S5 Ep9 Everything You'd Want to Know about our Trip to Egypt & Jordan!

Stuart and Craig do a seriously DEEP DIVE into our production trip to Egypt and Jordan for the principal filming of "Out of Egypt" and "Lessons From the Land: the Gospels" and answer that burning question: "So...how was the trip?!" They talk travel hiccups, missing video gear, the calming effects of food, the pros and cons of working with local crews, losing a micro SD card in the desert, and SO MUCH MORE! 

Show notes: 
6:35 - "Where are Dan and Barry?!" - https://youtu.be/vMIoNtBSoJs
18:11 - "We Found a DIRTY DEAD CAT in Egypt...and Stu brought it home" - https://youtu.be/Lk9dex1Ko7o
25:23 - "Nightmare Train to Luxor Egypt" - https://youtu.be/U1jMG2Wfw-Q
28:48 - "Incredible Discoveries at Karnak Temple" - https://youtu.be/RRvvHW-LrIM
33:58 - "Camping at the Top of MT. SINAI" - https://youtu.be/JtEByWBS-Kw
38:42 - "Are you Doing to DIE for a JUICE BOX?!" - https://youtu.be/n5i5y_XSWPc
1:00:00 - "Explore: Magdala" - https://youtu.be/Ln9UEHGESWQ
1:05:23 - https://youtu.be/ZPvLvJVB31Y

Jordan Schedule - https://docs.google.com/file/d/1a5EQyKcMIHWOIPeY2pyUVx6HrLuSB7rk/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword

Egypt Schedule - https://docs.google.com/file/d/139IvF_HwIl4sIFJtB8FpZS9T4oYSloWT/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword

Show Bible - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fe8BgDYAyGfkmgo4s46HYPSQBDqyTbhedMKdODBngT8/edit

Transcript

0:00

We've returned from our production trip to Egypt and Jordan, filming two of our most ambitious and exciting projects to date. In this episode, we dove deep into how the production went. What were some of the challenges that we experienced? And we'll pull back the curtain on logistics and talk equipment. That's coming up next. On inroads. Welcome to Inroads, where we share real world examples of digital evangelism and provide tips on how you can use today's technology to spread the gospel. You can learn more about us and watch our free video series at Appian Media dot org. Appian Media is currently in post-production of our next documentary series Out of Egypt. You're invited on this extraordinary journey through Egypt and Jordan as we look at one of the possible routes of the exodus. We'll share more about how you can still be involved with this incredible project later in the show. Stew, we are back. We are back. How's the jetlag feeling? You had enough time to. Yeah, we're through that. It was. It took a few days, you know. Only a few. Days. Only a few days. The flight back was not bad, though, I'll say. We got a direct flight from Amman, Jordan to Chicago. And that was nice because it was 12 hours. I'm not sure if we were going through the day or the night or whatever. I was not awake through most of that particular flight. You know, those international flights. I don't know about you. There's a whole lot of like going dozing off, being unconscious and then waking up in the middle of some movie that I really don't care to see. I'm just like, Oh, it's on. And he's watching something and then, you know, falling asleep again. So it's like it's just. And then they'll bring you food every once in a while and you just kind of eat and watch. It's a weird. There is a weird adjective about it. You do kind of wake up and you're like, there, there's food. There's food. And I know I think it's food. Yeah, it depending on where you're flying, but. Nowhere else in my life do I do I operate that way where I'm just like on the couch watching Netflix or something going on. And then I wake up and there's food in front of me and I eat and then I just watch and then, I mean, like, that just does not happen. That's not your. Life. Not my life. Not. Okay, well. But it is when you're, you know, 30,000 feet over the Atlantic. Ocean and I don't know about you, that was the long the single longest flight I've ever taken. I think it. Was. So is something like 12, 12 and a half hours. Yeah. And man, I thought before we went on the trip, it's going to be the longest 12 hours of my life. Yeah, I don't know. We worked so hard and we were so exhausted by the end of that trip that seriously. I remember closing my eyes and waking up and we had about an hour left to fly. Yeah, it. Was. Wow, that's good. It was a great. That's good. You were great. That's what Barry said, too. He said that and he had a different flight. He took different legs. I think he went to Paris or something like that. But he said that when he got on his flight, he told the stewardess to wake him up to eat and he fell asleep and like they landed or something. And the stewardess told them, We tried to wake you up, but you were just so out of it. Yeah, it just means we worked him real hard. Horbury That's right. Now, Barry, you mentioned that Barry had a unique experience with us because he was only able to join us for about half of the trip. That's correct. So he flew home from Egypt on the same day that the rest of our team flew in to Jordan. And to the. Sinai. To the Sinai Peninsula. You're right. Right. This is why this is why we're having at least one of these episodes where we can kind of talk ourselves through the trip and and share with you guys what what it was like. And it'll also kind of help me make sense of what just happened. Yeah, I. Think it's cleansing, you know, and I know since we've been back, people have come up to us and asked, Hey, how is the trip? They're looking for some really like grandiose, like, oh, it was amazing. It was just a great experience or whatever the case is. And you know, it was just so complicated. There are so many levels to it. This will be a piece of content we can tell people, go listen to this. Let's go, let's go listen to this episode. Right. It's like you know, when someone comes up to you and they see that you have children and they're like, What's it like being a parent? Why? How do you come to that? Is something that in seconds, you know, it's amazing. It's frustrating. It's it's, you know, the single greatest experience, right? Laughing and. Crying my hair. Out in this field. That that was Egypt where man, I'm glad we got to do it right. And what a trip. I mean, what a blessing. The fact that we were even able to do it was because of 350 plus people. Yeah. Who asked us to do it. Who gave us the means to do it. And that's incredible. But as we'll talk about in this episode, it was also at some points excruciatingly difficult. Yeah. And it's. A rollercoaster. Some of the most challenging things our team has ever done that we've put our team through. You know, and. But I would. Do it again. Yeah, I would too. You know, it takes a few weeks to say that that's true, but I would too. And, you know, I think we'll dove deep here in a few minutes about the whole project and kind of go through the timeline. But on any given day, we ran into hurdles that if they had happened on previous trips, we'd have been like, this is the end of the world. But by the time we got, you know, a week into this thing and it was happening every single day, we're like, All right, let's just roll with this. This is what this is the way it's going to go. And I think there's something that is strengthening about that. I mean, you know, we did something that was so challenging that the next time we go and do something, you know, we'll be like, hey, we got. This, we've seen. This. We've seen this before. Yes. And I mean, that's always what they say. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Well, it almost killed us. Well. But Superstore long, we must be really strong yourself. So why don't we start? Why don't we start at the beginning? Yeah. So we, we took a team of nine and we began the trip in Cairo. So we flew from various points of the U.S. Many of us met up. Where did we meet up? Where was. Our so. Not Amazon. Most of you flew from Indianapolis. All of you met in Germany. Germany. It was in Germany, I think I want to say Frankfurt, but it was another city in Germany. But yeah, you guys all met. And then that last leg to Cairo, you all flew together. That's arrived at the same. So we arrive in Cairo. You had already been there. You had spent some time in Israel and in Egypt. So you met us there with our fixer and and it was it was full steam ahead. Really? Yeah. From the arrival that first day, I was, uh, prepping gear. Right. And there's a fun recap video that you can go and watch. Yeah, well, you know, and I'll back up for a second because I went to Israel in Egypt, like you mentioned prior to you all arriving, part of it was just, just taking a trip with my wife. But then, you know, I ended up spending some time working and it was it was very much worthwhile. Yeah. And you know, we've been to Israel before and we I was literally in the