If you’re creating videos. If you’re a storyteller. If you aspire to get better at making, presenting, explaining things through video, graphics, animation… Then you have to be a student. You have to be checking out what other people are doing and what’s being done by the best and the brightest content creators out there.

Below you’ll find a couple of resources we really like. We hope you’ll use them to learn, analyze, absorb, break down, emulate, critique, and get ideas from. Then you can go make your own great, informed, unique content!

Motionographer

(From Their About Page):

Motionographer (pronounced like “oceanographer”) seeks to be a source of inspiration for filmmakers, animators and designers by sharing:

• outstanding work from studios, freelancers and students
• feature stories that give readers a closer look at influential studios and individuals
• commentary that sparks discussion or introspection about the creative process
• miscellaneous items that Motionographer contributors find interesting

Boardsmag’s Screening Room

(In My Words):

The Screening Room posts commercials, music videos and short films from all over the world. And the main Boardsmag site has all kinds of articles and other resources.

These aren’t “Christian” resources, but these are films and videos made by really talented people. Sometimes the content or the message is questionable, but we can still learn a lot from the imagination, skills, and techniques that are being used.

If you know of other good places to tune in and see great things. Resources you use. Sites you’re always checking out. Please leave a comment and let us know about them. We are always looking for more solid resources. And we love watching movies!

Sound. Now I am a visual guy. A cinematographer. I’m all about writing with light. So you can imagine how hard this is to admit, but it’s true. I learned this early, through my mistakes, and it’s been confirmed to me over and over again (through others mistakes). Nothing will ruin your film or video faster than bad audio. People will suffer bad picture quality. In fact, much to my chagrin, people often don’t even notice what I think is bad cinematography. The image can be scratched, somewhat distorted, slightly over or underexposed, poorly lit, glaringly overlit, etc. But if the quality of the audio is bad, if it’s noisy or distorted. If there’s too much room noise or you can’t hear the actor over that airplane going overhead, your audience will notice it. And it won’t be easy for them to get past it. The lesson I’ve learned is don’t skimp on the audio. Do everything you can to get the best sound possible. Buy good mics. Always use headphones to monitor your audio. Keep a close eye on your levels. You can only fix it in Post if you got pretty good audio to begin with. Bad audio can’t be fixed. At best, if you really know what you’re doing, you can use tricks to distract from it or minimize it. But you can’t fix it.

(Stepping Off My Soapbox Now)

Why all this talk about audio? We got two new mics in yesterday and I’m really excited about them. I picked up a Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic to mount on our camera and a Sennheiser Evolution Wireless G2 lav mic. I love getting gear. Waiting for the FedEx guy. It’s like Christmas. If anyone’s interested in hearing more about different kinds of mics, what’s a shotgun mic?, what’s a good lav mic?, things like that, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll post on it. In the meantime, mind the audio :).

Easter. Then What?

We just finished and posted our newest Sermon Illustration and we’re really excited about it! So, what’s the story? A few weeks ago, Lee and I sat down with the Teaching Pastor (Ted Beasley/Gateway) at our home church to talk about Easter. The conversation eventually got around to how a lot of people, Christians and non alike, can feel stuck and even depressed around this time of year because they aren’t sure how to apply the message of Easter to their everyday lives.

Our Easter video was born out of that conversation. Out of a desire to give voice to that feeling, to set pastors up to take the podium and teach on the Good News that what Jesus did for us isn’t just for “fire insurance.” His sacrifice was made so that we could have a relationship with God now, a relationship and a freedom in Christ that can be a very real part of our everyday lives.

Click here to check out the video. Then leave us a comment on this post and let us know what you think.

Nike and The Art of Storytelling

Speaking of great storytellers, I think Nike does an awesome job of storytelling. I don’t know if there’s any other corporate entity that taps into our hearts, our dreams, our desires, like Nike does. They want to tie our longings and desires to their products. We know the only place we’ll find satisfaction for those desires is at their source - God. It’s easy to say that Nike is able to tell such great stories and do so much because of all the resources that their wealth provides. I often find myself using excuses like that. But sometimes, Nike does it so well and so simply that it lays my excuses bare. We can tell stories like this. Stories that inspire, encourage and point people to the Source. Watch this short video about Brazilian soccer superstar Ronaldinho and think about the stories you want to tell:

The Story’s the Thing…

The single most important thing you can do is tell stories! Let me explain.

The Bible is the very Word of God. We read it to know Him. And He uses it to speak to us. It is His Story… History.

We just finished producing a video for a local missions organization called Mission Possible of Austin. The project will be shown this weekend as part of their annual fundraising banquet. In the process, we had the opportunity to meet and interview three incredible people. People whose lives have been transformed by the power of God, through the ministry of Mission Possible. There was a woman who found herself pregnant and on the streets. There was a well to do foreign business student at a major university, whose family had an emergency back home that used up all his money, and he too ended up on the streets here in America. And finally, a young man with a Father in and out of jail and a Mother addicted to drugs who found himself all alone. Mission Possible helped all of them find a relationship with our living God, as well as helping them meet physical needs. And now all three are actively serving the body of Christ and giving back because they’ve been given so much!

I know there are similar stories of radical transformation and the incredible grace of God playing out in your local body. Those stories illustrate how your church is living out its’ mission. How you are enacting your vision. You need to tell those stories. Stories connect the body to what God is doing through us. They show us that we are a part of something so much bigger than ourselves. And our people need to hear them.

So I encourage you to find creative ways to tell the stories of what God is doing. - globally, locally, and personally. Help people to see. Inspire them to act. It’s all part of HisStory.

If you need any ideas on how to tell the stories of your people, even if you don’t have many resources, email me at storme {at} eleven72(.)com. I’d love to help you find a way to get your story out!

Cut It Out

Steven Spielberg. Ron Howard. Martin Scorsese. Mel Gibson. You heard of these guys? Of course you have! They’re famous Directors of big time feature films. But what about Walter Murch, James Haygood, Zach Staenberg or John Wright? No? They’re pretty famous in the movie biz too. They’re actually the editors of movies like The Godfather, Fight Club, The Matrix and The Passion of the Christ. We don’t typically hear about them because they are behind the scenes (most likely locked in an editing room for weeks on end) But they are just as integral to what we see on the big screen as the Directors are.

Editor Walter Murch, (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Cold Mountain, Jarhead) says “Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.” Yes. Anyone can purchase a computer and some editing software and get to work, but the best editors are great story tellers. They can take hours and hours of footage and beautifully piece it all together into a 90 minute film. This is what is so great about editing! Taking a vast amount of information (ie. footage, photos, music, etc.) and putting it all together to get your audience to feel something.

There tons of resources out there for editors. Lots of books, videos, schools & training. You can learn a lot about how to place a clip in to a timeline or how to set keyframes on your music selection, but the biggest art of editing is in the story telling. When should I cut? How long should that shot be? Should I use a close up here? Should we pace this faster to illustrate that the actress is frantic? All of these depend on what you’re conveying to your audience and what you want them to take away from that scene/video/movie.

If you’re making a video for your church, youth group, small group etc. continually ask yourself “How does this fit in with our story?” Understand what you’re trying to accomplish BEFORE you sit down at your computer to start cutting. And then see how each shot and scene adds to what you want your audience to see and feel. It’s not that much different than writing a sermon/message…just a different way of communicating.

Here’s some good resources to keep you busy if you’re interested in editing:
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch
American Cinema Editors
Videomaker.com
The Digital Filmmaker

I’ll post again soon with more resources on editing ideas, tips and tricks.

Lee