A Not So Silent Night

For our Christmas project this year we decided to do a modern telling of the Christmas Story; a young, pregnant couple on a road trip, unable to find a room for the night.

Our project was used to set up our pastor‘s message in our Christmas Eve services at Seacoast Church.

• 5 different locations
• 4 days of shooting
• 3 great actors (+ one fussy baby)
• 2 cinematographers
• 1 great short film!

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Technical Specs:

• Camera: Canon EOS 7D (Lenses: Tokina 11-16 2.8, Canon 100 2.8 Macro IS, Canon 24-70 2.8, Canon 50 1.2.)
• Edited on Final Cut 7
• Color graded in Magic Bullet

I’m so thankful for the trust of my church leadership; they allowed me to take some risks and take the necessary time to put this piece together.

And since you were nice enough to read this far down, please enjoy the bloopers:

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Questions or feedback? Drop a comment below!

Cool Shoot

From the “constant location scouting” file, here are some stills from a shoot I did this week. In an effort to get healthy, I’ve been walking in the morning, and my favorite area is a section of nearby streets where houses were never built; I’ve been wanting to do a shoot here for more than a year! The vegetation has gotten really over-grown and it just has a great look. Plus, it was a great place to be able to set up a bench right in the middle of the road and shoot without fear of being run over!

The bench was used as a constant in 3 seperate videos; the idea of stopping to rest.

My great actors, Chris Russo and Martha Martin

Yours truly manning the Panasonic HVX-200

Are you keeping your eyes open for unique spots? Take pictures, take notes, and keep a file of things like this. You never know when you might stumble upon a great place for a video project.

Special thanks to my sweet wife for snapping the pictures!

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

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

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.

Moving Pictures – New Eyes

One thing that seems to always happen with me is that once I’m in post-production on a project, I tend to get tunnel vision; I only see what I want to see on the screen. I try to keep all things in mind as I edit:

• What was the original plan or vision for this piece?
• Who is my main audience?
• What do I want people to walk away with?

But even with awareness of the over-all plan, I can get too close to the piece and lose sight of how it will play with a larger audience. Here is where I try to call on “new eyes”. I have a small group of friends and co-workers (non-boss) that I lean on to check me as I go through the process. Some times, I call one or two of them in to the edit suite and don’t tell them anything about the project so that they can give me feedback without any preconceived ideas about what they are going to look at… call it an impromptu focus group. Once they have seen the piece, I ask questions about what they got out of it. That initial feedback will tell you a lot about what your audience will get… or miss. After the initial look, I will ask more specific questions about some of the more subtle aspects like: Does the music feel right? Are the graphics helpful or distracting? Is the piece too long/short?

One of the great things about these new eyes is that you are free to listen to and watch their responses without the pressure of having to have everything polished and perfect… simply tell them that the piece is about 75% done and you just want to get their opinion on how it’s looking. Allow this small audience to speak freely and honestly; while not always easy to hear, it’s better to get a fresh perspective now than to get it in the final approval process.

Moving Pictures – Part 1

As I consider what I love about telling stories via video, I’ve become enamored with the term “Moving Pictures” – pictures that cause people to think, reflect, change… in that, I’ve decided to do some short posts regarding different aspects of what that means to me and how it may help others who work in church video production. Here is the first:

Purpose

A video that moves people will have a well defined purpose. Do you want people get a great mental picture of a section of your pastor’s sermon? Do you want people to get involved in a cause? Do you want people to consider different aspects of God? Plan, produce, and deliver a piece that is rooted in great purpose and people will be moved.

A video that is well planned and executed will add great value to a service or sermon… the opposite can leave your congregation confused and distracted. Get a clear vision on the purpose of the piece and run with it! Run concepts and rough cuts past trusted friends or co-workers to help you stay true to the intended purpose. Most importantly, when you hit one out of the park, post it on your blog (or youtube or vimeo) with a description of how the piece came to be and how it was used so that it may inspire some one else to do something similar.

Worship Environments; Excellence and Invisibilty

It may come as a surprise to some that while I love what I do with visual media, I’m actually a bit of a minimalist when it comes to how that media is used in worship environments. I am, first and foremost, a worshipper… combine these two aspects and what you get is some one who wants to do all that I can to work with others in creating atmospheres where people can encounter God with minimal distractions.

Churches have plenty of technology available, but does that mean that we should use ALL of it ALL of the time? Is what we do with that technology helping foster an environment of worship, or is it really more of a distraction? What I have seen at many churches is an over-use of concert lighting, camera shots (IMAG), and motion backgrounds (too many, changing constantly). While I readily acknowledge that we live in a very visual society, I believe that we must use these tools to foster worship, but stop shy of creating an environments where people are so visually over-loaded that they end up just watching. The question I use to keep what we do in check is simple: If the power goes out, can we still worship or would we send people home?

Worshiping God does not happen because of our technology or programming, but our media and machines can help create a great background. I stress to my volunteers that when we do what we do with excellence and invisibility, we aren’t putting on a show… we are just servants of the One people come to encounter.