Media

You may have already seen this video floating around twitter via @AndyStanley.  This is one of the many stories our team gets to be a part of week in and week out.  Gretchen’s particularly was one of the most inspiring things we’ve ever seen around here.  It’s hard not to get teared up on this one.  Our team is blessed to be a small part of God’s BIG story in every person who walks through our doors at North Point Ministries.http://www.vimeo.com/14215310

If you’ve never been to TED.com, it is something I highly recommend everyone doing often. The TED talks that are available there are really amazing.

While there I found a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. I haven’t read her book (or yet seen the movie), but I love this talk. It’s only about 20 minutes (so, you can watch it while you eat lunch).

One thing that always fills me with joy is seeing timeless biblical truth being discovered by living life naturally instead of just reading it in the bible. It demonstrates better than anything the relevance of biblical truth.

Anyway, what Gilbert talks about here is the role that the divine plays in human creative genius. The biggest take away for me was that long ago, people knew that creativity did not come from people–it came from the divine. During the Renaissance, however, people began to see themselves as the center of the universe and slowly began referring to people as geniuses. Before this, people were simply said to “have” a genius (a deity that inspires – like a muse).

If we could only get back to the perspective that creativity and inspiration comes from God, what an incredible difference it would make. We would begin to fully understand that we are part of something amazing, but that it doesn’t all rest on our shoulders. We show up for work, but so does God. I continue to think through this concept, and am constantly seeing the radical change that could happen if I always kept this idea at the forefront.

(Quick warning about the video – there is a bit of language in it… all of which could be see on primetime network television, but given that this is a church website I figured I would warn.)

Sometimes we ask other people, “What kinds of movies do you like?” But I think a more interesting and possibly uncomfortably personal question might be, “Why do you watch movies?” I was thinking about this question this past weekend, and it seems like however we answer this, it says a lot about the kinds of movies we like. As an experiment, I’ve paired some reasons for watching movies with the kinds of movies I think would you would like as a result. Take a look and see if you agree with any of these:

For excitement – Horror and thriller films

For amusement – Action and comedy films

To feel inspired – Artsy non-mainstream films

To feel more normal – Dramas

To feel good – Romantic comedies

To join the bandwagon – Twilight

I’m sure someone else could do a much better job at this list than I just did. The interesting thing, though, is that whatever the reason, I think our taste in movies has a lot to do with how we feel or want to feel. As a video producer, this reasoning gives me a litmus test for what does or does not make an impact on my audience. For a video to really communicate something, I think the most important thing is that it appeals to an emotion. Sometimes I forget about this when things get busy – but what use is putting information in front of an audience if they never really connect with it on a deeper level? I think every project deserves the question, “Why would someone watch this?” And hopefully it’s not just because they have to.

One of the things I enjoy most about producing is working on dramatic videos. Last month I had the opportunity to work on a short film for our Starting Point Department. Producing short films is not the norm for us here in North Point Media world, and as you can imagine we had to adapt a lot of what we know about production and transfer that into a new working knowledge on the fly.

As with any big, multi-day production, our crew put in some very long hours. Some of our night location shoots turned into mornings on more than one occasion. During one of those long nights of production I stole away for a few minutes to jot down some of the things that I learned on this production. Maybe some of you will find this helpful or possibly even therapeutic.

Random Things I learned….

In-town location

1-  Permits.

Getting a permit might be a good idea if shooting in a good-size town. Say Atlanta for instance. Especially if you want to control traffic or shut down a street for a while.

2-  Permits-part 2.

Please allow ample time for permit requests to be processed. I would suggest a week. Don’t bother trying to get a permit if you are not a week out from shooting–trust me!

3-  Security.

Security is a must for in-town shoots, especially at night. You can’t compromise on safety.

The crew

4-  Food.

Feeding a crew of 20 can really add up!
I found that $10 a person works for meals. Don’t forget snacks & drinks. Especially in the summer!

5-  Food-part 2.

If you can clear the budget, hire a person to handle food—do it! Better yet if you have a volunteer that is good at that type of thing that would be great.

