I figured I would share a video from church with the small portion of the internet world that visits here. This is a testimony intro video we played in church on our opening weekend in the new building. I edited it in Adobe After Effects with the chair being hand drawn, scanned & cut in Adobe Illustrator before I imported it to be ‘drawn’ in the video. Our new projection system is widescreen, that is why the video looks cut off on the top and bottom. YouTube automatically letterboxes it. Also, there is no sound. Fred, our worship director, played piano live during the video.
The point of the video I think is pretty self-explanatory when you see it. It set up David Wilkin’s testimony pretty well. Even though there is not much to it, it turned out to be super-effective.
Here is a video that we did a few months ago. I have had a few friends ask for me to put this on the web so they could see the interfaces we did. The sermon series we were in at the time was called “iReach: Changed Lives.” It was kind of a vision casting/clarification time for our church. It was a four week series, week one was “Changed Lives,” week two was “Reach Up,” week three was “Reach In,” and week four was “Reach Out.” It really was a great series, you can check out the messages and more here at the church media page. We are finally starting to get release permission from folks so we can put this stuff on the web. The testimony about the Home Group being a pillar in the time of need is pretty awesome.
In addition to the message of this video, the production was pretty cool too. This video was filmed and edited almost entirely by two high school students. (One of which is the son of the couple in the video.) I helped them set up the cameras and capture the footage. They did all the editing, audio sweetening and most of the color correction. (I didn’t check the color balance on the second camera, oops. It needed more color correction than time allowed for.)The interface at the beginning was created in house. I made an iTunes knockoff look. I redrew the basic layout and a different color scheme in Adobe Illustrator. We then set the order for the 4 week series and the videos in each service and animated the Illustrator file in Adobe After Effects. This helped to create the illusion of a camera zooming in and out on the iReach interface, showing the previous videos and the next one to be played. To top off the project, our worship director, Fred McKinnon, scored the soundtrack for all of the videos we did in this series.
Well, enough talky.Here is the video. Let me know what you think. We were pretty proud of the whole series look once it was finished. I think it really made people evaluate their own roles in God’s plan. The “i-theme” was used in the print materials and on screen as well. We believe it helped them to personalize things, not to mention it is culturally relevant. If for some reason anyone wants it, I can supply the After Effects CS3 and Illustrator CS3 files that we used if you want to do something similar. Just let me know.
I learned this week that Kevin, they guy in the testimony video I shared earlier this week, brought a friend with him to church this week. After hearing Kevin’s testimony in the video and a great word from our pastor, the Lord moved in his heart and he accepted Christ.¬† I know it must have been super encouraging for Kevin to walk through that with his friend as well.
What an awesome opportunity to be a part of another changed life! It makes the hours put into that video seem like nothing. Not that Christ NEEDED the video, but He used it on multiple levels. Yay for technology! And yay for Kevin and his friend.
Here is a video testimony we played in our three services this morning. It is the first video I have shot since we got in our Britek lighting kit. We got a 3 point florescent kit with boom stands, an umbrella and two light boxes. Anyway, it was a learn as we go thing. Chris, my Associate Tech Director, and I set the lights up about an hour before Kevin, the guy in the video, and Deb, our Producer got there. We basically took turns sitting in the light and looking into the camera until we got something we liked. I have a lot of experience using make-shift light rigs with work lamps. I also have experience dealing with 100% “house light.” Chris is a still photography nut, and has used some photo lighting a good bit. With our powers combined… Captain Planet! Ok, sorry, I am a child of the 80’s and can’t say “with our powers combined” without thinking of earth, wind, heart, fire, and water, along with the poster boy for Greenpeace himself, Captain Planet. Who is with me there? Anyone…?
OK, apologies for that rabbit trail, welcome to the inside of my head. Anyway, with mine and Chris’s EXPERIENCE combined I think we pulled off something pretty nice for some “professional video lighting” rookies. As for the rest of the shoot…. We used our two Panasonic DVX-100 cameras and a Sennheiser wireless mic on Kevin. We used a Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic for the second camera but it was only used to sync footage. Pretty standard two camera shoot. One camera basically locked on a tripod straight ahead while I roamed with the other. You’d be surprised at how many cool shots I ruined with my shaky hands.
Here is the video, let me know what you think, heck, let me know what I can do better next time. I promise not to delete your comments unless you make it personal. HaHa.
Oh, and props to Explosions In the Sky, a rockin band that I used to back this testimony in church. The song is called “What Do You Go Home To?”
