Family Theater Productions
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Producer-priest sees film work as integral part of his ministry
In Year for Priests, Father Guffey uses all tools to spread the Gospel
June 15, 2010
On a May day in 2010, he walks around the set in Hollywood managing the schedule and the film cast and crew he assembled for the production of a half-hour, TV teen drama. He wears Hollywood black, but with one unique addition – a white collar visible in his clerical shirt. He is Father David Guffey, CSC, a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross and the Director of Film and Television for Family Theater Productions.;)
The approximately 20 cast and crew follow his professional management on the set respecting this producer who was making all the pieces work. The production is another program in Family Theater Productions’ Manifest Mysteries dramas that connect the Mysteries of the Rosary directly to the dramatic experiences of fictional teen protagonists.
Father Guffey started off the production in an unusual way for this Hollywood crew … with a prayer … and they all joined in. He did something that is often unusual in Hollywood. He brought the scheduled 10-day production in a day early.
In this Year for Priests that concludes June 19, Father Guffey sees this work not as an extension of his priestly ministry but an integral part of it. “As the Holy Father has recently been saying, we need to use all the tools available to let people know the Gospel. For me using video and Internet is part of the work of serving people pastorally, listening to what is in people’s hearts and offering stories and images to support the best of what it is to be human and Catholic in the world today.”
;)
In opening the year on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, June 19, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI said, “I think of all those priests who quietly present Christ’s words and actions each day to the faithful and to the whole world, striving to be one with the Lord in their thoughts and their will, their sentiments and their style of life.”
Father Guffey through his film work at Family Theater Productions is able to present Christ’s words and actions to the masses, while he fully functions as a priest.
At Family Theater Productions, he often celebrates the daily Mass, and he celebrates Mass regularly and participates in the ministry of St. Monica’s parish, Santa Monica, where he is in residence.
“The crew responded to him as a producer and a priest. They respected him both for his professionalism and for his vocation,” said Tony Sands, the production’s director, co-author of the script and administrator of Family Theater Productions.
Father Guffey’s production roots can be traced to when he was a boy in northwestern Illinois, using his parents’ 8 mm camera to make home-made films in his family’s basement. Though he took a different vocation path, being ordained a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross on April 4, 1991, that penchant for film never left him.
And through “a long and winding road,” on May 11, 2010, he found himself on a film production set in Hollywood managing the schedule and the film crew he assembled as the producer for a half-hour, faith-and-values, TV drama.
Exactly two years earlier, his parents watched him graduate with a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Film from Loyola Marymount University’s Graduate School of Film, Los Angeles. Three days earlier, May 8, 2008, at the LMU film school awards’ ceremony, he received the Dean’s Award for academic excellence, creativity and service.
And on July 1, 2008, he became the director of Family Theater Productions’ Film and Television Department.
“Father David Guffey brings maturity, enthusiasm, talent and skill to an area he is passionate about: the telling of significant human stories in a way that takes faith into account. He is a great addition to our competent team,” said Holy Cross Father Willy Raymond, CSC, National Director of Family Theater Productions.
Being a priest and filmmaker is an unusual combination. “That’s what’s great about Family Theater Productions; those two things come together in a unique way,” Father Guffey said.
The roots of a priest producer are deep at Family Theater Productions, which Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton, CSC, founded in 1947 in Hollywood to produce what became one of the longest running weekly radio dramas in U.S. history. It featured more than 400 top Hollywood stars, and it aired from 1947 to 1969 on the Mutual Broadcast System.
Father Peyton went on to produce more than 550 radio programs and 70 television specials before his death in June 1992. For the last 10 years, Father Raymond has led Family Theater Productions and has been the executive producer of more than 100 radio and television programs. He also sees his film work thoroughly integrated into his priestly ministry.
Father Guffey spent six months as an intern at Family Theater Productions starting in January 2005. During that period, he took some film classes at various venues in the Los Angeles area before starting his graduate film studies at LMU that fall.
During his last year of film school, he found time to help with the production crew of the previous two Manifest Mysteries dramas, Assumptions and Finding Mary.
Behind the Scenes
08/12/10 - Father Willy Raymond, CSC, National Director of Family Theater Productions, is shown with the new Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles, Archbishop José Gomez, after a recent Mass for Legatus. Father Raymond is the founding chaplain of the Hollywood Chapter of Legatus, an organization for Catholic presidents and CEOs. Archbishop Gomez will succeed Cardinal Roger Mahony when he retires next year. »