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:

Thankful for you

Just a quick message for Thanksgiving:

Embedded video: http://vimeo.com/7842496

First-time flyer?

Over the last 10 years or so, I have had to do a lot of flying… not as much as some, but well more than others. When it comes to airport security, I know the drill: get in line, have your boarding pass and ID ready… take off your shoes, no liquids, gels or aerosols in your bags, laptops & camcorders must be removed from your bag for inspection… it can be a little unnerving! And while I’m quite familiar with all of this, it never ceases to amaze me that every time I fly there is someone near me in line that seems to have no idea how this process works. They’re not prepared, can’t seem to find their driver’s license, and are ready to walk though the metal detector wearing their shoes! Don’t they know how much they’re slowing down the process? The rest of us have places to go, coffee to buy and gates to wait at!

You know I have to spin this…

Over the past 25 years or so, I’ve been going to church a lot. Not as much as others, but well more than enough. When it comes to church time, I know the drill. Get up, get ready, get the kids ready, get everyone in the car, get through traffic, get the car parked, get the kids signed-in, get greeted for the third time, get your bulletin… sing along and have your bibles out. And while I’m quite familiar with all of this, it never ceases to amaze me that every once in a while, we get someone at church that has no idea how this process works. They don’t know where to park, they don’t know how to get their kids checked in… they don’t know the words to any of our songs. Don’t they know how much they’re messing up our routine? The rest of us have to fill in all of the blanks on our sermon hand-out and get to lunch before the Methodists get there!

When was the last time you helped a first time flyer?

Free Church Media – Floodgate Productions

In the spirit of the Dirt Conference, I’m going to start posting things here that that would be of value for churches in the way of free (or cheap) media (videos, motion backgrounds, stills, etc).

A great resource, if only because they make several pieces available for FREE each month) is Floodgate Productions. Cool thing is, once you sign in to take advantage of the free stuff, they will email you to let you know about other new resources. This is a great site to check regularly for your sermon or series needs and you’ll rarely pay more than $20 for a quality video. They have some cool pieces available right now to help churches with their Christmas media needs. Check them out!

Moving Pictures – Sound and Noise

Moving pictures can be beautiful… but let’s face it, telling a good story is almost impossible without some good sounds as well. My college video teacher (yeah, I did a little schooling for this gig of mine) once gave a great dissertation on the difference between sound and noise… and while I’m sure he added all kinds of useless but impressive-sounding words to convey his thoughts (he did have the better part of a 2 hour class and a subsequent lab to kill), the bottom line is this: Sound is what you want, noise is what you don’t want. Simple enough. What you will find as you do more video productions is that you are rarely able to control as much of either piece as you would like:

• SOUND: Your mics will die (well, the batteries will anyway), people will hit the mic while talking and will talk too loud or soft for you to be able to adjust for it on the fly.
• NOISE: Regardless of how inadequate you may think your mics are, you’ll be continuously amazed at how long you can hear a passing plane overhead. The wind will only gust when you hit ‘record’ and no matter how far away from civilization you think you are, there is always some one using a leaf-blower close by.

While we may never be able to control everything we would like to in the way of audio, there are a few things we can do to minimize the potential mishaps.

-Buy some good mics: I know that most churches/ministries operate on tight budgets, but this is an area where you get what you pay for. Make sure you get something that suits your needs for a while. If you’re looking at getting a wireless mic, make sure the receiver is something that will integrate easily with your camera.

-Windscreens: Wind is inevitable, even indoors (air conditioning for one, and try as you might to stop it, people will continue to breathe through the entire shoot!). Side note: Don’t lose your windscreens… the companies that make them are counting you doing this and are ready to charge you handsomely to replace them.

-Fresh batteries: Seems like a simple thing, but having to stop an emotional interview to change batteries can be a real buzz-kill. Start with fresh batteries and have fresh ones standing by in case of emergency.

-Headphones: Just because your camera may have a cool display that shows that you’re getting audio, constant monitoring is the only way to truly know what that sound is.

-Know your camera: This may sound odd since we’re talking about sound, but it’s vital to have a good understanding about how your camera processes sound. You need to know if your meters are telling you the truth about your sound levels so you can adjust accordingly. One thing I love about the Panasonic HVX200 is that I can set both audio channels to mic input 2; this allows me to set one high and one low to help in post production with low and loud sound.

-See what you hear: This might be the most important element of control. Since some noises are inevitable, do what you can to incorporate the origin of that sound into the piece. For instance, traffic noise is acceptable when you have some one telling a story near a busy intersection, and wind isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as you can see something blowing in the wind.

-Be patient: Sometimes waiting just a few minutes can be the difference between bad noise and good sound… that leaf blower can’t go on forever! (or can it?)