Well.  We’ve finally ‘arrived’.  eleven72, for the first time in the history of the company, finally has a custom t-shirt.  If you’d like one, they’re $2,500 each. There’s only 20 of them so they’re VERY limited, hence the cost. We’ll be sporting these at NAB.

That’s me with a couple of the stars of our newest Mother’s Day video. We shot all day today and it went well. It’s all “in the can” so to speak or in this case on the cards (P2). The video is a fun salute to Moms and visually highlights the many roles that a mom plays throughout the day. I won’t give it all away right now… We should have it posted some time next week. In the meantime, enjoy this brief look behind the scenes of an eleven72 video shoot:

Thanks in huge part to our good friend Blake Atwood’s efforts, the Catch Fire Blog has a new home (right here) and is now powered by WordPress. We’re looking forward to the flexibility of this new platform and really happy to finally have a look and feel to the blog that we can be proud of. We hope you’ll bookmark us, feedread us or just remember where to find us.

We’re in a Podcast

That’s right. Someone actually wanted to talk to us about what it is exactly we do around here. Just yesterday, via Skype, we sat down and talked with the fine fellows over at ChurchyMedia. ChurchyMedia is a great church tech type resource. They have a great podcast, a regular video series called Short Takes where they do quick reviews of everything from software to social media tools to books, and they’re running a really funny cartoon series on their blog right now. Anyway, we enjoyed talking with them and you can check out the interview as well as subscribe the podcast, etc, by visiting their site: churchymedia.com

I was thinking and praying about the whole comments issue (see my previous post) and was gently reminded by the Holy Spirit that I’m not doing this whole videos for churches thing for Gary (or the commenting public in general), I’m doing it for God. And as long as I can keep that perspective then the things that people have to say about our videos don’t hurt so bad. Of course, I also have to remember to lean on and trust God in everything so that I don’t go from being hurt by the comments to worrying about how they’re going to effect our sales and thus our ability to keep the lights on, not just at eleven72 World Headquarters but at our homes as well. So, today at least, say what you will, I’m serving and trusting God :).

Yesterday I noticed a new comment left at Worship House about our new Easter video, “The Cross: A Curse For Us?” The comment comes from Gary Buck, the Worship Pastor at Petra Christian Fellowship in New Holland, PA. Here’s what Gary said:

“I like the video, but I really don’t care for the narrator’s voice.”

Doesn’t seem that bad, right? But the issue of the purpose these comments serve runs deep. Ask yourself how you would feel if the narrator’s voice were yours. And then ask yourself how Gary would feel if I came up to him after a worship service and told him that I really enjoyed the music, but I didn’t care for his voice. He would be wounded as I am wounded by his comment. Gary is certainly entitled to his opinion, and I certainly have my own opinions and sometimes I don’t “care for” things. But there is a time and place to share your opinions and we need to think seriously before we open our mouths in public places and pass judgement.

There are all kinds of comments left about videos on these sights and Gary’s certainly is nowhere near the worst I’ve seen. I’ve seen people say downright mean things about others videos like “don’t quit your day job,” and Gary’s comment is not nearly that bad. People might say that I’m being overly sensitive, or that it’s to be expected when you put something out there like we do when we make videos. And they would have a point. My point is that we, as Christians, need to heed or at least give pause and think before we speak. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” may be cliche. It may be trite and overly simple and not always true. But in Ephesians 4:29, Paul says “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Now I’m not sure if what Gary said is unwholesome, but it certainly isn’t helpful and I can’t see any benefit in his or other negative comments left on sites like Worship House and Sermon Spice.

Kyte TV is a new platform (in beta) that allows anyone to have in essence a TV channel that can be embedded anywhere and can carry anything and everything from live broadcasts, to audio files, to slide shows to high end produced videos. You create a channel on Kyte and that channel can go anywhere and when you update it with new content, it updates everywhere simultaneously. It’s very very cool.I talked a little about Come and See TV when I posted a video a few days ago for a band called Rumor of Glory. Intrigued by the Kyte TV platform, I signed up and posted the Rumor of Glory video on a new channel I created called Come and See TV. Now, I’m going to embed that channel here on the blog. Say you became a fan of Come and See TV, but don’t want to go to Kyte or to our site or to our Facebook page or whatever but you still want to be able to see Come and See TV. You can take the embed code and Come and See TV can live wherever you want it to. And whenever we update it, it will update on your site. That’s what they say anyway. Without further adieu, here it is… Introducing Come and See TV: