Friday Funny 1/1/2010

I can’t believe I just typed “2010″… Well, here’s my New Year’s greeting to you all:

Meow.

New series promo – “Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?”

I love doing sermon series promos that can get into people’s heads!

(Click here for the full HD version of this video)

I can attest that this footage was shot and edited by me… and I’d love to know what people thought if they saw me shooting video in that cemetery! This is going to be a 4 week series based on a blog post of the same name by Thomas Nelson Publishers’ CEO, Michael Hyatt. My pastor is going to encourage people to find their worth in God and give tips on how we can discover our purpose in life spiritually, relationally, financially, and  physically.

My encouragement to church video producers is this: Don’t just default to what seems like the “churchy” way of promoting things. If your pastor is OK with it, think of new ways to get people’s attention! Your promos and any associated artwork (Click here for our bulletin cover) can be a part of the message itself, even if that means catching people off-guard or making them think a little deeper about what might be coming next.

Friday Funny 12/25/09

Well… since Christmas falls on a Friday this year, here are a few holiday laughs for you:

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Sometimes, it’s just obvious enough, eh?

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If I ever bother to put up Christmas lights, I’d do it just like this!

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If you don’t get this one, ask someone to explain it to you!

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Merry Christmas, peeps!

Friday Funny 12/11/09

Maybe I should call this a Friday “Clever”… this is has got a killer beat, if nothing else! Enjoy:

Production and Purpose 12/9/09

Start by just watching this piece from my friend Neil Greathhouse at New Life Church in Little Rock, Arkansas:

There is so much about this relatively simple piece that I find quite brilliant!

- I can relate: This is the season when EVERYONE is out shopping. I love that Pastor Rick gave the examples of how he hated it and his wife and daughters were excited! When most of (if not all of) your audience can relate to what’s happening in the video piece, you almost can’t go wrong.

- I’m not distracted: While we as video producers have so much technology at our disposal, that doesn’t mean that we have to use ALL of it every time we tackle a project. They shot this piece using a Sony HDR-FX1 on a Fig-Rig for stabilization (to borrow a line from Ferris Beuller, “If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up!“)… they didn’t do any monster treatments to the video… nothing crashing or splashing on-screen to take my attention away from what’s being said… just good shooting and effective editing.

- I am drawn in and will remember: A simple, well-told narrative in a setting that I’m very familiar with, combined with a great, unexpected twist that intertwines “my story” with the story of Christ’s birth that reminds me how uncomfortable that I am with being quiet, even when I’m overwhelmed by the noise. This will stick with me and make me think about the premise again.

Other thoughts:

• Location – location – location! It’s not always easy to get permission to shoot at a Target Store, but so worth the effort! If they had shot this piece anywhere that wasn’t a retail location it would have missed the mark.
• This is not a recipe for every church or situation; you really have to have a pastor/teacher who can be comfortable with somthing like this or it can all go horribly wrong. This isn’t a knock on a pastor who can’t pull this off, you just have to know him and his strengths and weaknesses.

Did I miss anything?

Moving Pictures – Sermon Bumpers

We’ll call this a follow-up to my previous post about series promos; A bumper (also called a ‘roll-in”) is a short video piece that rolls just before the pastor comes up to speak.

A well done bumper uses visual elements and content that work in conjunction with what has been established as a look or theme for a given sermon series.

A good bumper should convey just enough information about what your congregation is about to experience… maybe a key verse of scripture and something visually compelling that draws your people in so that the pastor doesn’t have to give a big explanation about the series or sermon and can dive right into the message. Bumpers also have a very practical purpose in that they can give you 30-60 seconds to get the band off the stage and the pastor on (or make other staging changes) without having to do it in fill view of the congregation.

Here’s a few examples:

Liar, Lunatic, or Lord was a really cool series based on some of the teachings of Jesus where his actions caused those around him to question who he really was. You don’t need a fancy set or paid actors; I shot this in downtown Charleston, SC with using one of our worship team’s drummers.

Switched (embedded video: http://www.vimeo.com/3368174) was a series based on a handful of chapters in the Gospel of Luke where we saw that Jesus was telling stories that gave great examples of how, when we believe in Him, things in our life get “switched”. This was a unique series of bumpers, in that we came up with a different one each of the four weeks; each shot using a different person and dialog, but always on a shot on a set of train tracks to keep that theme as our constant.

Found (embedded video: http://www.vimeo.com/4853923) was used in a four-week series that lead up to Easter this year (‘09). This one was a bit of a challenge in that our graphic artist had come up with a great looking bulletin cover, depicting a message in a bottle washed up on the beach…This did not make a smooth transition to how we would translate that into video. After hitting 3 different specialty stores, I finally found (see what I did there?) an old-looking bottle, complete with a cork! You might imagine the looks that I got at the beach that day while shooting a bottle sloshing around in the surf! For music on this one, I recorded Martin Chalk, one of our wowrship leaders, singing Amazing Grace outside of our offices so that it had a similar “outside” sound to go with the footage.

Friday Funny 12/4/09

I am that guy who is hard-core about not allowing Christmas carols until after Thanksgiving… now that we have passed the start date, I hope you enjoy this:

What is your favorite Christmas carol and why?

Christmas with purpose

I have not been a big fan of Christmas for many years, and for the life of me, I can’t really put my finger on why. People ask me the silly question, “What’s the deal, don’t you like Jesus?”. Of course I like Jesus… I’m just not a big fan of what we have done to His birthday. Somewhere along the way, all of the trappings, commercialism, and obligations of this season just got to me. Maybe it was when my kids got older, maybe it was when I got too old… Call me Scrooge.

This year, I sense that changing. I’m getting really fired up about the way that we are “doing” Christmas at Seacoast Church. Instead of all the traditional ways that churches treat Christmas (not that there’s anything wrong with that), we’re putting some real action to the season. We’re calling it Hope Epidemic, and the whole month of December centers around giving of ourselves to help curb the global water crisis.

The lack of clean drinking water steals the lives of 5,500 each day—that’s more than war, natural disasters, AIDs or even hunger. It is a silent killer—one that quietly preys on the world’s most marginalized and forgotten people. Today, 1 in 8 people in the world live without clean drinking water; that is about 1 billion people in the world. The lack of clean water and sanitation results in approximately 1.8 million children dying every year from water related diseases.

Christmas has always been about the simple idea that it is better to give than receive and I feel like this year, maybe for the first time in my life, I’m beginning to understand what that really means. Our simple sacrifices can mean clean water for people who will die without it. I’m all in.

What real difference can you make this Christmas?

Production Tools – Storyboards

I am an office products geek… always have been, always will be. A recent visit to www.moleskineus.com revealed something that can help all of us in our pre-production planning: The Storyboard Notebook!

While I wish that it came in a 5×8.5 size, this is a good start! Anytime that you can map out your various scenes, it makes your shoot go so much smoother, and a small notebook that you can put in your back pocket for quick reference is a great idea!

You don’t have to be a skilled artist to make a good storyboard; stick figures are fine. They are a great tool to help you at each stage of production and post-production as well. Even a quick doodle as the ideas are flowing can be a way to make sure that you get all of the shots that you need. Every bit of pre-production planning will pay off in some way before you are done with your project.

Friday Funny – 11/27/09

In honor (ahem) of Black Friday and all of the shopping I WILL NOT be doing today, I give you this: