Creative Process
The visual direction for the series came from a vague idea we got from a magazine cover. Many times during the creative process, we’ll just grab a ton of magazines and start tearing out whatever images seem to fit the topic of the series. Everyone in the meeting identified with this image. The thought was that a person would be holding a box containing all the religious symbols in his life. As if he was getting rid of all the religion in his life. 
From here we thought it would have more impact if we saw more people getting rid of their religion, and the final key-art would be more impactful if there were a variety of symbols in the box showing all sorts of religions. So, we went away from a single person and decided to have the title package show lots of people.
There were a few big hurdles in finding the exact direction for the final look. These discussions included… “Should the symbols be in a trash can? If they are in the trash, does that say we are throwing away religion? Should people be in a line? Should it be filmed in a studio? Should it be on a street corner? Should it be in a box? Should the box be cardboard? Are any religious symbols off limits?” It was really awesome watching everyone get involved in this conversation, and I think it led to an amazing place.
Promotion (written by Brad)
As we were trying to settle on the best creative direction Mike mentions above, there was the promo that was needed ASAP (ever been in that situation??) There were a lot of directions we could go, but until we figured that out, we needed tension without alienating other religions. So, we decided to draw attention to a specific religious, everyday symbol used by Christians. The emotion that is felt when somebody has a FISH sticker on a car rubs people all sorts of ways. For us, we wanted the character to have a little self-evaluation moment with his decision of having a fish sticker and, ultimately, for whatever reason, choosing to forgo it. The font (which was initially chosen as a placeholder) and music continued through to the final look. http://www.vimeo.com/6068415
Overall Look
For the overall look we decided to go with a grungy city alleyway. The box would be cardboard. This was to give an overall feel of being discarded, but not thrown away (thus not being overly disrespectful of the new attendee’s current religion). 
Also, we wanted to give everything a feel that I referred to as “vintage-feeling,” heavily processed photography. Kind of like Holga camera, or cross-processed photography. Some great examples of this can be found in Brian Manley’s portfolio, an amazing Atlanta designer and photographer. To achieve these effects that are often done in camera, we used some “Totally Rad” Photoshop filters available at TotallyRAD!
These filters will change your life if you’re a photographer.
One of the things that drew us to this look was what I call “intentional unintentionality.” Meaning, the picture is composed well, but appears to be a haphazard, quick, nearly unintentional shot. So we decided on a bit of unusual cropping and slightly rotating everything.
Title Package
Lastly, the title package was done in-house by Josh Peters (Buckhead Media), Dave Blakeslee (North Point Media), Brian Korosec (Browns Bridge production), myself (North Point Media), and a host of extras. Josh did a great job shooting this with a Canon Mark II 5D–a still SLR digital camera that has HD video ability. We chose this camera because it gives us a great depth-of-field range on the shoot. We wanted to have a very shallow focus depth for lots of control over the audience’s attention during the piece. We wanted to make sure they saw exactly what we wanted them to see. It also allowed for more tension, beauty, and personality. http://www.vimeo.com/6211665
August 21st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
BTW - I absolutely love the fact that this whole series was a multi-campus effort. Great thoughts, input, creativity from all campuses, BUCKHEAD, NORTH POINT, BROWNS BRIDGE.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Hey,
Great article. I love how you shot the video on a Canon Mark II 5D and explained your design process in a thoughtful way.
I also liked how you included links in the article, but they were not hot-linked. I had to copy and paste them into my browser
J
August 21st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Hey J -
We fixed the hotlinks. Sorry about that.
August 21st, 2009 at 4:54 pm
The shallow depth of field in the videos is exquisite! I love the 5D Mark II! Thanks for the links too…
One question for you: Video I shoot with the 5D looks really weird when exported to a standard DVD and played on a CRT TV (because it’s not interlaced). Have you come up with a solution for how to make footage translate well for broadcast use on North Point’s TV show?
August 24th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Here are a couple answers we got to your questions Bill -
Josh Peters::
What I do is…
Edit in apple prores export final movie in that format then convert to m2v in compressor. If you try and downconvert the video in a final cut timeline you can get weird results.
Brian Korosec
Other than getting a progressive scan DVD player—If he is staying as a h.264 try exporting interlaced and not progressive. I believe its an option in the quick time export of FCP. I’ve found that the native H.264 codec does not play well with DVDs as well. Everything I import gets transcoded directly to ProRes422. This is not a quality loss since they are both 4:2:2 codecs. Everything works better in ProRes IMO.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Love the concept. Very evocative. Makes me want to hear the messages. Enticement works better than advertising. Thank you for taking the time to walk us through the process, it sparks creative thoughts that lead to our own successes in our respective churches.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Hi Mike,
I’m on staff at North Coast Church out in San Diego doing video production. What type of lighting did you have for the car shoot?
The 5D is a GREAT choice because of the DOF. I really want to start incorporating that into more of our pieces here at NCC.
Thanks!
August 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Great stuff here. Thanks!
I’m curious how your art direction / creative direction works. Do you have 1 person that leads the process? Do you all get in a room and brainstorm?
Thanks for the inside look you guys are providing.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Thanks for giving us an inside look at your creative process! I’m curious about the involvement of volunteers in these projects…the filming, editing, the designing, etc. Are most of the creative elements you produce done by staff or volunteers? And how to do manage that?
You guys rock!
Angie
August 31st, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Angie - GREAT QUESTION!
From a content creation standpoint we have used volunteers more so in the past, less today. As the church grew, so did the opportunities to produce more and more media. As media continued to get better, expectations of quality grew with every opportunity. Increasing volume + consistent quality + limited time = $$$. Does that make sense? I know there are exceptions but that is how things have kinda evolved. We have however, found some of our media staff through volunteer opportunities. MATTY G is one of them.
From a live production standpoint on Sunday mornings, we have a team full of volunteers that serve each week. From lighting, camera ops, switching, directing, shading, everything you can think of to make our services happen.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
The video is great. You guys always do excellent work. What’s the song you used for the “Losing Your Religion” promo? I found myself playing the intro over and over just for the music.
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Patrick, i believe this was the track title. We purchased from music library.
http://www.firstcom.com
track name
“GM_123_17_Family_Roots_Kallins.wav”
September 4th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Thanks for getting back to me on my interlacing question! By the way, y’all should consider adding the option to receive an email when someone replies to your comment on the blog. I bet if you twisted @human3rror’s arm hard enough, he’d get IntenseDebate up and running on insidenorthpoint.org!
September 8th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Thank you! Your team does beautiful work, and it’s cool of you to share the process and resources.
March 31st, 2010 at 4:03 am
interesting take on the subject, count me as a new subscriber!
November 3rd, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Anyone know what’s the best type of dvd to use for my editing job which will be great at keeping the same as the original?