country, flew from Israel to Egypt. And I remember texting you and saying, do we need to talk? Because the culture shock, yes. Even just coming from Israel to Egypt was unbelievable. I knew coming from the United States to Egypt was going to be was going to be crazy. And I'm sure you felt that as soon as you got. I know I did. I mean, everything from the traffic and the driving to there was more of a language barrier to you couldn't get things as readily available in in Egypt. I mean, like I knew immediately stepping into the country, this is not going to be the same kind of production that we've done before. Yes. And that was really valuable. I remember you texted me two or three days before we were set to fly when you arrived and and you were just like, we've got to. Talk. Yeah, we've got to talk. This is not Israel. And then there was radio silence from you for about 30 minutes, and I was like, What? I mean, what does that mean? It was not anything we couldn't overcome. But I did very much appreciate the prep of like, look, don't get here and think, yeah, we've done this before. I know what this is going to be like, man. I was not prepared for Egypt traffic. I think that's one of the things that I keep telling people about. Like, let me just tell you, those first couple of days, I couldn't look out the window while we were driving. We weren't driving. We were just writing. Correct. But if I focused too much out the window, I. I would get freaked out. Yeah. This is like every moment. It's like everywhere you went. We're going to run into that one. You know, there's a motorcycle squeezing between the space that should not be able to, you know, physically possible. And the roads aren't the same as I mean, like driving down a highway. There's no there's. No signals, no lanes. People walking across what we would consider to be interstates, you know. Yes, cars parked on interstates, picking up. People in the middle. Stop. You know, it's yeah, I mean that that's and you know, I've heard that's that's like Egypt traffic is legendary so we've seen some of the worst I think there is in the world. But it was. It was bad and yet at the same time, it was also impressive. Oh, yeah. That we spent that many days. And as far as I'm aware, nobody died. Nobody died. They they have figured out how to operate. Yeah. On those roads when rules are right, the one who honks loudest gets the right of way. I guess. So that was that was I think those first two or three days in the middle of Cairo and the busyness and the hustle and bustle as our trip would progress. Yes, we would get farther and farther out. Yeah. Rural until we were wilderness. Yeah. So I think it was just as they say, kind of baptism by fire those first couple of days. Man here we are. We're a big team catching up with a big team because we had a local Egyptian team led by Muhammad and Ali was was the guy helping us with with gear in his team? Yeah. Honestly, I lost track of how many people I think 16 or 17. I think total our our crew plus their crew. They had six I think six people. And then we had nine people. Maybe that's not even maybe ten people. So I mean, I think you're right, 16 or so, you know, in before we went, you know, I think let's back up even further. You know, Muhammad was telling us we need to add people to the crew. And we were pushing back. We were saying, look, we this is not what we've typically operated with. We typically have our people and then we have a guide or a fixer and then a driver. But he was like, No, you don't understand. And we didn't. I mean, I'll be honest. Like when we got there and that first scene we shot in the marketplace, I was like, our gear would have been gone, it would have been gone. And we would have been like, what was going on here? And so having all of the people that we did while it was a big crew to move around, they did help and yeah, that was just something that I don't think we were fully prepared for as well. But it did make the logistics harder because we had to have multiple vans and I mean, anywhere we went, we were not small, we were very noticeable. Yeah. And you know, of course with the security, you know, any time we pulled up to checkpoints or I mean, there was people that had to hop out and talk to the police. I mean, there was we had we had military with us. We had, I guess, government minders. I'm not exactly sure there was people with us that I'm not even sure what their role was. But they they helped smooth things. It had suits. Yes. And they had guns. That's right. And yeah, you know, smoothed some things out for us. And it made it very clear that if it had just been us and we were just kind of going in and doing our own thing, we wouldn't have gotten very far. No, we would have gotten halfway through the first day and went, that's that's all we're going to be allowed. To do is can be it. So yeah, man, Cairo that was that was such a cool experience because even though it had some of the same vibes of, say, the Old City of Jerusalem or some of the cities in Turkey that we visited, it had its own flavor. Yeah. You know, it had its own obviously its own language. The things that they were selling were different, very much Egyptian. You know, the food was different. Yeah. And that was fun. That was fun for us. Um. I think the way I've been describing it to people was Israel. While it's technically in the Middle East, it doesn't feel as Middle Eastern Turkey. I don't even really feel like it feels Middle Eastern at all. It feels very European. Yeah. Um, we this was the first time I actually felt like I am in the Middle East. Yes. In walking through the marketplace and. And driving down the road and seeing signs in Arabic and not English and I mean, like, this was the Middle East, and yeah, it just was very different than than Israel where, you know, the marketplace in Jerusalem, it's very multi cultural. I mean, you had the Jewish, you have the Christian, you have you have some Middle Eastern in there. But it's not just Middle East. Yeah, you know, there's multiple languages spoken in Jerusalem and in Israel. Egypt is it's Arabic. Yes. And it's Arab. And they're very I think they're very proud of that. I think they're proud of their call. We are Egyptians and they like the fact that they're Arab. You go to Israel, you're Jewish, or if you're Palestinian, you're probably Arab or you're you're from another country completely. And you're just in Jerusalem, in Israel, because you've kind of moved your life there. But you're still you're dissenters elsewhere. So it's. Yes, it's like a melting pot in Israel. It is. And I in Israel, you can't really go anywhere without hearing English being spoken, right? Yeah. You know, nowadays pretty much everyone who lives there likely speaks English as well and good on them. We ought to do more of that. We should. Do. Yeah, yeah. Learning a second language. It's taught in schools now. Now, that's not so much the case there in Egypt. So even some of some of our local crew didn't necessarily speak English or speak it well enough that that we could converse. And so translators were were more necessary this time around. But I got to give it to that that crew, you know, and I probably need to apologize to them for the first couple of days where it's like I'm frustrated that things aren't moving as fast or because they can't understand the words I'm saying. And that's that's just as much my fault. Sure. Because I haven't taken the time to learn their language. But you could tell from all of them they were they were willing to help. They were trying to. How they wanted to how they were. Trying to get stuff done. And there was this pesky thing called language that was making it difficult. Yeah. Yeah. And the thousands of people kind of moving and it's a lot of people, you know, crashing around us and we're trying to get gear through or get the shots that we need. And yeah. Um, yeah, I did notice a similarity both in Israel, Turkey, now in Egypt, where here in the U.S. you can pull cameras out and people will usually keep their distance. They'll give you a wide berth. They don't they don't really want to interfere in the cities like Cairo or in Jerusalem. You pull cameras out. And that is an everyday occurrence like they're used to camera crews coming in, people shooting documentaries and whatever. They don't care, right? They'll walk right through your shot and it's not. Yeah. And so you've just got to learn to embrace that. Yeah. There's not going to be okay. You need to block that street and block that street because we don't want anyone know you're shooting the scene and there's going to be busses driving. And that was Cairo especially. I was driving, giving us about six inch clearance, filling up the shot. And you know what? Now