A new "imaginer child"

In the Liken series, we see the scripture stories unfold through the imagination of a modern-day child. Thus far, we have had two "imaginer" children, Spencer and Amelia.

We are now introducing our third, Devin. After much looking, we found an adorable young boy, Isaiah Smith. He's 6, and my experience in working with young children has made me leery of writing anything for such a young age. Not that I don't like children. It's just that shooting a movie sounds more fun than it actually is, especially for kids. By the time you're on your 4th take of your 7th set-up, not many kids that age are eager to do it again. But this episode seemed like it needed to be somebody about that age, and I felt that if we looked hard enough, we'd find a kid who could play this part. It took quite awhile, but we found him. He came to us via a referral of a friend of ours, Marvin Perkins, from Southern California.

When Isaiah came in to audition, I had my doubts. He was a cute young boy, but like many young boys his age, he was awfully wiggly and smiley, and this role called for the character to be a sad little boy. But we gave him some homework -- to go take a day or two to see if he could do a whole scene and look sad the whole time. When he came back a couple of days later, I still had my doubts, because he was still awfully smiley and wiggly when we were chatting before the call back. Then, when we called action, young Isaiah went to work. The smile and wiggles disappeared, and out came this sad little boy, with slow nods and mournful eyes. When we cut, the wiggles and smiles came back, but not until then. Suddenly, we were very encouraged. The topper was that he had two older sisters who came with him, and it just so happened that the script called for Devin to have two older sisters. We auditioned them, too, and when all was said and done, I was very encouraged.

A couple of days later, I called to give them the news, and there was a lot of rejoicing in the background as mom relayed the news.

We began shooting yesterday at Devin's Grandpa George's house. George is played by Amelia's housekeeper, who has since retired to live closer to his grandchildren. The scenes were shot at the Olmsted complex at the mouth of Provo Canyon, an absolutely beautiful park-like setting that my brother, Ken, lined up for us via the Utah Valley Film Commission.

The most difficult scene involved an exterior, when Devin's parents say goodbye to Devin and his siblings before leaving for a trip. The scene included Debbie Stapley, who played "Queen Lamoni" in our second movie. She played Devin's mom. Devin's dad was played by Marvin Perkins. The scene involved about 9 different set-ups, and we had to get it before the sun moved too much and showered our actors with sunlight, whereas they had been in shadow for the bulk of the scene. We finished just in the nick of time and got some great performances all around.

After we wrapped at Devin's house, we all rushed back to Dixon school in Provo to do a pick-up of a scene involving Thurl Bailey. We only found out this morning that Thurl would be available to do the shoot, provided we could fit it in a 90-minute window during the afternoon. It was a bit of a logistical challenge, but Ken managed to book both actors and the school in time. We finished the scene with minutes to spare. But I'm delighted we got it, because it will enable us to tie Thurl Bailey the stern school principal to Thurl Bailey as Goliath in Amelia's imagination.

One more shooting day, tomorrow, then we're done with the bookends shoot. Tomorrow, it's back to Amelia's house to shoot a portion of "Samuel and the Christmas Prophecy" bookends.