The final scene of the movie calls for a the main character wading into a river, getting dragged under, coming up clean and continuing up the other side as the clouds part to reveal a celestial city. That's the scene in short, to read the complete scene (which is still quite short), click here.

So we needed to find a large river with good banks. The problem is that we had to find this river in Israel, which simply doesn't have large rivers. The Mediterranean Sea was considered and rejected because it would not look look like a river, and because navigating wakes and boat wake would almost certainly be the death of the video camera. The only other choice was to go to the only part of Israel with some water - the Galilee/Jordan area in the northeast. Of those two bodies of water, the Sea of Galilee was chosen because the Jordan River is rather small. So the shoot because a day-trip. A scheme began being drawn up to bring Matt (the only character in the story at this point) to Galilee with a bunch of friends to help out. After a lot of planning and careful negotiations to minimize concern about terrorist attacks, we headed off.

This picture, like all of the pictures from a crazy trip like this, has a story behind it. This the navigator who, like everyone else in the car, had no idea where he was going. He and the driver missed the turn to Nazereth, ended up in Haifa, turned off the highway too soon, tried to drive straight toward the ocean, turned off of the main road too soon, took a street that was called a "path," and finally ended up in some lady's driveway overlooking the ocean from on top of a cliff in the middle of Haifa. After getting help from her, they finally found their way back to the highway and from then on it was smooth sailing (except a few other missed turns).

Tom, Clement and Matt skipping rocks on the Sea of Galilee before the shoot starts. Incidentally, the Israelis call the lake the Kinerett.

Esther helping Matt muddy up for the scene. Matt was covered in more mud, and mud with a high nastiness percentage, than any of the muddyings he was subjected to in the Negev desert.

Peter spraypainting Matt. This was the first time that this practice was used. The reason why it was used was because Matt would be getting really wet and it was necessary for him to keep his dirty look until the right time.

Testing the diffuser with Eliza and Charissa as subjects.

Using the diffuser to help mimick an overcast sky. The diffuser wasn't used much, but it came in very handy on this shot. The shadows of the trees helped make a natural overcast appearance during most of the shoot.

Matt in costume. Notice that his hair is totally plastered with mud. You can see litter on the ground in this shot and few others. We were at a populated spot with a road close by, but we cleaned the litter out of the path as best we could and then left the rest of the litter and the road to post-production (the effects guy is about to cry).

Peter sitting on a rock in the water. The camera was handled within inches of the water during most of the shoot. By the grace of God, it survived. Who knows how things would progress without it.

Peter and Matt, both rather cold. The Galilee area is cool during the evenings in October, if not really cold. But wet clothes sure can make it feel cold. That mess hanging from Matt's belt is the scroll. It was all cardboard, posterboard, spray glue, and coffee, which simply isn't a waterproof combination. Luckily, it's the stunt scroll. The main scroll also went in for a dunk, but it survived mostly in-tact.

The "obnoxiously happy" group photo of the whole gang - including another Matt on the far left. He helped us pick out the spot to shoot.

A good shoot, successfully completed. The only things left to shoot are the graveyard scene and some effects footage for the crowd shots. In the meantime, back to DFX and AE!