Teacher Training Video I (1997), was commissioned by my boss at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' Missionary Training Center. Our department, Media Services, needed a standard and quick way of orienting new teachers to the services provided for them. We especially needed to impress upon their minds the need to return items to the office on time and undamaged. I wrote most of the script in conjunction with my Special Project contact, Steve Smith, in March of 1996. Together we decided to take the comic approach, inventing "MDMP" Secret Service guards to haul off the teacher who keeps abusing the system.

After a lengthy evaluation by Jim Low, our boss, we were given the go ahead to shoot the video on a Saturday in July of 1996. Post-Production was begun in the Fall of 1996, with all the video images edited together at that time. This "silent edit" was the only copy available for a time, as the man cast to narrate the soundtrack lived in Idaho. The project was further slowed when Steve Smith quit to accept a job elsewhere. However, the silent master remained intact, so in March of 1997, using alternate narrator Steve Berndt, I completed the sound edit.

Upon its release, Teacher Training Video I was a huge success with its intended audience. Informative and entertaining, teachers reported checking it out just for the fun of it. (Blockbuster was really sparse on those nights.) Plans are finally now going forward for a technician training video to accompany it. [2006 Editor's Note: That last sentence was written in 1998. The script for the Tech video was completed, and I think it was a lot of fun, but it never went any further.]

Copies of Teacher Training Video I may be obtained from Eric Player at playerpage@oocities.com

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