Flip-Flops, Part 4 of 4

OK, so this is our last installment of the Flip-Flops series' video openers. For this one, we decided to do something a little different from the others.

Here's the (rather boring) original:

And here is the final version:

A huge shout-out to Adam, our editor. He did a great job on all the videos. Also, a huge thanks to Mr. Dennis, the father of our graphic artist, for providing the setting. He lives right on the beach, and let us come over and invade his house for a couple of days for the shoot.

Friday Funny

OK, so this past week was Father's Day, and it's been stupid hot down here in Cajun country.

I know. What do these two have in common? Stay with me.

Both of these scenarios got me thinking of a piece we did five years ago. Our message series was called "The US Male." Get it? Anyway, the original idea was that all of our senior staff would come out dressed as postal workers and do a little stupid dance. Well, everyone backed out, and my pastor says, "Hey man, you're funny...you do it."

So I did it. Except I did it on video. It was, like, 167 degrees that day (evidenced by the huge amount of sweat seen in some of the shots).

A couple of funny things about this shoot, apart from the heat:

1. I had a guy was sitting in the middle of the road in his truck, playing this song over and over for me to dance to. I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks was going on! I literally had a piece of paper and a golf pencil in my pocket. As I would do one dance, we'd stop tape, I'd pull out the paper and pencil, and cross it off, then move on to the next dance. Efficiency, you know...

2. We saw an actual postal worker out there. Now, I know the USPS is a little weird about their stuff, and I was worried we'd (I'd) get in trouble, but he just looked at me, smiled and gave me the "what's up?" chin lift. All good in the hood.

Anyway, here's the vid. I've lost weight since then. Hope you enjoy it!

Flip-Flops, Part 3

OK, so this past weekend was Father's day, and the pastor's message was on fatherhood (naturally). We created a sermon opener to reflect the whole "following in his footsteps" kind of thing without being too obvious.

Here's the raw video. You'll notice a cut to black towards the end. That represents about a minute or so of locked-down footage, while we waited for the surf to come in, wiping away the footsteps.

So, here's the finished product. Notice the sound design (footsteps & surf), and the little bit of eye candy at the end. We got wooden letters, and punched them into the sand, shot that by itself, then composited that footage into the master shot. I LOVE making my own props, and finding new ways to do things.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the piece!

Happy Father's Day!

I found this little gem when I was searching for some files the other day. I had totally forgotten about it.

I did all of the gut-string acoustic parts on my 6-string bass, plus we added in a solo section, so I could show that I can play more than just root-fifth!

Anyway, hope you enjoy it. I've lost about 20 or so pounds since then (this was 2005), and we now record with audience mics (trust me...there was uproarious applause when I was done). Also, we now use in-ear monitors (I had forgotten how UGLY floor wedges are!).

I hope all you dads out there have a great Father's Day. Be good to your daughters!

Flip-Flops, Part 2

Here is the second-of-four sermon openers for our "Flip-Flops" series. Not much different from the original. A little color-correction and sound design. Enjoy!

Friday Funny

Now, there's some relevant church media for you...

Flip-Flops, Part 1 of 4

Our current series is called "Flip-Flops." We wanted to do a little summertime fun thing, so we decorated the auditorium with palm trees and made little tiki huts and so forth. Everyone on stage wore leis, and we even had a guy playing steel pan drums in the foyer.

So, what do you do for a sermon opener? Glad you asked. My idea was to do a little take-off on the Corona "Miles Away From Ordinary" TV campaign, making a pair of old flip-flops the hero, instead of the aforementioned Mexican beer. Our graphic artist has a relative who lives on Dauphin Island, AL, so we planned a little media dept. trip (I know, suffering for the cause...)

Since the videos would be relatively easy to shoot, we decided to do a custom sermon opener video for each week of the four-week series.

Here's Part 1's video, in its raw form, complete with my directions, bad grammar and all:

Of course, the Corona ads are all set in a tropical paradise, and the Gulf Coast of Alabama is hardly such, so, with a little post-production magic, and a whole lot of talent and patience from our editor, added in with a little bit of audio spotting from yours truly (actually none of the audio is real), we ended up with this:

Anyway, it was great fun to do these pieces. I'll post the rest of them (pre- and post-mojo) once they're done.