'Deditos' Red Sea crossing taxes Viña's crew

SOLOLÁ — Crossing the Red Sea must have been a cakewalk for Moses compared to the chore it’s been for our crew here at Viña Studios.

In the biblical narrative, Moses raised his rod, the seas parted and the Israelites walked across on dry ground. Here at Viña, we didn’t have Moses nor his rod (nor Charlton Heston) to recreate the scene for our 30-minute Deditos video.


Attempting to make the video as realistic as possible on a modest budget, our crew created several complicated sets to film the sea-crossing scene. Viña’s Deditos video series is designed to effectively communicate the Gospel and a biblical worldview to oral learners such as Guatemala’s 6.5 million Mayans.

“When you try to film (the Red Sea crossing), you realize how big that miracle really was,” said José, Viña’s creative director. “Imagine passing 2 million people across the sea. How tall were the walls of water, and how wide was the path? There isn’t any design for (filming) this so we just had to figure it out.”

One day, I noticed our crew hammering away outside, building a rectangular framed wooden box with rotating cardboard cylinders at either end. Around the cylinders, they wrapped a wide belt, gluing Pharoah’s army to it and then turning the belt to create the sense of movement. The crew had to build the conveyor belt and box contraption twice because the first didn’t work, José said.

Upstairs in the studio, they turned the belt rapidly, making the chariots whip around and around on that belt as the camera “rolled.” We slipped slim sticks under the belt and wiggled them up and down make the horses appear to gallop.

Another day, our crew had tipped the box and its belt on its side, raised above the ground. On this day, the Israelite Deditos characters were glued to the belt. Behind them, on the ground, the crew placed a blue plastic tarp, spraying water on it to appear like the wall of water on either side of the Israelites. One crew member turned the belt and another — lying flat on his belly on an inclined ladder — filmed the characters passing by on the rotating belt as a wall of water “stood” behind them (actually rolling downhill on the tarp).

The scene showing Pharoahs army getting inundated as it tried to follow the Israelites across the Red Sea required setting up three cameras for just one “take.” The set-up took hours; the big splash lasted just a second or two. Several of us grabbed our cameras trying to capture the moment.

Roughly calculated, José said Viña’s crew spent about 75 man-hours building and readying the sets and cameras for about 30 seconds of film showing the crossing of the Red Sea.

A final scene took us down to Panajachel beside Lake Atitlán, where we tossed the Egyptian soldiers and chariots into the water, filming as waves washed them against the shore. It was fun to see a small, curious crowd gather around to see what we were up to.

Lord willing, the videos and accompanying Sunday school lessons will help disciple Mayan children, showing them how God worked miracles, how he delivered the Israelites from slavery and how he saves sinners from the power and penalty of sin through Jesus Christ.