that you say that I forgotten all about that, but I shot video you may have as well on our on my phone of us at dinner and these massive tour busses going through these very narrow streets in the marketplace, I'm blown away that they actually let them do that. But anything goes. You know, usually they would clear it without us having to move back. But sometimes it's like, no, man, he's he's here. Camera's got to move. Hamer's got to move. He he got to right. Away he gets through. Yeah. And we're at dinner. We're sitting at dinner that first night in the marketplace and our crew is having to shuffle their chairs toward the table. Yeah, because. There's a tour bus that is coming behind there. I mean, like, as if there is somebody trying to shuffle past them to go to the restroom or something. It was a bus, but it's a bus. A big bus. Yeah. So anyway, that's yeah, I think we could go all over the place with this talk. You mentioned equipment. Yeah. When we got there, we. We had a chance to prep the equipment, talk about that. Yes. And again, that was another issue with language differences. Egypt was was very unique in that for the first time, our team had to rely on renting equipment once we arrived in-country. Whereas in the past, we have rented the majority of our our gear here in the U.S. and will travel. With travel with it. To save headaches in customs. They recommended and it was a good recommendation that we take care of it once we arrive. But that meant that we needed to arrive and get our hands on those cameras for the first time the day before we start shooting. Yeah. And so normally and you guys have seen time lapses of this from previous trips. You and me and Jet and others will get together and we'll have a whole day. Before. We leave the gear. Before we leave. Take it and and we know how it's all going to get assembled. We know we've got every little cable and piece and all of that. This time we had to do that the night before we started shooting. Right. And and four for for those that listen to this podcast that are in the documentary filmmaking space. They're probably having heart palpitations. Well, they are. If they're going to go to Egypt. But Egypt is not a KANI country. Correct. You've probably heard us talk about Carnie before. Most countries, they require you have a carnie which lists all of the equipment. You're bringing in for the documentary issue. And if you have it all in there, Craig's dealt with these before they stamp it here in the United States, and then it gets reviewed and stamped in the country that we visit. Israel is a carnie country. Turkey is a carnie country. And then your gear goes in and it comes out, and that's for that. They want to make sure you're not selling the equipment and profiting off of it without paying taxes. Yeah, they want to make sure that everything you brought in comes out. You bring it all out. Exactly. And you have to get very detailed. And every cable, every battery. Yeah, you know, every lens, all has to be listed. And and it smooths the process. It gets you through quickly. It does. Egypt is not a carnie, doesn't have that. They don't do that. So what happens is and I've heard crews that do this, they bring equipment into the country. They don't have any official paperwork or maybe they do have something that's semiofficial, but Egypt doesn't recognize it. And so then they get their gear confiscated and they either have to pay a lot of money to get it back or they just don't get it back. Don't get it. And so that was our Fixers recommendation. Prior to early on in this whole production, we knew that they were saying, don't bring your own gear, rent your gear locally in the country, it'll be easier. Yeah. It in some. Ways somewhat was in some ways it was nice, you know, so in the United States, if you rent gear from a rental house, you typically get a package and you go to that rental house and it's all packaged in in cases. And it's got all the equipment, all the lights are all the cables, all the monitors, whatever you need. It's all together in this country. In Egypt, it was like we would go into a room and they would bring one piece of equipment in at a time and say, Hey, does this look good? And we're like, Well, this is a camera body. It looks fine, but we need a lens and we need a monitor and. A battery. And battery, you know, in order for. Yeah. And so then they would kind of rush around and get all that together so we could then test camera. You know, we did that with our cameras. Yes. The audio equipment was it was not good. I'll just say it was not up to our standards. And so they had to go outside of their rental house and find equipment that we could use. So that was a little bit stressful. In the end, we got all of the equipment that we needed to make the project. It was just a very different experience, and I think part of that has to do with the the Arabic way of doing things is is different than the American way of doing things. Yes. And, you know, even the most seasoned professional has to double and triple check their gear. Maybe they arrive in the. Oh, I left that one piece of gear. We keep saying cables. Cables are the commonly forgotten. They essential pieces. They're the Achilles heel. Yeah. If you don't have a cable between the camera and the monitor, the monitors are useless. If you don't have a battery to power the camera, the cameras are useless. You need every little piece and even the most seasoned professional will forget those things. Well, this time around, there's no going back to my house and getting what I forgot. Exactly. We're in country and so it needs to all be here. Yeah. And so those first couple of days we were we were dealing with those Achilles heels. We were kind of like, Oh, we didn't realize we needed this. We didn't realize normally that would all just come together. Yeah. In your package. Yeah. And so it's working through those things. It's working to, to get to know this group of people that were complete strangers the day before, working out those kinks. I think and this is what's funny about the trip. By the time we got it figured out, things are going smoothly. We leave Egypt. Yeah. And we go into Jordan. Where we had to get new gear. New gear, new team. Yeah. So everything that we had figured out, even Mohammed who were originally was supposed to accompany us through the whole trip. Even into Jordan. Yeah. Found out the day of he couldn't and. Go with him. To Jordan. So it is brand new team. Brand new gear. Yeah. It's not canon cameras anymore now it's Sony cameras anymore, which I thought was fantastic. But yeah. And then it's like, okay, reset. Yeah, let's, let's figure this out as well. And so. And I think all of that, if we had not mentally prepared ourselves in advance for that, would have been devastating to us. But because we knew that we were going to encounter challenges going into Egypt, I think we were kind of prepared for it. I felt like before we left, I was kind of like this negative, like crying wolf type person, like, you don't understand. It's going to be really, really bad. It's going to be horrible. And could it possibly be, you know, and we but based on past experience, like, come on, Stuart, stop. It's going to be fine, you know? And at some level. You were not crying. I was not crying wolf. No. Okay. So we we were in Cairo and then after Cairo, we went to Luxor. We should mention before you jump in to Luxor, the thing that helped, one of the things that helped smooth out even the most frustrating of circumstances was the food. I do remember distinctly we're trying to get all the gear. We're frustrated that they don't have what we thought that they were going to have. And the recommendation recommendation was made. Why don't you guys go and grab some dinner? That's right. We're going to keep prepping the gear here. By the time you guys eat, you come back. That was such a great idea. And the food was good. Food was super. That was probably some of the best schwalm I've had. And that chicken, I mean, they just roasted just a whole chicken, you know, and then you wrap it in a pita. And man. I tell you, the Middle East knows how to do food. Yes, a middle East knows how to do food. It's true. You know, and so for the sake of time, what we kind of rushed through Luxor, but we were there like I mean, we we rushed through that country or that that city. We were there like 24 hours. If that we had a the train ride which there is a recap video on go watch it on our YouTube channel is. Referred to as the nightmare train. So like its own story. Yes, it's its own story. More to come. In. More to come on. Then then we were there. We went we shot at the temple at Karnak and at a brick factory, which both were really cool. Yes. And then we slept for like 7 hours if that, and then caught like a5am flight to the Sinai Peninsula. Well, you forgot a very important detail of that. That flight. We actually flew back to Cairo. Back to Cairo. So that we could fly from Cairo to the Sinai Peninsula. And we give you such grief about that, like you prepped us, we agreed most people will take a flight from Cairo to Luxor, and it's a 45 minute flight. It's not a long flight. Super quick. Yeah, you recommended and we agreed. We agreed to take an overnight train. Yeah, I don't know what it was. Ten, 12. Hours. It felt like it was three years, but a train to to Luxor. I tell you what, it was way more interesting and will be more interesting in the final project than if we just that's what I hope. It's all story. It's all. Story. That's all story. But you're right, though, that train ride was something else. I don't think we slept. I know that the way they had it situated and you can tell your own stories about it, the way they had it situated with their heads. You know, the train is going down the tracks and then occasionally it would pass another train and what felt like inches from my feet. Yeah. And so I'm like pulling my feet up in my bed, like, as if the train is going to hit my feet as it's passing. But it was loud. It was. Yeah. I don't know how to. And I mean, you and I are about the same height. You're a little taller than I am. But poor Ryan and I know could couldn't actually fit on one of those beds. And so he's, you know, crammed up in there. It was so bad that even our local, our Egyptian Muhammad and Ali, who rode the train with us for like, you know, they have their supplies, say, why are we doing this? Like a final warning here this morning. There's still this. Is your last. Chance. But yeah, man. And I tried to grab a couple of photos because I'm in there before I tried to get some semblance of sleep with my laptop trying to dump footage from the day, you know, and there's this tiny little plastic tray in the wall where I could set the heavy laptop with the hard drives that are hanging off. But the train is not a smooth ride. No, not at all. You know, so I'm sitting there and the laptop. Is. Shaking itself out of the wall and I'm afraid, like the hard drives are, and I'm just kind of holding it down. Jeremy and I were. We're sharing a yeah, sharing a room. And it's just. It's like, Jerry, I'm going to need you to put your foot here to balance this so that because if the, you know, hard drives pop out mid transfer, we're going to lose the footage from that. Yeah, it's like this is this is what we agreed to. That's right. This is what we agreed to. So anyone who says that these trips are glamorous, just like all expense paid cruises I've got needs to ride. Yeah, yeah. We've got some photos. They need to ride the train from Cairo to Luxor. So. But a great experience in Luxor. Man, you could do a whole episode on that. I think, you know, Jet had been there before. Jet is a huge fan of Egypt history and culture. And Man, the Temple of Karnak was something that you could spend days there. Yeah, and we just had a few hours interview. A fantastic gentleman there and Egyptologist. We've got some content. Oh, with. Him. How much good stuff. Yeah, Justin Jeremy talked to him for out of Egypt and then Justin pulled him aside for for I'll call it a podcast episode. We don't really know what it is going to be yet, but it was a deeper conversation on just Egyptian culture and Egyptian hieroglyphs. He's he he actually can read hieroglyphic hieroglyphs. And it was just a fascinating conversation. But the temple, you know, and to kind of give people a little bit of background at the temple at Karnak, that was the place of power during the time of Moses and the Exodus. You know, no matter whether you believe in the early dating or the late dating, it would have been in Luxor in that place, upper Egypt. And and so there's a lot of history there that directly points to, hey, this is this is what the worship of Egyptian gods looked like at the time of the exodus. So the Israelites were surrounded by this kind of. Yes, you know, and so I think that was a really cool spot to go to specifically because we can we can look at it and go, hey, this is kind of what the what the Israelites were feeling when they were. Yeah. And I'm just inundated with it, just surrounded by an impressive, very impressive stuff. And so for them to, you know, without delving too much into it, but for them to then be taken out into the wilderness where, yeah, they don't have temples, you know, they don't have these amazing statues and structures and stuff, but they're worshiping the God that devastated those other gods. Right? I mean, yes. Just some really fascinating comparisons and contrasts. Yeah. So then we hop over into the. Sinai. Sinai Peninsula and things start changing. They do, you know, for the production, it's no longer busy and packed full of people. We are, we are out in the desert. Yeah. In the wilderness. So don't think empty sand dunes. Yeah, not yet. That's on the other side of Egypt. That's on the other side. But mountainous you just you can see for miles and it's dusty and it's hot. It is. And yeah. And you know, we talked about this before we left that this was going to be quite a visual to show the wilderness. And you can imagine what you just mentioned coming from Cairo. I mean, they weren't in Cairo at that point, but in in modern Egypt, for them, civilized Egypt to the middle of nowhere. And they're like, what are we doing here? Yeah, that's where Mount Sinai possibly was. I tell you what, to go off on a little bit. And. To go off in a little bit of a rabbit trail here, we we did visit the Mount Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula, which is one of the spots that possibly could have been the Mount Sinai. But we are no longer we are not planting a flag and saying that this is the spot. We just kind of used it as the backdrop to tell this part of the story. I think it's important to say, because we have had a lot of people who have said, oh, it's not this one, it's actually this one. There's there's a lot of beliefs out there. There's a lot of traditions out there about which one it is. And I hope people realize that we don't know yet. We have ideas and there are different theories, but we don't know. And any archeologist who's going to tell you this is the spot, what evidence do they have? Right. Yeah, and that's to be fair, because there are people who are actually producing documentaries right now that are doing a very thorough job in presenting the evidence behind. I thought there were kind of three major. Mm. Locations there. There's up to. Six. Oh wow. Did you know there's up to six different locations and each have some of them I'd say compelling reasons why that could be okay. Our answer to it from the beginning has been that that's not what this documentaries about, right? Because I don't want and we don't want to spend the entirety of it. It could be this and here's why. It could be this and here's why. Because you know what's going to happen at the end of the we're going to say, but we don't know for sure. Yeah. So thanks for wasting, you know. That's right. Thanks for wasting your time. Yeah. Instead, we want to take you to a location, a place that has for for many hundreds of years been considered the location. And there are some some compelling reasons why it could be there, some compelling reasons why others could be. But we're going to go out there and we're going to talk about what really matters is what happened. Yeah. At the top of the mountain. Right? What did God say? What did Moses do? What did the people do? And that's it's a pivotal moment. That's right. That's worth talking about. Yeah. Yeah. And so you kind of as you alluded to, we were able to climb Mount Sinai and that was an experience and continuing to point people to other pieces of content because we're kind of creating this whole tapestry of of content that that shows people what the experience was like and what the and so the podcast that was just released a few weeks ago with Dan Kingsley and Nolan, who Avner was actually filmed on top of Mount Sinai. Yeah, after climbing it. And they have some great insight into what that experience was like. And Dan talks a little bit about how there are very few spots in the world that all three major world religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity kind of look at and say, this is a pivotal moment in our story and Mount Sinai is one of those spots. Yeah, because of the fact that all three of those religions believe in Moses, the Ten Commandments are absolutely pivotal to the the Jewish religion. And, of course, you know, we look at the Ten Commandments, we look at that whole