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 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.

Crossroads Church 2009 Easter Production

OK, so it's been a while since I posted.  So sue me.

I've been wanting to post this video, but I couldn't get it down under Blogger's 100MB limit.  I had to take out the altar call to cut it down.

Our Easter series was called "Proof," and we did a really neat and SIMPLE production. We all thought is was very effective, which goes to show you that you don't always have to spend all kinds of crazy money and time creating that "wow factor." Sometimes the "wow factor" can be created in a simple, real, and effective way.

Here it is:

New Youth Sermon Series

Our April 2009 youth sermon series is called "Justice" and it centers on injustices throughout the world ... poverty, human trafficking and the like.  Here's our sermon intro piece:

It's a little disturbing, but appropriate.

Busy Easter Weekend?...

Here's our promo for our 2009 Easter Production.  The series we'll be in is called "Proof," which actually starts the week before Easter.  Once that sermon intro is done, I'll put it up.

By the way, If you're in the area that weekend, I'd love to meet you in person!

Hot Topics

Here's a piece we did for our youth's current series, Hot Topics.

This was created by the very talent Sonny, who works over at Media Savant. They do all of our youth sermon openers. Great job Sonny. You hit the nail right on the head.

It'll be available soon on Crossroads Creative, as well as the resellers.

All's Well That Ends Well

Our March 2009 series is entitled "All's Well That Ends Well." We decided to do something a little different for our sermon intro video. My favorite spot from Super Bowl XLIII was by careerbuilder.com, so we did our own little takeoff on that spot.

First, the original:

And our version:

We had a lot of fun with the piece, and it'll be on our site as well as the resellers soon. Hope you like it!

Just Between You and Me

This weekend, we're wrapping up a message series that our associate pastor is doing. It's called "Just Between You and Me." He has talked about things that come between us and our God, our spouse, our friends, and this weekend, us and our fellow man, which will be a message on racism.

So, what do you do for a sermon intro video? Well, I had the idea of how things we do begin to define us, and we carry them as labels. So, we did this...

And, as always, if you're interested in purchasing it, you can find it here.

Girls' Getaway

Here's a piece Crossroads Creative did to promote our women's ministry's fun trip a few months ago (which had a record attendance). BTW, our women's ministry director is none other than my incredibly talented and adept wife. You can check out her blog here.

Hope you like the piece. It's available for sale here.

Friday Funny

OK, here's the 2nd installment of the Annual Church Business Meeting campaign. This one features my good friend, Lee, as a...well, you'll just have to watch to find out.

By the way, it was determined that the audience had a hard time seeing the text for the first spot, so we just did plain text over black for this one and the others. The final versions for sale will all be like this one, unless we come up with a better solution.

You can view the first video here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Best Seat in the House

Yesterday I got to do something I rarely do:  run sound at church. It's not that I can't, I'm just always doing something else [playing bass, singing, supervising our TV production crew, doing TV audio, MBWA (management by walking around)], etc.

Our PA engineer hasn't had a weekend off in a long time, and all of the other engineers we use were busy, so I got the call. Here are the pics:

From my vantage point to the stage: 

And a little lower so you can see the console:

Here's a shot of this past weekend's lighting operator, George. He's a smooth Romanian who just became an American by marrying into the fold. Great guy.

Here's Jeff.  This was his first weekend training on Presentation, and he nailed it on the first go-round. Welcome aboard Jeff!

On my other side was the other Jeff, my boss, the pastor of the church. He's a great singer, and big-time music lover, and he knows what sounds good. No pressure there!

By the way, he's playing shaker with a small tin of Altoids.

The Yamaha LS-9 is a GREAT little console. We just added some channels on the digital side with two Presonus DigiMax LTs (you can see them in the rack) running through an ADAT card. Our eight wireless mics sound amazing through the LTs, as do our eight tracks lines.

All in all, I thought things went pretty well. I got a few compliments, and no glaring looks.

That counts for something, right?

Friday Funny

OK, so earlier this week I said I had some really funny spots to post. Well, here's the first one.

A little explanation first...As you know, Crossroads Creative produces videos to sell on its and other sites. Crossroads Church is the main benefactor of our work. So, we're coming up on our Annual Church Business Meeting. We did a piece for it a couple of years ago, but it has grown a little long in the tooth, so it was time for a new one. You can view the first one here.

This time, however, we decided to do a whole campaign. We did four spots in all, and I'll post the rest on the next three subsequent Fridays. Gotta keep you coming back for more, eh?

Anyway, here's the first installment. The third board member is being portrayed by yours truly. Hope you enjoy it!

Oh, yeah, and if you're wondering...it'll be on our site (as well as the resellers') soon.

Celebration of Marriage Banquet

Obviously, if you've read any of my posts, you know that I'm the Media Director at Crossroads Church and we do lots of videos.  Well, this piece is for our upcoming Celebration of Marriage Banquet, which will be Friday, Feb. 13th at the church.  It's a pretty fun night. Our band plays loves songs, and it's a great meal. We even also have a comedian. Not too bad for $40/couple.

Anyway, here's the promo video we shot. There will a generic version of this on Crossroads Creative, Sermon Spice, and Worship House Media.  If you're looking to buy it, the official name is "Celebration of Marriage - Contemplate, Tolerate, Celebrate." Yeah, I know it's a mouthful. Hope you like it!

Busy Day

Yesterday was a really busy day for the Crossroads Media Dept. I got to work at 8:00 am, and began setting up for a shoot. We did a commercial for our Annual Church Business Meeting. We used a 1K in a light bank, two ARRI 300W Fresnels, and an ARRI 600W open face. We were lighting a conference table for the spot.

