This video is intended to set up the sermon each week of our 4 week series on fear entitled “Break Free.” We wanted the video to be a little bit more intense than normal for us and create a bit of tension. The idea is to get people thinking about their fears and waiting for the message to follow it with answers. The video starts with a “random” spin through a 3D list of “fears” that I compiled via Twitter and Facebook replies. I just took a wide range of the most common responses that I got. The goal was “to have someone seeing fears no matter where the looked.”

For those video graphics peeps who care, the following is for you. For the rest of you, skip on to the play button. I owe the “concept” of the video to Andrew Kramer of VideoCopilot.net for two fantastic free AE add ons: a SureTarget preset and a “shatter” autotrace script. I was trying to come up with some way to illustrate “breaking free” on the same day that Kramer released the shatter tutorial. The suretarget plugin technically could have been done without but it would have taken WAY longet to build the composition. I used the Suretarget preset on a null and parented a camera and a light to it. This moves between the 17 3D text layers as the video progresses. The camera and spotlight follow the null and have no keyframes. I used the spotlight to give a little dimension/gradient to the text instead of having a slightly more boring solid whitish colored text. The “dust” that floats throughout the fears was created using a single instance of Trapcode’s Particular and some “push buttons until you like it” settings. Again, I used those to add a bit more dimension and hopefully to make the camera moves more dramatic. I rendered the “fears” precomp out and placed it in the final comp where I used the shatter method from Kramer to break it apart and have the “Break Free” logo reveal itself. Chris did the initial series graphic design and I rebuilt it in After Effects so I could animate the layers. Finally, the music in the BG is “It is Natural to be Afraid” by Explosions in the Sky, fitting title I thought. I wish I had more time to find better or even have Fred create a unique background track but I had less than a day to turn this around in the end and time didn’t allow for that.

What do you think?

“Break Free” Series Intro from SSCC on Vimeo.