Night Watch | Melanie Chamberlain’s Story

An Enthusiastic Call

This project began when I received a very enthusiastic text from my friend, Dean Mikolyski.

Dean and I attend GateCity Church, where he also serves on staff as an intercessory missionary. If that’s enough to get you curious, you can learn more about Dean by watching his story here.

Like me, Dean tends to get experience regular bursts of enthusiasm. And this day he was really amped about promoting the Night Watch.

You see, what’s unique about our church is that they have a prayer room that’s open all-day every day. I don’t mean a quiet space where you go in and light a candle. I mean continuous worship music is being played throughout every hour, night and day, for over 16 years.

Yeah, it’s intense. And yes, I didn’t understand it either.

I believe that’s why God brought me to this church. It seems my curiosity can only be satiated by telling their stories.

As Dean was going on about the need to shine light on the Night Watch… I was struck by my own ignorance. I simply took it for granted that GateCity has a 24/7 prayer room.

I confessed my realization, “… You don’t have 24/7 prayer without the night shift.”

“Exactly,” Dean affirmed. “You’ve got to meet Melanie.”

Melanie Chamberlain, Section Coordinator of the Night Watch, GateCity Church

Spoiler alert: Melanie is awesome. She had me smiling and laughing throughout our pre-interview phone call. She oversees the night shift, basically has Dean’s job except from the hours of 12am - 6am. And the whole time I’m talking to her, I’m getting the sense of the sacrifice this commitment takes, and I was getting a sense of my first theme: Loneliness.

I love being an outsider as a storyteller. I get to ask the really obvious questions that would otherwise be either stupid or offensive if I was on the inside. Because my biggest question this whole time was:

Why would anyone want to do this?

And here’s Melanie, who not only does it, but this is the second time she’s committed herself to the Night Watch. I don’t believe I’m original, so I assume that other people would be as curious as me about what her life looks like, and what drives her. And that’s when I came across the second theme: Intimacy with Jesus.

Creative Goals

Though Dean wanted me to promote the Night Watch, it didn’t feel right glorifying it. I’ve accepted a job before where 3 months in I realized I was sold a bill of goods and my expectations weren’t meeting my reality. That’s really not a situation you want to find yourself in, nor is it one you want to trick other people into. I firmly believe that God will bring whoever He wants, and therefore my goal was to appropriately set their expectations by providing a very honest, authentic portrayal of the Night Watch as possible.

This meant a few things were necessary:

• Figuring out what loneliness looks like. Hearing “I’m lonely,” doesn’t really sell you on the truth of the statement. The audience needs to feel it. That requires creating a visual theme of loneliness. But what exactly does that look like? Well, visually you can use two hyper-extremes:
  1. A wide shot showing an empty space and our character small and alone.
  2. Very tight closeups where our subject monopolizes the frame.

• An intimate view into Melanie’s world. I wanted to satisfy my curiosity by capturing a day in her life. And since loneliness was a theme, I wanted to make that felt by establishing a visual contrast. So we had her invite her friends over to play games (which she regularly does) so I could give the audience a glimpse into genuine Christian life.

• Immerse the audience in the sound. Sound is extremely important to engaging the audience’s full attention. I also didn’t want to use any stock music. To remain authentic to GateCity, I wanted all the songs to be exactly what you would hear in their prayer room. So, I used my binaural audio bag again to capture a wide stereo soundscape, and played around with mid-side recording techniques when pairing that with my on camera microphone.

Passing the Toddler Test

My two year old son appeared in my office just as I finished the video. Granted, he’s not exactly the target audience, but I needed an outside opinion, immediately. Because I get way too excited when I export a new story.

I kid you not, the boy sat through the entire film. All 6 minutes and 2 seconds of it. He looked away once, to smile at me, then back to the film. And at the end he screamed, “AGAIN! AGAIN!”

It’s worth repeating, the boy is two. The story passed the toddler test. I think this means it’s my most successful video ever.

Melanie was blown away, Dean was impressed, and the church loved it. They even played it during their service to celebrate 16 years of continuous 24/7 prayer and worship. I hope you enjoy it as well.