Testimony Series: God Dreams Bring God’s Provision - with Laurie Vines

Laurie: 00:00:00

I can count on one hand the number of times that I've been most afraid in my life.

Laurie: 00:00:05

One of those times was the night before filming a promotional video in order to raise money to make my first feature film the new norm.

Laurie: 00:00:15

I was so afraid.

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I was newer to filmmaking, I was producing it, and the cast crew, almost everybody was completely new to me.

Laurie: 00:00:25

So, hello, I am Laurie Vines.

Laurie: 00:00:27

Thank you for listening.

Laurie: 00:00:29

I've been making films for about six years, and filmmaking is actually an encore career.

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I'm a teacher by trade, and when the time was right and I felt like the Lord wanted me to, I jumped in to filmmaking head first.

Laurie: 00:00:45

All of my filmmaking adventures to me have been somewhat miraculous, but I wanna share more about my future film and how God saw me through to a completed project.

Laurie: 00:00:57

First, I wanna take you back a little while.

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So several decades ago, after coming to Faith and Christ, someone prayed for me and they shared an encouragement that they felt God had put on their heart.

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They told me that God had put a dream in my heart.

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Not to limit the dream because of lack of resources or lack of people.

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So I knew what dream they were talking about.

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They were referring to the dream of filmmaking.

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So fast forward several decades, a marriage, three kids, a teaching career, and a whole lot of life stuff, ups and downs, as you know.

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And God reminded me of both that dream and that encouragement.

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So right before COVID, I had a dream one night and it was a film idea, so I couldn't shake it and really felt like I was supposed to do something with it.

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So I stepped out on it and I stepped out of nowhere.

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So there were many miracles that saw my future film, 'The New Norm' to its release, but I went to highlight a few.

Laurie: 00:02:00

I think are applicable really to any filmmaker, whether you are just stepping into the field or whether you have done many films.

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So I'm gonna highlight three things.

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So what does any film need?

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The right people, money and timing?

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It's a whole lot more than that, but those are three that I wanna refer to when I'm talking about the new norm.

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So first timing.

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Years ago when I first had the desire to go into filmmaking, I interned and I interned at a local studio in Petersburg, Virginia.

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And I just knew it was it.

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I was gonna step into filmmaking and that was gonna be the bridge to what God had for me.

Laurie: 00:02:41

It was not so, like I said before, life got busy and years passed by.

Laurie: 00:02:48

Few decades passed by, but it was the right timing when I stepped out into film.

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So there's a lot more to this.

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That God switched in my life to be able to do it.

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But the biggest thing was a job opened up for me to be able to teach from home.

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And because of that and because of my amazingly supportive husband, I decided to step out on the feature.

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So the second thing that I really needed was people, obviously cast and crew.

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Again, I knew almost no one in the industry.

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Been a very long time, very, very long time since I interned.

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At that film studio, and so I reached out to everyone I knew and I mean everybody.

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I knew a lot of people in theater.

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I had done some theater work and through that, through a local theater director, he connected me to a friend of mine.

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Actually.

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We had been in productions together.

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His name is David, and unbeknownst to me, he had been working with a local film company with Tyler and with Salt Fire Studio.

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So they agreed to film the promotional video.

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That's what I started off on talking to you all about, where I was so afraid.

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So the good news is the promotional video went well and they were all on board to make 'The New Norm'.

Laurie: 00:04:02

The next one is money.

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Money is a big part and peace for everybody, and I have so many testimonies and so many times when I was at the end of my rope and I felt like, okay, God, this is it.

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When he came through one time, I literally had no money for the weekend shoot, and God blessed me with someone that gave us a non-interest loan, which we were able to pay back a year later.

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And then before our theater premier, someone donated that I did not know through a GoFundMe.

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Donated almost the exact amount to be able to host it at our local iconic theater, the Bird Theater.

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So since that time, I've done three documentaries.

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I've helped on many sets with a lot of different roles.

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Please check me out on IMDB.

Laurie: 00:04:46

If you want to collaborate, I'd love to hear from you.

Laurie: 00:04:50

And so God saw the film through.

Laurie: 00:04:53

It's still a miracle to me.

Laurie: 00:04:55

I wanna thank you all that have listened.

Laurie: 00:04:56

Thank you, faith and Family Filmmakers, podcasts, and wanna encourage you all to keep going.

Laurie: 00:05:02

We need the right story, people, money, but really most of all, we need God and his timing and his wisdom.

Laurie: 00:05:09

So I continue to pray about which projects to do and to be a part of, and he's always faithful, so I can't think of a greater time or medium to spread goodness.

Laurie: 00:05:21

Beauty and truth, so God bless you in your filmmaking adventures.