Silent Fall: A Documentary Studying the Global Impact of Abortion

Christian-Movie.com wishes Evan and his team all the best as they embark on their worldwide mission.

Evan Davis: I began producing promotional and educational videos for Christian ministries in 1988 and quickly realized that the need for professionally produced communication tools among ministries and mission organizations was virtually endless. I joined up with Harvest Media founding partner Gary Roberts in 1996, with a shared vision to serve and encourage ministries through the production of relevant and high-quality media tools. Gary’s technical know-how and skills as an editor and camera operator complimented my writing and directing strengths. The Harvest Media team continued to grow with the addition of Rich Steele as our administrator and creative director and Joe Goodale as our web developer. It has been a privilege to watch Harvest Media grow and thrive over the years.

CM: What does a typical work day look like for you?

ED: My typical day is a juggling act. Traditionally, we have a consistently high volume of work coming in and each of the team at Harvest Media has multiple projects in the works. I would generally be in the conceptual and writing stages of one video project while shooting another, editing yet another, and designing the graphics for a web project, as well. Since taking on Silent Fall, we have cut back a little on other projects. My last couple of months have been spent on the phone, researching the issue of abortion, and setting up the filming schedule.

CM: What was the most interesting media project you’ve ever worked on with HMM?

ED: One of our most interesting and challenging projects entailed living in the remote Sierra Madre Mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico for one year during 1998. Gary and I (along with my wife and one-year-old son) drove an old RV or flew with mission bush pilots into even more remote areas of Northern Mexico, filming indigenous Indian people groups. We were producing a video for a mission agency that has been taking the Gospel to unreached, indigenous people groups throughout North America. At that time, we were shooting on two newly released Sony VX1000s and were thrilled with the new Digital Video phenomenon.

CM: What inspired you to create Silent Fall, HMM’s first independent documentary?

ED: Harvest Media has been serving the pro-life cause for over 12 years, producing promotional and testimonial videos for organizations like Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Life International. As we were evaluating how to more effectively mobilize support for the pro-life movement, we determined that a comprehensive documentary examining the global picture of abortion would not only be a potentially valuable communication tool for pro-life advocates, but would also be a much-needed new challenge for a production team looking to expand and grow in our own art and in the diversity of services we could offer to our ministry clients.

CM: Why is studying the impact of abortion important to you personally?

ED: Conducting dozens of interviews over the years with women and men who have been devastated by abortion, as well as impacted by the joy that results from choosing life, has left its accumulative mark on me. Over the years, I have often contemplated which of the many social and missional opportunities must be most important to God, and I have always felt that the plight of the unborn has got to be close to His heart, so it must be close to mine.

CM: What audience is Silent Fall intended to reach? How will this be reflected in the film?

ED: We hope Silent Fall will have broad appeal to both nominally pro-life and pro-choice viewers; those whom a national pro-life leader recently called, “the mushy middle.” Our vision for Silent Fall is to compel the viewer to make a determined decision about their position on abortion based on the truth. So many who have taken a position on this issue, one way or the other, know only the debate as it is represented in the typical legal or political talking points of women’s rights, keeping abortion “safe and legal”, Roe v. Wade, etc.

The unborn have been de-humanized in the process, and most of our potential viewers are unaware that there are over 45 million abortions each year, worldwide, and that one in five pregnancies end in abortion. Or that in Russia, many women have up to 30 abortions in their lifetime and up to one third of Russian abortions end in the death of the mother. Or that abortion is responsible for over 60 million girls missing in Asia.The personal, social and economic impact of abortion worldwide has been devastating and is largely absent from the discourse. Our hope is that Silent Fall will bring the reality of abortion to the forefront of the debate and that many who have been content to remain passive onlookers will be compelled to rise up in the defense of the unborn.

CM: What can Christian filmmakers do to avoid accusations of bias when working with a divisive subject such as abortion?

ED: In some cases such accusations are accurate and unavoidable. In the case of an expository documentary, where it is clear from the beginning that the documentarian has a pre-determined position on the topic, avoiding accusations of bias is not possible or relevant. Michael Moore never claimed to be unbiased on the topic of gun rights when he produced Bowling for Columbine, or on the war on terrorism when he produced Fahrenheit 9/11. I do not deny that I am bringing my faith and my pro-life position to the table while directing this documentary, nor do I claim that the documentary is exploring the subject from a neutral standpoint. However, I can (and will) dedicate myself to the highest level of integrity and commitment to accurately and fairly represent both sides of the debate, and ultimately, the truth of the matter.