thing. It's it's a huge part of the Old Testament for Christianity. And so that's kind of cool, I think, because there aren't a lot of places like that, right? Yeah. So the three you said the three major religions, three major monotheistic theistic religions. So correct. These three groups that believe in one God all hold the site of Mt. Sinai, whichever mountain it may be, but the site of Mount Sinai to be of utmost importance. Yes. To to the narrative of of the story. And so, yeah, we were up there, but we were by no means the only religious group being represented up there. And that was actually quite fascinating. It was you know, I remember we're shooting a scene with Jeremy. We had we had climbed up the sun is setting, which was just for me personally, it was it was an absolute AP and media highlight. It was really cool. Just to be up there and see that but people are walking by Jeremy and he even engages in conversation with with some yeah of a variety of beliefs which I found very encouraging. And then we got to spend the night up there in the open air. Yeah. In the freezing cold. It was cold. But there, there are Bedouins that live up there for a few months at a time. There are stone structures, houses, but but open kind of open stone structures. There's snacks and water and things that they sell up there. There is. But then they they fed us dinner. Yeah. And dude, that was it. It was something else. Yeah. I think as many roadblocks or speed bumps that we encountered throughout that production that for me personally was kind of one of the moments that I will never forget. Because you're right, we're on top of one of the traditional sites of Mount Sinai. We are having dinner being cooked over an open fire by a couple of Bedouin men who live up there part of the year and do this for tourists. And it was amazing food. But beyond that, I looked around at one point after the cameras had stopped rolling, and we're sitting around and it's our crew with the Egyptian crew, with a couple of women who were up there from, I think, from Israel and from I mean. Right. They were from they were not from Egypt and they were not from the United States. And so and then, of course, our Bedouin and we're all talking and we're all having a conversation and we're all enjoying each other's company and laughing and telling jokes. And I don't know, there's just something about that for me that's special because it shows that we are all we're all human beings. We're just people. Yeah. And we all have a lot more in common than a lot of times the world may portray. Right. And to me, those are special moments. Yeah. And there's, there's, there's a few moments like that throughout AP INS history that I've been able to be like, this is a watershed moment for me personally in Hebron when we played soccer and had tea with that, with that Palestinian family in the West Bank, that was one of those moments. But this that was one of the moments for me. Yeah. So, you know, it kind of made all of the struggles that we had had previously kind of melt away. Yeah. So yeah. And physical and mental struggles. That was, that was for me personally, the, the most strenuous hike I've ever been on. Okay. Oh, wow. And I'm proud to say, yeah, even though we had multiple offers, all the way up to hop on a camel or hop on a donkey if we're getting too tired, you know, and these guys are relentless. They are they're pretty much walking right next to you. They are with Camel over here like, hey. You want to Jamilla. You know, for five, not $5, you know, it was the equivalent of probably like two US dollar is going to be so cheap and like you don't have to walk anymore. I get camel over here and it's like, I'm not going to be the first to break. Like, I'm not going to do it. Nobody wanted to be the nobody wanted to do it. So we all just grit our teeth and Ryan and there's even video of it. I won't embarrass him by putting it up there, but I think we all kind of had moments and Ryan had moments where it's like we're questioning most, most of our life decision. Oh, yeah. Halfway up that mountain where. That's like, hot. Where is that camel? We're tired. But then you get to the top and you go, like, look what we've done together. Mm hmm. And everyone stay safe. Except when Justin tried to go down and that juice box and there's a video. There's a video as. Well we. Should. I think we should in this episode, in the show notes, we need to link to all these different videos. That way people can follow the trail if they want to. And there's more of those coming out. So even though, you know, we have been obviously back from this trip for now, for multiple weeks, we are trying to continue to share quick little behind the scenes. There's so much more that we can share. And so if you haven't already subscribe to the YouTube channel, to our Facebook page, because there are more of these fun behind the scenes that are that are coming out. Yeah, but yeah. Check out the I think it's called Are You Going to Die for a juice box? He started it. He was fearless. Justin Yeah, and we haven't talked enough about him, but he was on that trip for the first time. We should certainly interview him at some point in and get. His take on perspective. On this. And so I feel like that was to me, you know, we had gone through such difficulty and then we get to this moment and I felt like, okay, if we can do what we just did, we can do the rest of this. You know, let's let's let's take a moment and take a breath, literally at the top of this mountain. Let's let's wake up refreshed and ready to get the rest of this done, because there would certainly be more challenges right into Jordan. But that wrapped up about our time in Egypt. It didn't. So when we made this story, we knew that it was going to be following the journey of the Israelites out of Egypt, but it also was going to follow Jeremy's journey. It was going to follow our team's journey. And it's not a stretch to say that the pinnacle of the Israelites journey out of Egypt is when they discover it was established with God and these commandments were brought down off of Mt. Sinai by Moses. Like that is that is a watershed moment. Yes in Israelite history and Jewish history. And so that was the pinnacle of that journey. And very much it was the pinnacle of our journey. I think we all kind of point at that and go, okay, that was the moment where we knew that there was a struggle getting there and that things weren't over yet and it was going to be there were going to be more struggles to come. But this moment was was powerful. Yeah. And so I think it's amazing how it just parallels so well with what the Bible talks about when it talks about their their journey. So and I can look at, you know, we are still so early in the post-production. We're going to talk more about that in an upcoming episode. But I've already been able to glance in. You have at what we were able to capture. At the. Top of that mountain. Oh, man. Not just a podcast episode, man. That's just that, you know, typically it's. Just the teaser there. Yeah. But what we were able to capture with those Bedouins as they prepared a meal for us, what, what, what Jeremy and Justin were able to talk about when they were up there sharing, the team's experience and thinking about the Israelites and it just if I can say it just looks gorgeous. It does it looks really, really good. Very authentic. There was no staging of that. Right. It really was just I think what our team does best is this things happening now. This thing is happening now. Where do we where do we set everybody up to make this thing just happen organically and authentically and and look really nice and boy, it does. Yeah, I think so too. So and then we we leave the Sinai Peninsula and we take a ferry ride across a finger of the Red Sea called the of Aqaba over to Aqaba, Jordan. And I think let's leave it there and then have a break. And then when we can come back from the break, we can talk about the Jordan leg. Oh, that was something else. