Edget TV: for Project Hope

In August and September, Hope Channel was in Australia to film more than 10 Australian-produced programs in conjunction with the Australian Union Conference. EDGE TV was one of the shows.

When it came time to do the second series of EDGE TV, I thought about throwing myself down a flight of stairs so I could get out of doing it—I didn’t know it at the time but I had pneumonia (I thought it was just the ‘flu) and my voice sounded like I’d grabbed a packet of cigarettes as soon as I exited the womb.

Regardless, EDGE TV was actually pretty fun.

It’s part of the Project Hope–Australia series. Project Hope is something that was established by the Hope Channel to quickly generate more local content for the channel. Kandus Thorp, executive director of Project Hope, says, “Project Hope was developed as a direct answer to prayer in regard to our need for more contextualised programming. Hope Channel exists for mission and evangelism, and our message must be relevant to viewers.”

The project has previously been conducted in Zambia, Kenya and the Philippines. In addition, there have been Spanish-language series produced in California. There are also plans to visit Bulgaria.

Project Hope–Australia saw almost 150 episodes produced in around six weeks, and Mrs Thorp describes it as “a televisionproduction marathon!”

A studio was set up at Jumbunna Lodge in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.

Alex did the set design and it looks fantastic. We worked with the media unit guys from the Western Australian Conference under the leadership of Andrew Hunt, who didn’t have to threaten us with the “baseball bat of love” in order to keep us working—even if we did get a bit sidetracked at times.

Our panelists included regular Edge writers, along with the Victorian Conference’s youth director, Moe Ioane, for a couple of episodes. And in each episode, you should be able to find the Edge website mascot, Cecil, lurking somewhere around the set. He didn’t contribute much to the discussion, though.

Each episode explores a different issue, and we did our best to come up with words starting with the letter “e” to sum up the issue as the “word of the episode.” These include: “everyday,” “el,”, "economy,” “ecclesia,” “end” and “error.” You’ll just have to watch to find out what they’re all about, though. We’ve also made sure the subjects have issues of The Edge (or articles in issues) that match up with them so you can read more in the website archive for extra information or thoughts about the issues discussed.

Nathan Brown was the host of the panel and says, “When we were invited to contribute a series to Project Hope, the idea for EDGE TV grew quickly. We already had all this material from almost 12 years of Edge that we could draw on for topics and ideas. But we didn’t know much about making a TV show, so there was quite a bit to learn.

"The filming was hard work, the concentration for the duration of each episode was pretty intense and wearing make-up took some adjusting to but all our team made good contributions, and we are looking forward to seeing the finished product.

"We are planning on making some changes to the Edge website to feature EDGE TV and provide some other resources that can be used in youth groups. We hope this is another way for young people around the world to connect with The Edge and be encouraged to ‘believe in Christ, live the life.’”

Ms Thorp says, “Project Hope is an exciting and rewarding experience for all involved. From the planning of each episode through to the actual taping—it takes dedicated time, focus and work but it’s so rewarding to see the programs that teams have prayerfully prepared broadcast on Hope Channel.”