CM: How did Emmy Award winner Charles David Denler come to agree to write the film score for Silent Fall? Did you know Denler previously?

ED: Charles Denler and I met at an event in Denver a couple of years ago and really hit it off. Charles is not only an extremely gifted composer and musician but is also a man with a heart for seeing our culture impacted for Christ through media. He had agreed to partner with us on a project for an international orphan ministry, which, unfortunately, was placed on indefinite hold due to circumstances outside our control, so I naturally thought of Silent Fall as the perfect fit to revive the partnership with Charles.

CM: As you work on this documentary, a new genre for HMM, what are you having to learn as you go along? Which tested skills did you bring into the project that have made the process easier?

ED: The HD workflow is fairly new to us since most of the promotional and educational videos we have produced end up delivered on the web or on DVD, so we have largely produced in SD. We will be shooting Silent Fall on two HVX200s in 720p and 24 fps, on Panasonic P2 media, using 35mm lens adapters. The lens adapters will be a change for us and this is definitely the largest project we have shot HD on P2, so the logistics of dumping the P2 cards to hard drives while traveling all over the world will be a challenge.

Outside of the HD workflow, the filming of Silent Fall will not be all that much of a departure from the 100-plus other projects we have produced, many of which have been overseas and have had documentary storytelling components to them. We are very comfortable with all other technical aspects of lighting, sound, editing, etc.

CM: What are the top three things you wish you had known before you started?

ED: We are just beginning production on Silent Fall, so I am sure I will have many “if only’s” by the time I’m done, but I do wish we had the opportunity to use 35mm lens adapters on another project before Silent Fall, to get completely comfortable with them.

CM: What has been your biggest challenge so far in making Silent Fall, and how are you working to overcome it?

ED: My biggest challenge so far has been the complexity of the issue of abortion. Even within the pro-life movement, there are diverse opinions about how to combat abortion. The controversial debate between pro-life and pro-choice factions is complex enough, but add dozens of strongly held views about how to advance life, and what facets of the issue are most important to the picture, and you have chaos. It has been a real challenge to condense all the possible threads of the global abortion picture into a comprehensive story.

CM: What should Christians do to enhance the quality of their work? Have we really earned the stigma of low-quality that is often given us?

ED: Oh boy… are you sure you want to get me started on this topic!? After nearly 20 years of laboring to provide Christian ministries and mission organizations a higher level of professionalism and quality in their media communication tools, I would have to say that the low-quality stigma has been well earned. Most of the ministries that come to us have been using painfully low-budget videos and websites and have the low response rates to prove it. Christian ministries and the church can mostly get away with poorly produced media tools, if their target market is other Christians. However, unfortunately, the quality as well as the language and mannerisms of the church can all too often come across very “tacky” to un-churched viewers.

In the late ‘80s, the challenge was getting ministries to move away from slide shows and into using video to communicate their mission. Over the last 10 to 15 years, the quality and professionalism of media coming out of the church has vastly improved, but we still have a long way to go if our goal is to really impact the lost cultures of the nations.

CM: Does the creation of documentary Silent Fall mark a permanent focus shift on the part of HMM? Might there be more documentaries to come, or will you go back to producing promotional and educational videos?

ED: Silent Fall is an experiment for us. If Silent Fall is a success, it probably will lead to a focus shift from producing primarily promotional and fund-raising videos to developing documentaries that will create grass-roots, social transformation and mobilize the viewer on behalf of a cause. We will continue to serve ministries and mission organizations in their communications needs, as we have been doing over the past 12 years, and at the same time, diversify into documentary production as well.

We have only just begun production on Silent Fall and are already planning our next documentary. We have been in contact with a network of Bible Translation missions about the concept of producing a documentary on the transformational impact of the Bible. There are many compelling stories of personal and social transformation, once a people have the Word of God in their heart language.

Either way, this project promises to be a wild ride and it is great to have resources like the forums at Christian-Movie.com to find the advice and support we need to get this one done right.

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