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. We have returned from our production trip to Egypt and Jordan for our next major project out of Egypt. Looking at the biblical lands of the exodus, our crew traveled to ancient Egyptian sites, took a four by four through the Sinai Peninsula and camped in the deserts of the Jordanian wilderness. On this incredible journey, while principal production is complete, post-production is just getting started and there are still opportunities for you to be involved. Right now, if you go to fundraiser dot Appian Media Dawg, you can help support the post-production and distribution with a donation of any amount. Your donation will ensure that we can make this series the best that it can possibly be and ensure that we can release this as soon as possible. Appian Media is a501c3. All donations are tax deductible, so please consider donating today to make out of Egypt a reality and thanks. So that ferry ride across the Red Sea, we did not even attempt to try and cross the Red Sea. The same way that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. Right. Moses was nowhere to be found. You know, the staff did not split. This ferry was something else. I've never done that. Have you like this was not a boat ride. This is a ferry ride. This was a I mean, it's a it's a it's a vehicle. It's a vessel large enough that they were carrying cars wrecked on this. Right. Have done that a few time. But yeah, it's it was interesting. And I mean, and we're talking not just cars, we're talking trucks. There was military equipment on this ferry. Hundreds of people. Hundreds of people. And yeah, so it wasn't like a short 30 minute boat ride. This was ours. I mean, once we finally got out of port in Egypt, it was a three plus hour ride across the Gulf of Aqaba to Jordan. And what was neat about that experience was it's a very narrow strip of water. And you could see we could see into Saudi Arabia. And at one point as we came into port, you could see Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Yeah, it's like that's that was a point where they all kind of had little inlets going in because, I mean, that is a major waterway and thoroughfare. Right. The Red Sea in itself. I mean, on the other the other finger of it for your little geography is is where the Suez Canal is, which is a that's the waterway that gets a lot of European traffic from Mediterranean Sea down into like the southern like the Indian Ocean, southern Pacific, all of that without having to go all the way around Africa. Yeah. So anyway, there's incredibly important. Exactly. Important. Yeah. So we hop on this ferry and we're, we're leaving one country. Yeah. And when we arrive, when we dock, we are then entering Jordan. So then we've got to do customs. Yep. Prior to getting on the ferry, we need to say goodbye to our Egyptian crew. We need to say goodbye to Mohammed and Ali and their. Their team. We need to return the gear. Yeah. And so for the cannon lovers on our team, you know, cannon cameras, we're shooting with we didn't mention this. We were shooting with the C-17s, which are cinema cameras from Cannon. We were shooting with our sixes, which are mirrorless. They are correct. Yeah, mirrorless. Cameras that are small enough that you could put on a gimbal. Yeah, they were the ones that we could use. Kind of more handheld. But both of those cameras are putting out stellar images. I mean, really nice stuff. I used to shoot on Canon. It was familiar enough that Jet, who is a cannon user and I could get it done. Yeah, but now we're switching. Yeah, we arrive in Jordan. They don't have the same canon cameras that we wanted. We were at the mercy of what, what the rental house in Amman had available and they told us before we even arrived, look, we don't have the C-17s. I don't know if it's. Well, you know, and we're kind of behind the scenes. We were hearing from some of the local crew in Jordan that there's just a lot of customs and paperwork and it just gets to be so expensive to get some of this camera gear into the country that people just don't. Yeah, they don't buy it. So. So we then went with Sony cameras and again for the gearheads listening to our podcast, we got the Sony FS nines and these are certainly bigger. Yeah. Than any of the cameras we've used before. Cinema camera's really nice picture, but these are not things that you would just hold with your hand, right? They need to sit on a tripod or they need to be mounted on your shoulder. And I don't know about you like, I haven't done that since working at the news station a decade ago where every camera had to be mounted. Sit on your shoulder. So that was kind of a it felt like a throwback, but it wasn't because these things are putting out a quality of picture that. It was it was beautiful. It was really, really nice, you know? And thankfully, you know, you mentioned Jett is a canon guy, but Ryan is a Sony guy. Correct. And that was extremely helpful because when we got in there, I mean, if it had just been jet, you and me, I think we probably would have been like we don't we wouldn't even know our way around the menus very well. And but Ryan was able to go in this setting and you want your camera to be doing this and this and this is the firmware you want updated. So that was very helpful. Because not all cameras are created equal. They are not. You'd say, well, I just want a 4K camera. Well, by now they're all pretty much shooting 4K. But what, what kind of images do you want? What kind of dynamic range do you want to have? What kind of format are you shooting in? What kind of cards are you using? You know? And so these are all things that we didn't leave to guesswork. We spent months. Yeah. Working with Muhammed and working with. And we had meetings internally just as to what all those settings would be. And that's a good point because like none of this is left up to when we get there. Like let's just shoot on this and more, you know, there is discussions because a lot of that involves not only the picture that you want and the look that you want, but then also the the file size and the storage. And there's all kinds of repercussions downstream that if you don't think about that stuff in advance, can really come back because. You'd think the temptation is, well, hey, if it can shoot eight K, obviously I'm going to shoot eight K and if I can shoot, you know, 400 megabits, you know, obviously I'm going to shoot the highest. Best. Well, then you've got to think about how quickly is that going to fill up a memory card? Do we want to be dumping footage every 30 minutes while you're out shooting in the field? The answer is no. How many hard drives are you then going to bring? And so it's finding this balance. We didn't shoot at the highest res that we possibly could, the highest bitrate that we possibly could. I will say it is going to be the best image AP and media has ever put out by far, right? But those are just all of the things that we had to kind of talk through and getting our hands on these Sonys, not only shooting with those, but we are shooting with the the FCC's. Three X threes, which. Are cinema cameras, but they're small again, that you could put on a gamble which we did that you could handhold in certain situations which I found us doing more frequently in Jordan. Yeah, there were some really run and gun kind of scenarios where even the nines were just too much. There's this reset that happens, new team, a woman named Lamar who was so helpful. But man, she was thrown right into it very first day. It didn't help that we our ferry ran late and so we were really late getting into port. And then, of course, we had to process through customs. And so, I mean, by the time we were on the road, it was late already. And then we were we were driving straight to Wadi Rum for our next day filming. And so we rolled into Wadi Rum late. We hadn't seen the gear at that point. And so we're talking about an early morning with the gear our local crew had spent the day before and the night before prepping the gear. I mean, like. And they hadn't gotten much sleep. Right? Things were starting to compound and it led to a very rough first day in Wadi Rum. I mean, we did get some stuff filmed and it was gorgeous. I tell you that that area of Jordan is unbelievable is a reason why Star Wars outdone in a lot of these major motion pictures. Use Wadi Rum to film because it is just absolutely gorgeous. But it was a rough first day. Yeah Yeah. And and again, we kind of throughout the production, we we had to be reminded and I don't know that any of us could say we were flawless in this, but we had to be reminded. We are not just concerned with producing something that God will be glorified in. Yeah, but we're also concerned with producing it in a way that God would be glorified in. Yeah. And I think all of our patients were put to the test at various stages throughout this production and we had to be reminded and I'll give it to, to Justin. He wasn't certainly the only one, but he and I had a conversation there in Jordan where he's like, Look, we may be these people's only experience with Christ. Yeah. And if they come away with this experience thinking those people have no patience and they're just, you know, running over the top of us and they're snapping at us and and they're going to think, Oh, that's what Christians are. That is that's not the impression that we want to give. We need to show grace and we need to demonstrate patience, even when everything