Category Archives: Video
The following three life-change stories is our first “package of videos.”
On Monday I shared with you the Easter Weekend intro to the trilogy. And we also wanted to makes sure we had a video for each of the following three weeks of the series. And we wanted a life-change story from each of our campuses.
This was all achieved.
Even though the videos were different stories, we wanted to ensure that the stories had a thread of similarity running through them. We accomplished this by ::
– keeping the video sight the same
– the method we told the stories
– even the props, bench, etc.
Each wrote their story for us. We ask people we are videoing to “throw up” on a piece of paper. In other words, tell us everything — nothing is too minor in the timeline.
Then we find the story within their writing. Help them express that in clear terms. Produce the outline. Have them live with it for a while.
Then — the Video Shoot.
Enjoy these great stories.
Over the past several months we at Sun Valley have adopted some phraseology. It goes like this:
Jesus changed the world. If you say “Yes” to Him, He will change your life.
Simple!
And True!
We began a series entitled “Who Is This Man?” In the series we talked about Jesus. And talked about him a lot. His compassion. How he changed the world in many ways. How He shaped the way we view women, slaves, children — all peoples. How Jesus and his teachings inspired mankind to create universities and hospitals. The modern civil rights movements can be traced back to the teaching of this blue-collar carpenter — Jesus.
We have seen him change our lives. We are seeing him change others’ lives. And we want to tell their stories.
We have had approximately 150 people say “yes” to Jesus over the last three weeks. And the story continues.
And we continue to tell the stories of those who have met him, believed in him, surrendered to him and followed him. And their lives were changed.
I’d like to share with you how during this series we told their stories.
Easter Sunday we used the following video :: much like the well-known “cardboard testimonies.” We introduced three people, each from one of our three Sun Valley campuses.
On Wednesday I will share with you the three life change videos that followed.
LOCAL BUSINESSES CAN BE SUPER FRIENDS
For Christmas, we needed to shoot the series teaser and bumper at a couple of area business locations. And the locations had to be very specific :: cardboard box maker and grocery store.
It’s not the only time in recent history that we’ve needed to use area businesses, industry or retail locations. For some reason, the process of securing an acceptable location became very alive on my radar. Probably because one location was very easy to secure, the other, not so easy.
Actually, it became very much of a headache.
The box manufacturer, Ace Packaging in Phoenix, from the very first phone call was excited about partnering with us. They had the facility we needed for the video. They had the product we needed to buy for the mission’s endeavor our church was embracing. And to top it off :: they believed in the cause we were championing. Their hospitably was actually overwhelmingly a great experience.
Of course you know that local churches need to partner with local businesses and retailers. We know that very well.
But the Creative Arts Ministries need to understand how these partners can catapult your creativity with their involvement.
When looking for a business partner remember
- state what you need clearly
- explain exactly what you need to accomplish
- when given permission, do exactly what you said (no more)
- thank them for their permission and partnership
Next Friday I’ll tell you about the nightmare we encountered in securing the other business location.
At Sun Valley we are trying to understand more about how and when to take advantage of a current issue and when we should leave it alone.
For those living under a rock — there’s a presidential campaign going on. And its a very intense one too. So the discussion the past week has been about what current events to take advantage of. This is one of them.
Sun Valley released a video teaser for our upcoming series :: In God We Trust. It does take advantage of political television footage — predominately from the first presidential and vice presidential debates. I posted the video above.
Take a look at it and let me know what you think.
So first lets look at the series synopsis ::
We don’t set out to build our faith on myths, but it happens. Somehow untruth keeps showing up in the way many Christians think about life and God. People hold fast to a myth and when life proves it wrong they’re left confused and angry. Get ready to be shocked, relieved and inspired. Myths can hurt you, but the truth will set you free!
What was the Process for this Video Project
Let me first say that this project was done entirely by a team. There were many brains behind the concept :: conception, design and implementation. Both volunteers and paid staff were involved.
- We first studied the six “dumb things.” We needed to understand the target for each bumper.
- We then began meticulously going through each episode of Davey & Goliath — looking for 30 to 45 second segments that could be reworked to fit the lesson for the week.
- The segments were discussed. Script ideas were bandied about. A concept was adopted.
- Then the script was written. And this was more difficult than it may seem. The dialogue lengths had to match what was already on the original episode.
- Next the recordings for each script. I this was fun for the team. We got to use “animated voices” when we recorded the dialogue. Fun Factoid: All of the voices for the original episodes were done by 3 people.
- Then the shortened video clip from the original episode and the audio segments were edited.
I am very pleased and proud of the team. They did a tremendous job with this project. We received many comments from people thinking we bought the segments.
We believe making the video teasers and bumpers unique and customized to our series and Sun Valley makes a world of difference. It is well worth the time and effort.
And they’re a lot of fun!! Really!!
Last week I wrote about a video project that we thought was one of our best ever produced at Sun Valley. This week I’m gonna continue with that theme — video projects.
Our latest series is entitled :: Dumb Things the Smart Christians Believe. We have chosen six phrases (principles) that Christians believe are Scripture.
I’ll talk more on Wednesday about the series theme.
When we began discussing how we would tease the series, comedy came to our mind. Many ideas were bandied about, but we landed on taking Davey and Goliath episodes and use voice overs to teach the “dumb thing.”
Davey and Goliath is a 1960s stop motion animated children’s Christian TV series. The programs, produced by the Lutheran Church of America were produced by Art Clokey after the success of his Gumby series.
Each 15-minute episode features the adventures of Davey Hansen and his “talking” dog Goliath (although only Davey and the viewer can hear him speak) as they learn the love of God through everyday occurrences. Many of the episodes also feature Davey’s parents John and Elaine, his sister Sally, as well as Davey’s friends; Jimmy, Teddy, and Nathanial.