6-  Parking.

Never forget—parking in town is pricey!

7- Vehicles.

Limit the number of cars your crew is using. This will help with gas $$ and the parking thing too.

Late-night location

8-  Location.  Location.  Location.

Really good locations add big time to believability in your production.

9-  Location-part 2.

The more remote a location the more logistically complicated it usually is to shoot there. Keep in mind the travel time for everyone, how bad cell service may be and then last but not least getting food to your remote spot.

10- Morale.

Never underestimate the power of a late night snack run or a smoothie run on the mood of the crew.

11- Food-part 3.

Special dietary requests should be considered ahead of time.

Mobile home base

12- Home Base.

a. Find out ahead of time how you will communicate from each location.
b. Think power, shade, food, drinks, restrooms, chairs and a table for laptops and hard drives.
c. Network connectivity = Bonus.
d. Rule of thumb… The longer your crew is at each location the more elaborate your home base.

13- Actors.

If your actor can’t deliver his/her lines correctly it can unravel your work—No matter how good the locations and technical aspects of the shoot.

14- Plan.

You must have a plan. Even an ill-conceived plan is better than no plan.

Setting up a shot

15- CASH.

There will ALWAYS be incidental expenses.
The bigger the crew / production the more $$ you should have on you.

16- Credit Card.

Get a work credit card. Enough said.

17- Paperwork.

We all love to hate it but have it with you. Don’t forget to have people sign it. It is maddening to come back to the office with blank paperwork! (Not that I’ve ever done that…)

So what are some of the things you have learned on your shoot locations? We would love your feedback.

(*Photos courtesy of: Mary Caroline Mann. Professional technical services: Whisper Productions.)

http://www.vimeo.com/13127309
It’s actually been a while since I got to stick my toes in AfterFX.  Being on Short Film shoots and other video productions, it’s fun to finally get back into some Motion GFX.  This was our latest Title Pack for this past Sunday.

Few tips I used:
Public Domain, Public Domain, Public Domain, did I mention Public Domain?
Search the World Wide Web (invented by Al Gore) for Public Domain images & video clips.  Presidential Archives/Library of Congress.  Be sure to read the fine print for usage.

3D space + Depth of Field
A simple camera move with small variable depths in Z space adds big impact.  Make sure DOF is enabled on your 3D Camera.

Blending + Feathering Edges
Play with blend modes (Click Layer, keystroke: Shift +) is the AfterFX shortcut to fly through them. You’re bound to find one that is AWESOMENESS.  I wanted seamless montage, Mask and Feather your edges

Effects: Turbulent Displacement
To make a still flag wave from the key art I used Turbulent Displacement. Play with keyframing it.

Effects: Stroke
Mask your Text layer and then use Stroke to draw it on.

Adjustment Layer
I added an overall adjustment layer to BOOST Saturation and give the Key Art colors more pop for video.  Print colors and video usually don’t translate well.

Well, Hope you find some of these tips helpful, they aren’t much but are pretty simple methods to help make simple things more dynamic.
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR GO TO TRICKS?

Key Art Design- Pat Malone

Let’s step into the way-back machine for a moment and take a look at White Flag, an Andy Stanley series from this past February.  I learned some valuable lessons working on the art for this series– particularly, sometimes the coolest idea and the best idea are not one and the same.

The premise (surrender) and imagery (a white flag) were pretty straightforward.  However, we’re always challenging ourselves to come up with fresh, unique designs rather than just take the easy way out.

Our initial inspiration came from papercraft; we liked the depth and dimensionality in the designs we were finding, as well as the unique symbolism found in the juxtaposition of the cut-out and the model itself.  It also allowed us to steer toward a design that was completely white and yet still interesting and dynamic.  Unfortunately, none of us are papercraft masters, so I needed to try and fake it using a 3D modeling program (Cinema 4D in this case).  Plus, this needed to look like white fabric, not white paper.