around us seems to be, you know, pulling apart at the seams. Yeah. And there were moments. And there were moments like that. Yeah. It's like, okay, that is important to remember. Not just when you're shooting a documentary in a foreign country, but when I'm interacting with my coworker, you know, when the project that I'm working on is not going according to plan, when my kids maybe are not. Yeah, you know, behaving in the way that I wish they would. Am I, am I showing Christ to them in my patients and to my long suffering? And it was a good reminder. It was a very good reminder. Good reminder. And, you know, it you know, I think we have we've been faithful throughout our years to make really good relationships and build really good relationships with our local fixers and guides. And, you know, I know I could go back to any of the people locally that we've used in the past and just say, Hey, how are you? How are you doing? And be able to strike up a conversation. And I do feel like we that was the way it was with Muhammad and Lama by the end. But it took some it took some time. It took the finessing, it took some relationship building and I. Think took some apologies. It took apologies. I had to give some apologies. You know, and that's just and I think I can remember specifically the at the end of that first day in Wadi Rum and let's just be full disclosure, uh, we got up late or our local crew got up late. We didn't get the care gear prepped in time. We were chasing the sunrise. Yeah, you know, things just were not going according to plan all through that day. And then at the end of the day, we ran a drone. I say we the drone pilot. He was really. Good, really good. Really, really good. Ran the drone into the side of a mountain. And we were in the dark. In the dark. Searching for a memory card. That was I think that was probably the lowest moment on the on the production. And when we sat we sat down at dinner and we're like, guys, what are we doing here? Yeah, what are we doing here? It was that hard reset. And like, we have got to build a relationship and build a rapport with this crew. If we are going to do and create and work together in the way we want to work together. That is like you just said, Christ. Right. And so we had to stop and we had to say what we're doing is not working. Maybe what they're doing is not working either. But it's not all on them. It's on us to write and, make that real conscious decision to reset. And I think that was our reset moment. I really do think so because I can point to that day and go, Oh man, this is not working. This next thing is not working. That throughout the day, though, we're still able to get the scenes that we need. Yeah, you know, they're trying to track down the owner of a camel in the middle of the desert so that we can interview him before the sun goes down. That sounds simple, right? Well, no, it involves hopping into three vehicles that are equipped to drive through sand dunes. Yeah, without stalling. To find the guy to bring him to us. By the time we got to him, the sun had gone down. That doesn't mean the scene is lost. We're still shooting it. We still got late. He doesn't speak English at all. So then there's a slower scene because you're interviewing him. I can't remember, Stu, if you were. If you were with us in the truck, we're we're driving around after that scene, it seems like kind of trying to corral the team back up. We end up bumping into the drone pilot and his spotter. Yeah. And they're searching for something in the desert. Come to find out. It's the drone. That's right. Oh, no, it's the drone. Well, not only was it the drone, but the drone had crashed and upon impact, it had jettisoned its battery and its memory card. I don't fly drones a ton, but I've done them enough. I've never heard of that happening of a memory card coming out. That's so I remember we're out there. Everyone's got their lights were spreading around in the desert. Like, if you guys could just I'll pull up images to show you guys. Yeah. This is an impossible task. It was. And I thought it first. Memory cards come in various sizes. I thought at first it was about the size of a candy bar. And then we kind of play telephone with English and Arabic and go, No, no, no, no, no. It's an SD card. It's the size this is. This is getting ridiculous. I know eventually, yeah. Eventually it's a micro SD card. And you're right, that is about the size of your fingernail. They will find that in 2000 years and have footage that they can. Use that it is such a small piece of tech that if the wind catches it right, it's gone. It's gone. Yeah. Yeah. So it kind of seemed like when word finally got out to enough of us as far as what we were actually looking for in the dark, in the sand, we were just like, Wrap it, we're done. We're done. And thankfully, listen, that drone pilot was something else. I've never seen flying like that. Yeah, the stuff he was able to capture earlier in that day. Thankfully, he had load it to a computer. Right. He lost a flight. With the sunset. But the sunset and you know, it was not the end of the world. It wasn't. And he felt bad. But that guy was on it. I mean, they got a new drone. They got everything. We didn't miss a beat. No. Right. And I'm thankful for him. But we did kind of have this what are we doing? But then we had to ask ourselves, okay, how are we going to do that? You know how are we going to go about this? Yeah. Are we going to build up this frustration and wake up tomorrow morning with that still in us? Right. Or are we going to offer them grace? Offer ourselves grace and and try this thing again in the morning. Yeah, and we did. And we did. And I tell you really things looked up from there. Yeah. And by the end of it I know when Lama left us at the, dropped us off at the airport, it wasn't like we were leaving a client or a a business associate. It was like we're leaving a friend. Yes. And I think that's that's the essence of what we try and do when we're there is is build those lasting relationships. Because, like you mentioned, we aren't just creating Christ centered, Christ focused content. We're trying to actually emulate Christ when we're there. Right. And so yeah, but it was definitely an experience. And so, you know, moving on from Wadi Rum, we left and we actually drove north to Petra. Yeah, that was that was a surprise because we didn't expect it. Petra was not in is not part of the exodus. Correct. But we were just there. We were so close. We were like we have to try and grab some content at Petra for future use, whether in a documentary, whether a standalone. We've done that in the past. Magdala In Israel was a spot that we we were blessed to be able to go and visit and we created this whole standalone piece on Magdala. We have no biblical evidence that Jesus was ever in Magdala, but we know that Mary Magdalene was from Magdala, and there's a beautiful first century synagogue in Magdala. Well, Petra's one of those places where we don't have any biblical evidence of somebody being in Petra. But there are a few there's a few subtle clues, that kind of reference Petra and the surrounding region. Yes. And we were able to go and just and grab some content there that, you know, who knows where it will end up. But we also use that location as more wilderness backdrop. It honestly, it was the saving grace because as much as we were trying to get done, we were kind of steadily we couldn't find the place for this scene. Okay, we're going to have to get that later. And we ran out of time for this scene. Okay. We're going to have to get that later. And Petra ended up being the saving grace where those scenes that had been pushed, we were able to make use of this location to get some of those generic. We we just need a place that looks like wilderness. Yeah. We just need a place where Jeremy can get tucked away here and discuss the covenant or something. And we had a day and a half at Petra. Yeah. And it was the only location we actually had time to scout. Yes, the day before. The day before. Which was necessary. So necessary. And then the day of we were able to just. Bam, bam, bam, bam, get. Yeah, I think we shot five different scenes, maybe even six in one day. I believe. It, which was not it was unparallel all through the rest of the trip. Mm hmm. And so that one, that one shoot day in Petra actually got us back on track, which I think also helped rejuvenate the team. Like, okay, maybe we can pull this thing up. Yeah, yeah. So. But it was good and we got some great content there. And then we continued to move north to what would be our final location at Mount Nebo. You know, it's an interesting thing. We we landed or we stayed in Amman for a couple of nights. And I think probably the nicest hotel that