I’m sure everyone who works in the church world understands the unique, all-hands-on-deck, pull-out-all-the-stops scramble that comes with Easter preparation. This one Sunday is by far the highest-attended, most consistent day of the year for us. We know we’ll have more guests than usual, we know generally what the message will be about, and we know the emotion associated with this day for Christians. Around here we refer to it as our Super Bowl, and it certainly feels that way.

This year, as our programming team began brainstorming what we would do for this special service, the thing we kept coming back to was that we wanted people to feel welcome. Even if this is the first and only time they set foot in a church this year, we wanted each of our attendees to feel at ease and accepted from the very beginning of the service.

In the end, we decided on a concept that followed a family through a rushed Sunday morning getting ready for church. We thought this was a fairly universal experience that people could relate to and connect with—some people may have even experienced it that very morning (probably not to this extent). We struggled back and forth through several versions with the ending—trying to convey the right emotions without making it feel too cheesy—but what we ended up with seemed to balance the extremes well.

All five of our campuses used the video a little bit differently, but across the board we felt like it accomplished our goal of engaging people at the start of the service, having a little fun, and communicating that everyone is welcome as they are.

A big shout out to David Roberston for his leadership on this project. He saw it through to the finish, but so many people on our team were involved in make this idea a reality. From shooting, to editing, to graphics, to sound design, it was a huge team effort to bring a little something to special to such an important day. Hope you enjoy it!

What about your church? How did you approach the big day?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s our latest update.  Bridge Timelapse.
We had an interesting dilemma getting power to a camera where there is no power and let it run for 48 hours without dying.
Our Solution:
1)Outdoor Marine/RV battery
2)Power Inverter that connected to battery
3)SLR camera/tripod with remote switch to take pics every 30 secs.

Special Thanks to Matt Clark for helping make this happen.

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!”

Click here to view the embedded video.

How technology lifts Pixar's 'Up'

Ken Wilson from NewSpring Twittered this link today and I had to share it.  It’s an article about the technological challenges that Pixar had in animating its new movie “Up” (i.e. what it required to replicate the physics of 10,000 interdependent helium balloons).  Great example of the disconnect that often exists between how the average viewer perceives a scene, and the massive workload that was endured to achieve those images.  Very cool and definitely worth a read!

Here is an excerpt:
As producer Jonas Rivera put it, “The audience looks at (the balloon cluster) and says, ‘Oh, that’s pretty.’ But they have no idea how much work went into it. We worked on that for over a year. (Then) the kid takes off his hat and runs his fingers through his hair. My mother will never know that took 15 people six weeks.” <—– And you thought your videos were tedious!)