(CLICK THUMBNAILS FOR FULL-SIZE IMAGES)

As these compositions were pushed toward better and better execution, the general consensus was this: the idea was cool, the designs looked cool, but something was missing.  Whether it was lacking emotion or some sort of undefinable “it” factor, I wasn’t hitting the mark.  I thought that the flag had the potential to be a very strong symbol, but it was perhaps being overwhelmed by the text.  So I started to steer away from the papercraft idea and toward designs with a more prominent flag.

At this point I started asking myself some tough questions.  Did this design really need to be 3D?  3D modeling adds a lot of potential for visual interest and can allow you to do some unique and even mind-bending things; however, it’s not necessarily always the answer.  I hadn’t to this point allowed myself to explore other options.

I decided to strip the design down even further, and relied on negative space, contrast, spacing, and scale to pull the necessary emotion and meaning out of this design, rather then trying to be overly complicated.  The white flag was a strong symbol, and I wanted to maximize that potential.

This design, by a longshot, generated the most positive response.  It may be the simplest design we’ve ever done– honestly, I spent about 15 minutes on the composition itself– but in this case, simple was the way to go.

The season of Summer blockbusters is upon us, and while it could be argued that many of these big budget movies may lack a little depth in story, they sure donʼt lack for amazing visual effects.  A great example of cutting edge visual effects is the newest Marvel Comics movie Iron Man 2.  When I saw this movie a few weeks ago I was taken back by the cool 3-D holographic computer displays that Mr. Tony Stark  (Robert Downey, Jr.) interacted with.  Here is a great video that Prologue released showing some of their amazing work on this project.  Enjoy:

[Motionographer article about their process here.]

Not too long ago, I don’t think I would have said that I value collaboration. It used to bother me. I wanted to edit videos on my own and not let anyone see it before I was finished. After all, how could someone else’s thoughts on my half-finished project be constructive if they don’t know even know what I still plan to do with it? But then I started realizing that other people actually have a pretty good sense of where I’m going with a project, and their concerns are usually pretty legit. Here are some reasons I love getting other people in on my works-in-progress:

· I waste less time. Left unchecked, I have a tendency to put a lot of energy into trying to make a bad idea work, rather than throwing it out and looking for something better. If I can’t sell anyone else on my idea early on, then I know I need to move on to something else.

· Better solutions come along. As hard as it is to change direction mid-project because of someone else’s idea, I have to admit all my best work is a result of giving heed to others’ concerns and ideas. I once completely trashed what I thought was a good script because someone convinced me it was missing the target. While the video would have been fun, it wouldn’t have served its purpose. We ended up with something much better.

· More confidence, less anxiety. A wonderful benefit of letting others in on your work is that there’s less panic when you start to doubt yourself. And I always doubt myself. Just think of the encouragement you get when someone else sees your work and they actually like it. My main fear for letting others in what I’m working on is that they won’t like it. But I’d rather a few people not like it and then fix it than an entire audience not like it.

We’ve benefitted so much from team collaboration through feedback that it’s become a regular part of our schedule. Several days a week at 2pm is a video review meeting. This is where we grab anyone who’s available and gather around a computer to see what everyone’s working on. Sometimes it’s quick, but great stuff always comes out in those meetings.

What are the ways you keep others in the loop for your projects?

Here is an amazing timelapse video of the Iceland volcano using Canon 5d mkII.  Video by Sean Stiegemeier

Here’s how he created this video using a motorized dolly by www.dynamicperception.com (not available yet).  Incredible shots with this thing. 

http://www.vimeo.com/11835819

Here’s a video our team did to promote our COLLEGE MINISTRY’S summer meetings called “SUMMER GATHERING.”  The first thing we think about for a promotion like this is “College Humor.” Creatively, that usually means getting to right people in the room who think in that mindset.  Plus our Producer Dave Blakeslee found an amazing professional V.O. guy TOM LIST whose wife is actually on staff here.  Adam Dukes (contractor) rewrote this original concept that Career Builder created a year ago.  This video had run through our office many times and it has just the right humor that some may find dumb but is perfect for College kids.  The repetition in the original commercial is BRILLIANT!!!  You know a commercial is good when you quote lines from it like “HEY DUMMY!”