I’ve included the video we used to tease the series. Wednesday I will talk more about the theme and the process behind the teaser and the bumpers.
It was a fun process.
I told you Monday that I’d talk about the behind the scenes of this video project.
The Creative Arts Team in creating the elements for The Cure looked at the synopsis for week three:
I cannot experience love without humility. Humility is trusting God and others with the real me. It is the currency of love. The degree to which I am honest with you is equal to the degree that I allow you to love me. If love is the process of meeting needs, then I cannot be loved unless my needs are known.
Knowing this moved us to the discussion about having a video. And the Secrets Video Project was born.
Not only did we decide on the content of the video, but also the placement of it in the worship cue. We knew that our Pastor wanted to have a special time and give people the opportunity to say “Yes” to Christ. In other words, a gospel presentation and a I time for people to receive Christ.
So that’s how the project was created and how we wanted to use it.
The work now had to be done. And a lot of work had to be done. First, a script had to be written — a storyboard of the entire video. A couple of people collaborated on this, but several people had “eyes on” it and had opportunity for input. After the final storyboard was determined, the video, lighting and audio team members had to do their magic.
From watching the video posted in this blog, you would think that the audio director had the easiest job because it seems that we used the original soundtrack. That’s far from the truth. We used our live bands to play under the video. Which meant an audio click track had to be created. That’s was step on so that the bands could rehearse.
And since the video required personnel, and lots of it, the team had to find them and recruit them. We needed a photographer to play a photographer. OK that one was easy. Our video director’s wife is a professional photographer. We also wanted to engage some of our artists so that the lettering would be creative and well done. We used two and It was!
But the rest of the recruiting wasn’t as easy. It wasn’t that the people weren’t there, but we needed folks willing to be humble and authentic. The verbiage written on their bodies was their testimony. Not ours. And we also wanted people across the age spectrum. And finally we wanted to equally use people from all three of our campuses.
The number of personnel needed is one of the main reasons why it was SV’s most collaborative video project.
We then needed to determine the location. And the location determined the amount of lighting needed. And that determined the electrical demand. We landed on the decision of shooting in an unfinished office area on our campus. The rawness of the location was perfect for the shoot.
To state the obvious: the video was shot and the video director did is terrific job of editing. He has a great eye for these things.
The use of the video in the worship experience will be a day that Sun Valley will look back on for some time. It’s one of those memorable moments that people will point too.
We’ve already had lots of comments from other churches too. I’d love to know what you think about it.
I’ve included the message for The Cure Week #3 :: Humility
For the next couple of weeks, I’m gonna spend my blog space talking about recent videos produced by Sun Valley.
Using this media has become a very important way of communication. And it continues to grow in effectiveness. Almost all homes have at least one TV. Smart phones are everywhere. And iPads and Tablets are taking the medium of video to the highest level — to a level that we haven’t seen in any previous generations.
And frankly, I can’t see it slowing down any time soon.
The video I’m featuring here is called “Secrets.” It could be described as a video version of “cardboard testimonies.” Those in this collaboration revealed a secret in their lives. The message was about being authentic with God and each other.
It was the most collaborative project we have done at Sun Valley since transitioning into a 3-campus church. Choosing and producing creative elements for a sermon series has now become a more complicated ordeal. Why? The SV Creative Arts Team must not only consider what needs to be communicated in the video piece, but also those involved in the shoot. We have to consider the strength of the individual campuses recognizing those featured in the shoot. It may or may not be an issue — but its a question that we now must ask.
In this case — Secrets — it was imperative that there be individuals featured from all three campuses.
I’ll talk more about this on Wednesday. I will also go into detail about the great number of people and resources this project required. The click track. The people. The resources. The location.
It was one of the most fun and most rewarding video projects I’ve been apart of.
I’ve already explained our thought process when it came to creating the branding. Our inspiration was the Sherlock Holmes movie. Thus, “The Cure” brand that I talked about a couple of days ago.
We kept is consistent. The teaser again had the Sherlock Holmes feel. We wanted the teaser to look like an old-school lab where a man is concocting a formula — the cure. So what did we need to do to make this happen.
We asked everyone we know for antique medicine bottles and pharmacy items. We hit a jackpot with one of our friends who happened to have a old pharmacy collection. This was a fantastic find.
But we still needed beakers, test tubes and the like. And we wanted to choose items that were had a “generic look” so it wouldn’t conflict with the period styling.
Now that we had the containers, we got creative on what went in them. Water and food coloring did the job well. We also used candies and anything that had a powder look or a pill shape. We also wanted bright colors.
The next hurdle was finding the chemical reactions that would work well on camera. We talked with one of our friends who was a science teacher. He not only let us use some of his science containers, but helped us with the chemical reactions. He helped us choose reactions that were cool but those that wouldn’t blow us up. Seriously.
And finally, we went to the costume shop to find the right costuming. Remember we wanted to have the Sherlock Holmes feel.
Frankly, Dan, our Video Director did the rest of the magic.
Hope you like it.
We have added another worship hour at Sun Valley. To Saturday night.
Saturday night worship was the fastest growing service. And during the recent Fall Series–The Cure we were up 30% over last year. That’s acceptable!
But adding another service on Saturday. We didn’t know what would happen. We had a 5 pm. Now we have a 430 and 6 pm. And we needed the 5 pm crowd to split in half. It was close. It has been a good add for us.
The fun came when our creative team had to decide on how to advertise and promote it. We had a couple of really good ideas, but the one we decided on was a homerun.
We did a David Letterman style top ten :: The Top Ten Reasons Why Smart People Go to Church on Saturday
Take a look — you’ll like it