't understand them, they had to ask him "what did you mean by that?". In Luke 8:9-10 The disciples asked Jesus what his parable meant and Jesus said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, " 'though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand." I don't want my films to be spoon fed, there have been a percentage of people that don't understand any of this film, I think there are a lot of storytelling flaws that I could have improved and it's not the best told story, but I also think that some people don't understand it because they don't try to understand it. We have stopped thinking about the things in our lives. I think everything in our lives is a lesson but we don't see the lessons sometimes, we just see it as a tree or a squirrel or a rainstorm. All of Jesus' parables might make a good story to just listen to, but then you can think about it and it means so much more, and you can keep thinking about it and the metaphors he uses just expand when you allow them to.


23. Why do you think we search for comfort in material things? Sometimes when we have certain things it makes us feel like we are doing something right. Like, "I have a nice car, I must be doing something right".

24. Where should we go for such comfort? Sometimes the most cliché answers are the right ones, this answer is no exception. Jesus Christ. If you are Christian or not, I think we need to start learning who the real Jesus Christ is, not the PG version that we have made him out to be. Knowing him for who he really is, will rock our world.

25. How do we look for it? Seek truth and you will find him. Be honest with yourself. Are you comfortable with who you see Jesus as? or are you trying to get to know who he really is?