Recently, Faith Visuals spent some time talking with Storme Wood, half of the dynamic video-producing duo that is eleven72. (Lee Rothenflue, eleven72's other half, was unavailable at the time.) Storme shared details about the origins of eleven72, how they got started, and offered a behind-the-scenes look at a couple of their videos.

Okay, I have to ask: Is Storme Wood your real name? 

Yeah, that's the name my parents gave me.

I only ask because I think it's a great name.

Yeah, that's okay. Everybody asks me that. I've even been asked to produce my driver's license to prove that that's my real name.

Okay, let's talk about eleven72.  How did you and Lee get into this?

I was going to film school at the University of Texas, and I started going to a little church in Austin, Texas—we both live in Austin. The associate pastor found out I was in film school, and he was immediately interested in having me start helping out, making videos for the church. This was ten years ago, so the church was ahead of the curve on wanting to have video as an important part of their services. 

Eventually I was brought on staff part-time. I was the media director for the church, and when I met Lee he wanted to learn more about editing. So he bought a computer and one of the first versions of Final Cut Pro. I started to mentor him and teach him how to edit, and I started giving him projects. Eventually I became a full-time staff person at the church, and he became my most dedicated volunteer.

So that's how we started becoming a team. And that's when we started talking about what we could do with this passion we have. Eventually we felt that God was calling us to do something beyond just creating videos for our church, and so we spent a week in prayer and decided we were going to start this company to make media for the worldwide church.

Have you ever regretted it?

No, I've never regretted that choice. Running our own company has been quite an education. Not just being a filmmaker, but also having to balance the books, make the right choices, pay all the bills, and all that kind of stuff. That's been a challenge, but it's been worth it.

So where did you guys get the name eleven72?

We talked a lot about names and at some point we decided we didn't want that to hold up our getting started, so we tell people that's when God started the company, because we were both born in November of '72.

The same day?

Not the same day. But we were both born in November of '72 and we both are married and we both have two kids, and the daughter is the older one and the son is the younger one and they're about the same age. So we're definitely in the same life stage all the way around.

So you and Lee are pretty much indistinguishable except that you have a better name?

Ha, I guess so. But we don't look the same.

Good point. So what are some of the obstacles that you and Lee have faced? 

One of the big obstacles is trying to figure out how to get the best product for the least amount of money. Another is production. You're trying to write a script, cast the actors, find a location, shoot the film, and coordinate schedules. On a bigger film, they have a big crew to help share these jobs, but when it's just the two of us trying to do all these things—and we're trying not to spend too much money—it can be pretty challenging.

How do you balance those things?

On some of our videos we have spent a decent amount of money on a crew, but in the business sense, those don't pay for themselves very well. On some videos, we've only spent around sixty dollars, and they've done better than the videos that we spent thousands of dollars on. So it's hard to determine what's the best thing to do. And we're not trying to make a lot of money; we're just trying to be able to keep doing this. It's not a question of, "How do we make the most money?" It's, "How will we be able to keep producing this kind of media?"

Tell me more about how you and Lee work together. How do your roles differ?

My expertise is on the production side of things. I know a lot about operating cameras and lights and the equipment that goes into shooting a video. His specialty is editing, including adding the after-effects—which is something I don't know how to do at all. But as far as conceiving the ideas, we brainstorm together.

Let's talk about some of your videos. Your first video, "Fear,"for example. What was it like shooting that?  

Well, that was our first video after stepping out [into this business], and I don't want to make too much of it, but the content of the video is a lot of what the struggle was: to step out and start this business on our own. When I wrote that voice-over, those were the questions I was dealing with.

We used a camera I owned, but it wasn't a high-end camera. I wrote the voice-over, and then I just shot the different scenes that would go along with it. We also used some still stock images, and when somebody needed to be in the shot, we did it. I was in it once, and Lee looked out of some blinds, so he was in it once.

So we put that video together with hardly any money spent, just reflecting on what we had been going through. And it's been interesting, because that was in 2005, and it sells as well now as it did then. So clearly it's something that a certain segment of the church is dealing with all the time.

What did you learn from that process?

The lesson for us there was that if something has a good message and is relatively well-done, you don't have to spend a lot of money on it. Obviously we'd made videos before for a particular church, but this was our first attempt to make something that could be used by anyone.

