A little promo piece we threw together in a week. We are going to refine it in the next week or two. This was used as an invite to people who do not normally attend our church. We tried a new approach. We thought about showing our strengths and what makes us distinctive and we kept coming back to our message.
We have wonderful weekend services, but really we aren’t doing anything that would wow you or would look different than anything you’ve seen or experienced, so there is no need to show a bunch of service clips. We thought we would try to hook people on the vision and placing us in the broader context of what people are thinking about and are desiring from an encounter with God.
Have I told you that I went to Israel last month? Yeah I did, it was great. There is a ton of footage and we probably won’t get to much editing until after the New Year. I strung together some b-roll that I shot from Jerusalem. It’s raw but it looks great. I didn’t mess with it. This is raw video off of our Panasonic HVX-200. After looking through a viewfinder for a week you forget how good these cameras are. I swear it looks better through this camera than it did in person. But maybe I was too busy and was always looking through the viewfinder. Anyways, here is my compilation of clips. There is no sound. You’ll have to put on some of your Matisyahu music in the background for flavor.
Dave Griffin has extended his entourage to include Dave Mudd. Dave is one of our newest youth leaders. The dynamic between him and Dave Griffin is great. This was one of our first team teaches we did with them. We had fun with this idea of an entourage, having the youth campus pastors being an entourage and sharing their stories.
This video is part one of a project I am working on with the good folks over at GFR. They have a great ministry. They take the whole micro finance idea to a new level. You commit to a family to help them start their business with a sustainable self sufficient model in 3 years. You are encouraged to go visit the family you are partnering with. They also have a neat way for you to buy small things that help people get out of their situation. You can buy a goat or cow to help them get off the ground and started in their plan. You can finance the beginning of their business. All of this then helps redeem the people, nation and world. You can transform the world one family at a time.
The next part of the project will show people who have gone. What a neat way to support these people. I think once you have connected with them face to face it takes away any “hand out” feel to it. It makes it a true partnership. I’m excited about the good things they are doing.
The idea came up in mid June, “Let’s do custom small group curriculum for October that compliments our Philippians series called Joyride!” We respond “No way you’re crazy!” and then we get to work because that’s what we do. Anyway we had a big wrestling match on creative for this series. It quickly became apparent that we had to do the car idea. 4 people on a joyride. right? right. Here’s the final logo.
Lot’s of drama getting this photo done. It actually was raining and early September in a driveway where the Jeep was shot. Originally a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives red convertible was necessary, but we modernized to the jeep wrangler.
So what do we do for a bumper? After scouring through every second of stock video out there, we gave up. Seriously Amy and I were furious, and we were exhausted from the production of the curriculum and now we needed 4 people in a jeep in a fall setting. Or do we? Finally we got out of the box all together and focused on an aspect of the ride. Touch up the footage so it looks “fall-y,” added the key scripture of the series and some music.
I think the simplicity of the image and the tempo of the music convey the peace that lasting joy is based on. We will be pushing people to memorize the scripture as well, so reinforcing the scripture helps too. I keep watching this and it keeps making me happy. Not a whole lot of this project has made me smile with the craziness of deadlines, but I think I am going to be proud of this once the dust settles. Lots of hurdles but our awesome team jumped over every single one.
One of my favorite things ever is leaving off the E in words to emphasize the X! How ‘in your face!’ So Xciting and Xhilarating!
Anyways, aside from my sarcasm, this will always be one of my favorite bumpers. Obviously I would do this better now than I did 3 years ago. But it helped me learn some things in after effects and has the Xcitement I was aiming for. And I found good, well, usable stock footage.
Yes that is Jeff Griffin in the last shot and graphic for the series. Him and Dave Griffin skydived for a funny opening video to the series.
New series we started this month. This is the bumper I created for it in after effects. This is one of the most successful packagings for a series that we’ve had in a long time. We handed out a playing card with the timeline in the video as a study guide. The classic images of bicycle playing cards and the four suits really adds a neat element. I feel like this bumper added excitement without hype and brought the logo and playing card to life. I’m looking forward to this series since I’ve been studying the books of Kings and Chronicles on my own for a while.
This is a bumper I created for New River Community Church in South Carolina. I was hooked up with them through my buddy Cleve. Freelance is a beautiful thing. It allows some fresh creativity and I was able to play more with particular. Very happy with this project. I feel I was able to get the particles to look like they were shot through the water. I also like the way the reveal worked on the text. Also love any opportunity to use an Andy Burns special in a video.
I feel the need to express my love for the student ministries here at the chapel. If you are in junior high or high school you should be attending these ministries. I recently have been moved by books like UnChristian by David Kinnaman and Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell and have bought into this idea of missional living and reaching this and the next generation for Christ and the evolution of the church. Well our student ministries is raising this next generation to live every ounce of their being for Christ. It is exciting to spend time with Dave and hear what he is teaching these kids and to see the great results. The students in our church do a lot of leading and showing the adults what it means to follow Christ. They show a maturity in their understanding of Christ and what it means to love God by serving others.
I have been working a lot with them helping them with all their videos, which includes a lot of video teaching. This video is a long one for that reason.
A short video we showed to illustrate how intense it is for the teacher to teach a 9 o’clock service in Grayslake, a 10 o’clock service in Barrington and an 11 o’clock service in Grayslake. We were literally hitting 80 mph on back roads. At one point I said, “I don’t think you need to over do it for the video.” They replied, “We aren’t doing anything different than usual.”
Pamela’s response to our speed was “That’s ridiculous.” And I think that was the response we were looking for in this video.