We began the shoot around 9:45 am and got done around 11:15. The spot will be around :60 long, but it will have four different endings, and I'll post them as they're done. We're using a different ending each weekend for four weekends. When we're completely done, we'll put three of them on Crossroads Creative, and possibly the other reseller sites (the fourth one won't be understood by anyone other then our own congregation).

After that shoot, my pastor and I drove over to a local park, where we shot a promo for his 5K jogging small group. We're doing a small groups expo the last weekend of the month, but he'll be on vacation, so he'll promote his group via video.

After that shoot, he and I headed back to his office to shoot opens and closes for our TV show, Crossroads. While we were on the 5K promo shoot, my assistant lit his office. We started around 1:00 pm, and we did opens and closes for four shows.

We got done about 1:45 pm or so, and we tore down and got ready for a meeting in his office for our 2009 Easter Production. The series we'll be in is called "Proof," and our production will center around a college professor who once was an atheist, but is now a Christ-follower.

OK, so the meeting was done around 3:30 pm or so, and I began capturing the opens & closes. I did a few file transfers, then called it quits at 4:45 pm.

Oh, yeah, and I didn't even stop to eat lunch. Some days are just that way.

What about you? do you have days that just move and move and move, with absolutely no dead time?

Inaugural Address

This past weekend, we started our new sermon series. Our pastor wanted to do a message series about vision and goal setting (which he does every January), so with the concurrence of a truly historic presidential inauguration, his idea was to do a series titled "Inaugural Address."

So...what do you do with that? Well, this is what we came up with...

All of the audio after the first shot was 100% post-production. None of it is real. Not even the footsteps. I'm the voice of the courier and the announcer at the end, our graphic artist is the voice of the lady, and our editor is the voice of the presidential aide/secret service guy.

I really hope you like it!

New Set at Crossroads

This past week, we put up a new set at Crossroads. New backdrop, new band setup, and new lighting setup. Pics will follow, but just in case you're wondering what our lighting gear is, here's a pretty comprehensive list:

Leprecon LP-X48 console

8 2K Fresnels (6 front, 2 rear)

10 PAR 64s (all front)

8 500W Fresnels (all rear)

5 Elation PowerSpot 575s (4 in front movable truss, 1 spare)

8 Elation PowerSpot 250s (4 on stage floor, 4 in various stages of malrepair)

DMX splitter

Elation UNI-BAR DMX switch/dimmer

Reel EFX DF-50 Hazer

OK, so that's how we achieve the "magic." Here are some pics taken yesterday morning. If they don't look great, blame the iPhone, not the lighting designer (me) or the photographer (me again).

We use a different light scheme/moving background video for each song. I try my best to make the two match, both in color and style. Here's the first worship song:

Second worship song:

Third worship song:

Fourth worship song:

 Special music (offertory, which we tape for the local TV broadcast as well as the website):

Finally, the sermon. We're in a series entitled "Inaugural Address," so I wanted to do a patriotic thing with the background.

I'll try to post the sermon intro for "Inaugural Address" sometime this week. Anyway, hope you like our new lighting. I got lots of great comments on it. A little inside story...I programmed all of these scenes Friday, while I was sick. I thought everything was great until I got a text from a friend, Preston Blair, who was sitting in the balcony during the 10:45 service. He told me that the red intels shining back into the crowd were blinding him and others in his section.

Sorry, Preston, a couple of burned retinas is a small price to pay.

(Actually, I moved the light immediately after that service).

Getting on Board

I'm kind of viewed by my co-workers at Crossroads as the resident computer/infotech know-it-all. I'm not sure why or how I got that distinction, but it's there nonetheless. It's been quite fun (and entertaining) helping others along their respective digital journeys (and I always lead them towards Mac-dome).

Which brings me to my point today. I've watched my pastor (and good friend) go from complete non-computer use (back in the day) to a proud iPod, MacBook Pro, and iPhone user. Now, he's entered a new chapter in his digital life:  blogging.

I'm proud of him, not only as a friend, mentor, boss, pastor, visionary, etc, but how he's embraced technology. He gets it, and as the resident computer/infotech know-it-all, it's good to have him aboard!

His name is Jeff Ables, and you can check out his blog here.

The Media Director Has No Clothes

OK, interesting thing about me...

I'm used to working on good gear. When I was at Oral Roberts TV, I had great consoles with awesome monitors. At Crossroads, I've got some great cameras, editing gear, and some pretty decent audio tools (not to be confused with ProTools - ecch. I'm a Logic user).

So, what does a guy who has access to all this great stuff have as his personal gear? When I was at ORU, when people would come over to my house, they were surprised to see how low-end my home stereo was, and invariably, the conversation went somewhat like this...

"Dude, you're the Chief Audio Engineer at Oral Roberts Television.  That's your stereo!?"

"Yes. If I wanted to listen to CDs on $750K worth of gear, I would just drive to the studio."

Which brings me to my point...I just bought my first camcorder. What is it? Here it is...

It's a Crayola camcorder that records to SD card. It's the crappiest/cutest thing I've ever seen. It's for my youngest daughter, and we bought it yesterday with her $30 Wal-Mart gift card.

This thing is LITTLE ya'll. The photos don't do it justice. The camera is half the distance from the iSight camera than we are.

For a sample, visit my wife's blog. By broadcast standards, it's crappy indeed (the camera quality, not the blog), but not too bad considering how much compression goes into a typical Bloggger video. The real deal is this:  I get the pleasure of helping the Katie Mac launch her film career. Once she masters the Crayola, an ARRIFLEX D-21 will be no big deal!