Dial Your Prayer

DIAL YOUR PRAYER

– Color, 4 minutes, 16mm, Sound – 1974

<- Click image to see a crude VHS copy of the film

In Junior High School (1969) a friend told me about a phone number you could call and listen to a pre-recorded church sermon. I thought that this was really odd so I called it. I was so taken with the absurdity of the message played that I recorded it onto a cassette. In 1974, I came across this tape and listened to it again and decided to make a short film using the recording. I started to collect religious images with my 16mm Bolex. This was during the 1970’s ‘Born Again’ craze. Among the shots I collected were; shots of a neon crucifix, Bill boards which were using a beer tag line to promote Jesus ‘It’s not the water, it’s Jesus....’ shots from promotional flyers for the Rock Musical ‘HAIR’, shots of a poster of a very hippy looking Jesus with long blond hair, smiling and signed, ‘With Love, J’ I took these shots and inter cut them with shots of a man in a white shirt and black tie, sitting on a rolling chair, surrounded by computers that filled the small room he was in. This footage was all discarded outtakes that I had acquired.

I then recorded several sound effects; someone wearing clogs on a hardwood floor walking slowly. The sound of a door creaking open. The sound of a push button phone dialing. The sound of a gun shot. The sound of a body falling to the floor. The sound of a long dial tone. And finally the sound of an recorded operator informing you to hang up the phone along with that loud piercing noise they play to get your attention.

The film starts off with a black screen and you hear the sound of a door opening. You then hear footsteps going across the room. You then hear the phone being picked up and the dialing of a number. This is all done with a black screen. Once the call is picket up by the recording, you start to see the Flash Frame cutting of the images that I had collected while you listen to the sermon.

The sermon that I happened to record back in 1969, is a condescending babble about how you might feel that your whole life is a mistake and that you have no hope of ever changing it. It then goes on to tell you to turn to Christ for the answers to your messed up life.

When the sermon ends, the screen goes to black again. There is a pause of silence, then a gun blast. At the gun blast, the image of the Hippy Smiling Christ fills the screen and you hear the gun fall to the floor and the body soon follows. At this point the dial tone fills the room and then the recording telling you to hang up the phone along with the Loud Noise! I hold the image of Christ on the screen and the Loud Noise for a very long time. Eventually the image and the noise fade out.

This film was rejected by the Bellevue Film Festival in 1974 but won an Honorable Mention in the Kodak Teenage Film Festival of the same year.