Barcelona, Spain - Nov 2011

Thanks for praying for our trip to Barcelona.  I traveled with Dom (the director on the 'Escaping the System' project) to Barcelona to be with the team there.  After nearly 2 years of a largely U.S. team working on the project it was time for them to take on the last half.  In this picture you can see Marc and Eva (top left) who have been the heart and soul of this project for many years now.  Their vision is to reach students all across Spain - and to go to the places and into the culture where these students live and engage with them; in their media, at their events and through their lives.  They are truly inspiring people to be around and they have a tremendous heart for the Lord and His love for people.

 At the bottom of the picture are William and Isra.  William is an animator recently out of school.  Isra is managing the project part time as he continues in his job at an advertising company.  There are other people handling the website, music and other parts of the strategy, but these are the people Dom and I spent the most time with.

We were able to work on much of the pre-production planning for episodes 8 through 14 (episodes 1-7 are now posted in English and Spanish).  We also jump started the dubbing script work.  I did the initial layout and Eva is now counting syllables in Spanish (since that is what the episodes are being animated to) and addressing various questions.  Some of the languages we anticipate seeing done this year: Estonian, Latin American Spanish, English (a better version is needed for international dubbing), and Mandarin - to name a few.

I am organizing volunteers on 'our side of the pond' in America.  Right now a few former team members are doing work to update some parts of early episodes that needed attention we couldn't devote during early release deadlines.  I am also looking for 3D modelers, painters and texture artists that can spare some time to help out.  Right now the big need is for the set of 'Ghetto 3' across the lake (where Serator and Karton travelled from in episode 1).  I'm also looking in to low cost 'motion capture' technology to help with the animation and future crowd scenes.

With dubbing and continued production - this should be an exciting year for the project!

In addition to this project - next up for me: find out what the Lord has for us in following up on the anime project.  With the release of My Last Day and many more translations that will soon be added - the question is what next?  Please pray for this project and for wisdom as we seek to find out!