The King Has Left the Building

(2005) 17:44 Minutes

The life of King David is retold as if he was a famous Rock and Roll star. The stories of King David’s triumphs and tragedies are shared by band mates, fans and archive footage. Highlights include David’s early triumph over the Heavy Metal Band Goliath, his musical defeat by rappers the Philistines and his recovery of the coveted ARK award.

The King has Left the Building has been for a long time. There is some footage of the film that was shot in 2002 (the Judean Legal Will Kit) and the last scene shot was the Ark Awards Ceremony shot in April 2005. Inspired by shows like Behind the Music and the E! True Hollywood Story, The King Has Left the Building is a creative way to look at the life of King David the 2^nd King of Israel. It actually was pretty easy to retell his life in a Rock and Roll context. The triumphs, the tragedies, the comebacks and setbacks that are all to familiar in the lives of our favourite pop stars translate pretty easy to the life of King David.

King has been a true guerrilla film shoot. Jeff would get an idea and at the next youth group he would get the kids together and they would shoot what they could. As with other Old Sow films, many of the youth also served as crew. As shooting continued some of the youth helped with story ideas. The Philistines were formed in one night. When they arrived they were instructed to write an original Rap son on the spot. They created We Nasty and performed it that night and conducted the interview all in under an hour and a half.

This short was produced with no budget. Old Sow was committed to creating a quality project that any youth group could duplicate. Even though Jeff Combs has access to some professional equipment through the New Brunswick Filmmaker’s Co-op, he opted to use his own gear so that the youth themselves could do the actual work. The cameras are consumer level Mini-DV cameras, the lights were shop lights, the sound recording gear was bought on eBay and the props were either borrowed or bought at the dollar store.

Week One:

Filming order: We shot 4 of the 456 kids who were King David fans and the one Goliath fan. It was all improv and it was fun.

Week Two:

Filming order: We had full house of 456 kids for some "concert" footage of a mob of King David fans. We got three fans in a post concert interview. David's high school coach was also recorded. The next day, the junior high kids created the "Philistines" rap group. The song "We Nasty" has been shot and edited. The group was also shot on the Judean Top of the Pops with Host Jephaniah.

Notes: We also have some leads on the costume for King David.

Week Three:

Filming order: We filmed more crowd footage with our King David in costume. Brett was decked out in a sparkling outfit, shades and a wig. the fans adored him. We also got some outside crowd footage.

Notes: Jeff stood in the back of truck to do the dolly shot! Kyle and Katie had to lay in a ditch to get their shots.

Week Four:

Filming order: The band "Goliath" was filmed during the talent show at the spring youth conference The band "Racing to Second" provided some a great performance for us.

Notes: We got the the audience at the conference to chant "Goliath" for us!

Week Five:

Filming order: David's Bass player was shot in my basement. I put on a long black wig and adopted a British accent to be a stereotypical rock musician. He helps fill in a lot of the blanks. There is so much to say about David, that if we shot everything, it would take forever. Next we shot "Skippy" who is David's keyboardist. I found this really messed up wig and grooving 80's ski sunglasses. I adopted a California accent for Skippy and removed most of his IQ and impulse control .

Notes: The Bassist and Skippy were shot back to back in my basement. I wanted it to look a bit different so I zoomed in on Skippy. He is not totally in frame, but I decided to keep it because it fits his personality.

Week Six:

Filming order: We met at the Sunday School to film the Ark Awards that were mentioned throughout the shoot. It was a gala event much like the golden globes or the like. It should be noted that it was the first shoot with the new crew and cast who just moved up to grade 7. Many of them were involved in shoots back in 456.

Notes: Only 2 out of 4 members of the Philistines were available for the shoot. Kyle, who moved up to high school was on hand to help out. He also appeared as one of the Sons of Korah with me, Andrew (big screen debut) and Ian (Dr. Bailey). Lauren did a fantastic job working the red carpet talking about things fabulous. Dana and Whitney dressed up in the same dress (and not on purpose) and served as award presenters. Shooting David's wardrobe malfunction was a bit tricky but we got it done.