"Fear" opens with a light bulb illuminating. How did you produce that shot?

That was me in my garage with a little light bulb I bought at Home Depot. I was just exposing for the light bulb, and then it makes the background fall off into blackness. Then Lee treated the footage. In that video, the only things we didn't shoot were a few still photos.

How long did it take you to shoot that video?

I shot in the hallway and garage for a couple of hours one day, and then met Lee and we shot some more. The production only took five or six hours.

What was it like for you to get that first video under your belt?

It was really exciting for us to get it done. We had one other video that we had permission to use—it was actually Lee's testimony. So we had these videos, and we put them out on a couple different sites, and people actually bought them. And it's pretty exciting when you know a church is showing your video. It does a lot to boost your confidence and keep you moving forward.

Let's talk about another one of your videos. You refer to "The Body" as a short film. Can you tell me what you did differently with that video?

I'm calling it a short film, but it was written for distributing to churches. But we did it just like you would do any film. We wrote a script, and we had a casting call for two days. Sixty or seventy actors auditioned for us, not only for that one but also for these other short films that we did around the same time. I also hired a director of photography.

What exactly does a director of photography do?

On a small production, he operates the camera, but he's also in charge of the lighting. Basically, he's like a cinematographer. He's responsible for the cameras, the lighting, the look, the feel, the texture. Everything you see is his responsibility.

What made you choose to hire a director of photography? Normally that's something you do yourself, right?

I wanted to have a chance to be the director and work with the actors.  And when you're shooting something it's hard to do both because even though the actor is in front of you, you're looking at the camera going, "Oh, is that light in the shot? Did the boom get in there? Am I holding it still enough?" And so you're technically worried about what's in the frame and you're not able to really engage with how well the actor is performing.  And so having somebody who knows what they're doing handle all the technical stuff frees you up to actually watch the performance and try to direct the actor to do a better job.

Who else was part of your crew for that film?

We also had a gaffer on that film, which is the person who is in charge of lighting. So on a big feature film the director of photography and the gaffer work together, and the gaffer is kind of like the head electrician but he's in charge of the lighting. So he knows all about lights and where to put them and where to point them and how they work. We also had a sound guy, a location sound mixer, and a couple of grips—which are kind of the labor force on a film

Working with that larger crew, how long did it take to shoot "The Body"?

It was really busy, but we shot it in one day. We started very early in the morning and worked until after dark. And it required a lot of people to help coordinate things because there were nearly thirty people in the movie, counting the extras. While we were shooting the scene at the beginning at that house, we had somebody meeting these people at a different house and giving them their t-shirts and keeping them happy, feeding them and trying to make sure everything was ready for the switch from one location to the other.

How long did it take to edit "The Body"?

I would guess that it took twenty to thirty hours. We also did a sound mix, so after we finished editing the whole video, we gave it to a sound guy and he actually mixed the sound to make it as good as possible.

One of the things that really makes a difference between amateur and professional video is the sound.  So that's something I think churches and aspiring filmmakers could really benefit from learning more about.

You're exactly right, and one of the most important things to learn is that good audio doesn't come from editing. It's very important to get good sound when you're shooting. Using the camera microphone is not a good idea. If you have a video camera to shoot a person talking across the room, you're not going to get good sound. It's going to sound bad, and not even a sound mixer can help you. You have to start with pretty good sound if he's going to help you. If you think about what's really important in a film, you almost have to admit that audio is more important than the picture because if the audio is bad, it's very distracting.

More important than the picture?

Even though I like for things to look really good, it's much better to have good audio than it is to have a pretty picture. People should do as much as they can to record good sound, and that takes a little bit of knowing when you should use a shotgun mike instead of the camera mike, or if you should use a mike on the person. The microphone needs to be as close to the subject as possible to get the richest, best sound.

With all the challenges that come with running your own business and making professional videos, what is one thing that keeps eleven72 going?

It's mind-boggling to think about our videos being sold to churches all over the world, like Australia or South Korea. One time I remember seeing one of our videos sold to someone in Uzbekistan. Just knowing that churches all over the world are using these videos—that hundreds of thousands of people have seen our videos in the past three years—it's pretty humbling to think about.

Check out all the eleven72 content.

Fear	The Body