What the Church provides
The Book of Blessings is the Church's approved collection of blessing rites for use in English-speaking countries. Among many others, it includes orders for blessing a workplace, for blessing tools and other equipment used in work, and for blessing people who are beginning an undertaking together. A priest or deacon chooses the appropriate order and uses it as written. He may adapt the introduction and the intercessions to the occasion, and the rite provides for sprinkling the people and the equipment with holy water.
You do not need to compose a rite or find a special one. Ask the priest to bring the Book of Blessings and tell him what you are: a crew of so many, on a shoot of so many weeks, with cameras, lights and vehicles. He will know what to use. If you have no chaplain, the pastor of the nearest parish will usually come for twenty minutes if asked a week or two ahead.
An order for the first-day gathering
Do this before the first setup, with the whole company present, not only the Catholics. Ten minutes is enough. Longer starts to cost you the day and the crew's goodwill.
- Welcome. The producer or director says, in two minutes, what the film is and why it is being made, and thanks the people in the room. Introduce the chaplain by name if you have one.
- A reading from Scripture. Keep it short. The opening of the Gospel of John, the Prologue, is fitting for people who make things out of light. Colossians 3:23 and the verse after it, on doing one's work wholeheartedly for the Lord, is a good choice for a crew. The last verse of Psalm 90, which asks God to prosper the work of our hands, is another. Have the reader use a printed Bible, not a phone.
- Petitions. Name the cast. Name the crew by department. Pray for those who could not be there, for the people whose story the film tells, for everyone's safety, and for the audience who will one day see it. Let the response be simple: Lord, hear our prayer.
- The blessing. The priest or deacon gives the blessing from the Book of Blessings. If holy water is used, keep it light near the lenses. A sprinkle is the rite; a soaking is not.
- Closing. The prayer below or another, the Our Father, and the Sign of the Cross. Then call the first shot.
A prayer for a film production
This prayer was written for this page. It has no official status. Use it as it is, adapt it, or replace it. It asks the intercession of Saint Genesius, the patron of actors, who by tradition was converted while performing a mockery of baptism on stage, and Saint Clare of Assisi, named patron of television because, by tradition, she saw and heard the Mass on the wall of her cell when she was too ill to attend.
Lord God, maker of light and of every image that bears your likeness, bless this production and the people gathered for it. Give the actors truth, the crew patience, and all of us safety in the long days ahead. Keep us honest in what we show and merciful in how we show it. Let the story we tell serve the good of those who will watch it, and let nothing we make bring shame to your name. Through the prayers of Saint Genesius, who found you on a stage, and of Saint Clare of Assisi, who saw the Mass from her sickbed as if she were present, keep our eyes on you. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Without a priest or deacon
A production with no clergy available should still gather and pray on the first day. A lay leader, the producer or anyone the company respects, can lead everything above except the blessing itself. He or she reads the Scripture, leads the petitions and says the closing prayer, asking God to bless the work. What a lay leader does not do is use the priest's or deacon's blessing formula or make the sign of the cross over the people. The difference is not a technicality. The blessing of the Church is given by her ordained ministers, and a lay leader's prayer, which is a real prayer and worth offering, is a different thing.
If a priest can come later in the shoot, the blessing can be given then. It does not have to be the first day to count.
What the blessing is not
- It is not a safety plan. A blessed set still needs a stunt coordinator, an armorer, a medic and rest.
- It is not a guarantee of a good film or a smooth shoot. It asks God to be present in the work.
- It is not a publicity moment. Do not film it for the trailer or the behind-the-scenes reel. The crew will pray more honestly without a camera on them.
Through the shoot and after
Prayer at call each morning, if you have a chaplain, keeps the first day from being the only day. When something goes wrong, a minute of silence together costs nothing. At wrap, a short prayer of thanks in the same place you began closes the circle. A Mass of thanksgiving before the premiere is a fitting way to end; see Finding a chaplain for how to arrange one.