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.

We are neck deep on some curriculum for our children’s ministry right now. This is a rough edit/sneak peak of what we are doing. When all is said and done we will have over an hour of finished video. This is curriculum for Easter and will be piloted in 9 churches in an effort to one day publish curriculum. This is not quite ready for prime time as this is our first real attempt at doing this well, and we have learned a lot about scheduling and actors and what not. It’s intense and there are still some impossible deadlines coming up, we’ll see how it all goes.

Bumper for the most recent Zone series (Junior High). A series all about decisions and how they affect the outcome of our lives. The extensions are supposed to be the paths coming from the feet of our man and all of the decisions that he has to make. And as overwhelming as that all is you are still here. You have the ability to stop and look at all your options then ask for God’s guidance and walk in His path.

Took a new approach to an old project. Every year we do promos for the kids and adults for their upcoming missions trips. Usually we put everything out there, tell the kids every detail, and take away all mystery. I like that this is strictly a hook, slightly inspirational and cool. I love the line “Be inventive in hospitality.” Find new ways to serve others, that is how we stay aflame with Christ. That is what 2009 will be all about, finding new ways to serve others. I’m very happy with my work on this one.

Yes I know this is a rip off of the HP commercials and it is a little more complicated than you expect. While scripting you forget about some aspects and hand interactions. So this is what I have been doing the last half of this week.

After weeks of just going, going and going alone I relearned the pleasure of extended pre-production. Now that we have a team of video producers we were able to script and plan this one out. Granted we found out about the request Friday, shot Tuesday and edited Thursday and Friday. We’re getting there.