About The Documentary

"Pope Michael" started in early 2007 as a class project for a course at the University of Notre Dame. The course was on digital production and the semester-long assignment was to make a 10 minute documentary.

I searched around on the internet for a while until I came across a list of the "10 most eccentric people in the world", and one of them was a person in Kansas calling himself "Pope Michael". The fact that he was within driving distance was helpful, and when he accepted my invitation for him to be the subject of the documentary, myself and two students drove out to Kansas for a weekend and shot the short.

A year later I had graduated and was working in Chicago when I came across the news that Bawden was looking to expand by bringing in three young men to be priests. I immediately wrote a letter to Bawden proposing the feature length documentary, and after he agreed, I spent the next two years working on it.

Over 14 months, I travelled to Delia, Kansas, four times, and captured four different snapshots of life in the small, blue farmhouse in Delia, as well as the progress of the seminary. The final product is a 1 hour and 26 minute feature documentary.

"Pope Michael" was made using mostly my own funds, and was edited and finished in Delray Beach, Florida, and Miami, Florida. It was shot on HDV at 1080i60, and cut on Final Cut Pro.

-Adam