we had had that entire trip. And, you know, again, we don't go to the five star best of the best hotels, but man, we were in some interesting. We have photos to share. We have photos to share. But anyway, it was nice at the end to have a spot where we could just stop and rest. Yeah. And, you know, I think Jeremy made the comment because he and I were rooming together. He goes, I'm so glad that we're here at the end as opposed to the beginning, diving into what we were like. We're like, what? What if? What have you done? But, but anyway, so we were in Amman and then we would go over to Mount Nebo and Mt. Nebo turned into an amazing scene. So beautiful. I didn't have the highest hopes for that scene because I knew what it was. It was a church on top of a mountain, looking off into a cloudy abyss. And like, I was like, okay, this is just going to be ho hum. But Ryan and Jen and company just managed to make it look amazing. I mean, just absolutely epic. And, you know, you can look out, you can see the Dead Sea. If you look really, really far, you can see Jericho. And so, you know, you're looking the Jordan River in the Jordan River Valley. And it just was a great spot to close. The documentary closed the trip. That was then the next day, I think the next day we were going to get on planes to leave. So and this would have been the very first time of any of the trips that we've taken that our last shot of the trip is actually the last shot of the project. Yeah. So it really did kind of feel for all of us. Like, that's a wrap, guys. Like, Well done. We made it here because this is where the story, as far as we're able to tell in this particular series, this is where the story ends. This is where our story ends. And that feeling of relief, that feeling of accomplishment, of camaraderie, you know, because then we did we got a team photo of the Jordanian team there with us and just it was a great, great way to wrap it all up. Yeah, I think so. So and then the next day as we started full circle, because we talked about the flight from Amman to Chicago, that was it. And we all kind of went our separate ways at that point. So, yeah, you know, kind of looking back on it, we didn't lose any scenes as as right as rocky as it may have been at times. We shot we went and we shot everything that we had hoped to shoot with out of Egypt. That's great. Lessons from the land was different. We got in there and quickly realized that we aren't going to be able to get everything. And so we got you were directing that we got four or five. I believe that we shot five episodes. And the reason for that was we didn't want to just show up and go, we got to get in the can. We got to shoot it. Yeah. You know, we wanted to make sure that while we're here, we're going to make it look good. We're going to make it sound good. And Barry is not feeling rushed. And so we realized very early on we only had Barry for six days that we were going to shoot the scenes that needed to be in Egypt. Yeah, there's no way to fake those surroundings. And we're going to make them look and sound good. Yeah. And the rest, we will shoot later. Yeah. You know, probably within the next few months. And also I'll say, you know, as the sound guy, I don't get behind the camera very often. But when I did peek at the monitor on those, they looked amazing. Like there is no mistaking that Barry is in Egypt for those, you know, green screen here. There's not a green screen, but it's it's exciting to see it like in some of those spots that he was. Yes. Just looks beautiful. And I'll give I'll give credence to to jet their, you know, poor jet or pulling him off of those moments where, like out of Egypt is still shooting. But I've got to duck away to be the director over here and coordinate with with Barry. Usually I pulled in Nolan. Sometimes we're pulling in. You as the sound guy, right? But there were a couple of times where I had to kind of set up the shot. This is what I wanted to look like. And Jet, thankfully, gave me some time and gave me his ability to say, Okay, we can take this thing to the next level and was able to light it or control the light. Oh, good. In a way that just yeah. It really. Really took it up a notch. Yeah. And I think we got into a little bit of a rhythm where it was like, okay, when we show up, we're going to focus on this episode of Lessons From the Land While Out of Egypt. Get set up over here. But in hindsight, you know, we're always learning. I think we probably needed to completely separate crews in order to do it justice. And Barry and his crew would go over here and film, you know, Ryan and his crew or whoever Jeremy would go over here and film their there. It may be their at the same location, just in different places. Yeah, maybe they're not, but that would be because it was it was it was just a matter of we were stretching resources that were already probably thin, even thinner. And so something had to give and you know, lessons from the land did. And it's because of the fact that you got what you needed in Egypt. Yeah, but we can come and we've, we've done that with the past couple of ones. We can find places domestically that have a good background and in film the stand ups, you know, we're still going to use a ton of footage from the filming of Out of Egypt. Oh, absolutely. In lessons from the Land. Yes. And we were able to get some great content of I remember there in the Temple of Luxor, you know, Bury in the space and exploring and looking around and, you know, all of the the visuals that are going to be necessary to tell those stories we captured. Yeah. So we're really we're just talking about filming, you know, six, seven, eight more of the of Barry speaking to camera, communicating the message which we have in in times past done domestically. So it was an easy decision to make after the first couple of days for we're like, look, we're not just going to do it, we're going to do it well. And if doing it well means we're going to take our time and get as many of these as as we can and be content with what we've got. We're still on on track and on task two to get this thing done when we want to get it done. Absolutely. So. Well, what a trip. Well, that. Was. Yeah. I mean, I tell you what, this is a really good podcast episode. And if you've listened this point in the episode, you know everything there is to know about production of Out of Egypt and Lessons from the Land, The Exodus. I'm going to say one thing. Let's link to in the show notes. Let's make this a really good show notes. Let's link to some of those Daily Recap videos that that we mentioned. I also would like to share our schedules that our fixer put together. Oh, yeah, I think that'd be interesting for those, especially in the production space, who would like to see how do we develop these schedules? We'll share those documents and then let's share the show Bible that we kind of have used as well. So let's get links to all those in the show notes. So that way somebody can listen to this episode and dove deeper into some of these other documents and know, okay, this is, hey, if I'm going to create a in Egypt, this is maybe a blueprint to use. Or if I'm just really an Appian supporter and follower, I can see all of this content. I think this is one that I'm going to share with people who ask. Absolutely. You know, some of our donors and whatnot. So yeah. And you're not going to see on that schedule, you know, day four was spa day. Exactly. You're not going to you. Know, you're going to see evidence of of a hard working team who put their heart and soul into this thing. And I'm speaking for for for everyone. Absolutely. And we hope we hope that conversations like this help you appreciate the work you all are letting us do. Yeah. We're glad to do it. We don't want to ever indicate that we're we're discontented. Yeah. We'll communicate to you openly and honestly when there are challenges. How God allowed us to work through those things, lessons we learned, mistakes we made. But at the end of the day, we pray that God is glorified with these efforts and these things that that so of you have allowed us to do throughout this season of in-roads will continue highlighting others that are using digital media to spread good news of the Gospels. And we'll pull the curtain back on out of Egypt and talk with various members of our own team as we develop, fundraised and produce our most ambitious, challenging and rewarding project that we've ever done. That's next time on Inroads. Inroads, a production of Appian Media, where a nonprofit video production company that is 100% crowdfunded. If you're interested in learning more about how you can support Appian Media so we can continue to create more great free content, visit us at Appian Media Talk.