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Keisha E. McKenzie | communication | systems | social good

the record keeper

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Watch: The Planet Tender

The team behind The Record Keeper, a well-anticipated steampunk-style web series about angels navigating good, evil, God, and rebellion, has just announced a new project on the lives of angels. The Record Keeper was unceremoniously dropped by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists earlier this year.

The teaser for The Planet Tender hit the internet last week and the full project is expected to be released in mid- to late 2015. The film is not a church project, but even before it was announced, director Jason Satterlund garnished promises of support from young Adventists across North America, South America, and beyond.

I recently spoke with the new film’s co-writer, Leslie Foster, a filmmaker based in Los Angeles.

“It’s been an amazing opportunity to work with Jason on this film,” Leslie said. “This is a project that’s so close to Jason’s heart, so to be entrusted with its creation is a huge honor. Jason’s been amazingly open and collaborative; I can’t wait to keep exploring the universe he’s created.”

I can’t wait either!

Follow The Planet Tender through Jason Satterlund’s official website or through the film’s new Facebook page.

The Record Keeper is still gaining industry recognition and award nods, and it premiered in film format at the Raindance Film Festival in London last weekend. Reviews are positive.

“The film explores the turmoil between good and evil and questions about creation and humanity, questions that have occupied a space in many of our minds. The events recorded were foreseeable but the way these filmmakers executed the story was second to none. Who knew that with only a small cast the whole universe could be recreated?” —Chaneen Salako on The Record Keeper

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Seventh-day Adventist Creativity Takes a Hit: Save The Record Keeper

Jason Hill as Larus, an angel in The Record Keeper
Dennis Hill as Larus, an angel in The Record Keeper (2013)

UPDATE: The Record Keeper‘s official Facebook page has posted a statement from the General Conference Communications Director Williams Costa: The GC is “stepping back” from the series’ planned February 2014 release date; no new release date has been announced. Read the GC’s statement (Friday, January 24). See also this extended feature on The Record Keeper: the director Jason Satterlund and co-producer Garrett Caldwell discuss their motivations and the General Conference review process. Caldwell is quoted in the original post below.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:
The Record Keeper is one of the latest efforts by Adventist creatives to create, to tell a visual story, and to do so accessibly and effectively.

We hope to provide people with a fresh perspective on stories that may be familiar to some, but in a way they may never have thought of before. —Garrett Caldwell, executive producer and associate director of communication, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The 11-part web series

It has already won film festival awards and has been promoted by the Adventist News Network and other Adventist news sources.

After premiering in October 2013, release was then delayed until this February. I haven’t seen it yet. I want to.

But now it’s at risk of being shut down. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists owns the rights to the series and so is free to block its distribution before it starts or edit it into a shadow of itself.

Save The Record Keeper 

If you value the arts and support #Adventist creativity, encourage the General Conference to release this project so the youthful, visually discerning, and media savvy demographic it was designed for can see and share it with others. 

Williams Costa, executive director of the General Conference communications department, is collecting letters of support for The Record Keeper. Email him at: costaw@gc.adventist.org

Don’t let The Record Keeper become another Rise of the Minions, a promising visual project from the mid 2000s that never saw daylight due to lack of support. It was written by an Oakwood graduate and its trailer voiced by Wintley Phipps. That wasn’t enough.

Spread the word about The Record Keeper by sharing this post or any of the linked articles or Facebook pages about it.

Support creatives. Share quality media. Save The Record Keeper.