Jerusalem in Utah

This past week was my last week on the job as a deputy director at the Utah Office of Tourism and Film, an agency of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.  Marshall Moore, director of the Utah Film Commission, invited me to join him for a visit to the LDS Motion Picture Studio’s ancient Jerusalem movie set in the small Utah town of Goshen, located south of Salt Lake City.  I had been bugging him to see the set for some time and this was my last chance to visit the set since there were only three more days of filming for the two-year New Testament film project.  I am a big fan of the Bible videos produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I had already downloaded some of these video vignettes on my iPad for my youth classes.    

It was a privilege to go inside this closed movie set filled with Roman soldiers, extras, and crew members.  Marshall, Mimi Davis-Taylor of the Film Commission, and I hopped in the Suburban and drove to Orem to pick up two digital media instructors from the Utah Valley University to witness some of the final scenes of the project being shot on film, real 35 mm film.  Producers of the project explained that film is still the best medium, despite the popularity of digital cameras. 

As we drove past dairy cattle in the countryside, we could see the movie set off in the distance.  Approaching the site, we stopped at a guard station to gain permission to enter.  I think I would have driven past the set if I didn’t know it existed, even though it spans the size of two football fields.   

It took the LDS Church two years to build the set out of commercial grade materials in Goshen, a rural Utah County community with biblical references.  The local landscape resembles Jerusalem during the time that Jesus walked the Earth.  Media reports indicate the set is good for 20 years, but the producers expect it will still be standing in 75 to 100 years.  I was allowed to take a few pictures of the set with my phone for educational purposes.  The only other Jerusalem set in the world is reportedly in Morocco.  I have never been to Israel, but experts say the set is very authentic and mostly true to scale.  Some of the scenes will be digitally enhanced to extend the exteriors and provide other special effects. 

The Motion Picture Studio in Provo has a strong reputation for training many prominent LDS filmmakers since it was created at Brigham Young University in the 1950s.  Over lunch, I had a fun time talking with our hosts and guests about BYU’s film reputation.  Many of them, me included, are BYU Communications Department graduates.  We compared notes about taking film, journalism, advertising, and public relations classes in the 1970s and 80s. 

The filming has wrapped, but the Church’s filmmakers are still in post-production to create the videos that will help people understand the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  I went back and looked at the videos on my computer with more appreciation and was able to recognize the set locations we walked through during our afternoon set visit.  For just a few hours, I felt like I had walked where Jesus walked.  The videos are available online to download at no charge at http://www.lds.org/bible-videos.  More than 900 films have been filmed in Utah.  For information on filming in the state, visit http://film.utah.gov/.