I’ve done a terrible job on the blog front this week. Our time here at eleven72 has been consumed this week with the hurculean effort of finishing up a twenty minute industrial video that we were hired to do. It’s good to finally have that off the plate and to be able to sit down with y’all (yes, I said y’all. we’re in Texas here and that’s how we roll).

By way of making up for a lack of interesting posts this week on our blog, I wanted to mention a few of the very cool things I’ve seen around the blogosphere lately (sure I’m working hard, but I’ve always got time for the net, right?). Anyway, here are some notes from my reader:

Greg Atkinson at Church Video Ideas posted a link to this site where the Passion folks are giving away some great worship tracks as their way of offering up hope for all the people struggling through the darkness reverberating from the terrible events that took place at Virginia Tech. You can see and download those tracks here.

Jott to Self

Have you heard of Jott? I heard about this one from Greg Davis on his blog Technically Speaking. Man, this Jott thing is really cool. I just signed up. From your cell phone, you can call Jott and leave a message for either yourself or one of your contacts. Then Jott transcribes that message and emails it to you or whoever you want it emailed too (emails it as text!). Check out their website for details. I’m looking forward to Jotting.

This is a new blog I read about on Church Video Ideas. I checked it out and it looks like it’s going to be a fantastic resource for any of you out there who are in the trenches pulling off church services week in, week out. There was a great post on there a few days ago about using mics in your services and having back ups for your back ups. Brian Davis really seems to know his stuff and this looks like it will be a blog full of really good, practical, useful advice. Check it out here.

If you’re a Gmail user, you should check out this Better Gmail extension that you can add if you use Firefox. I read about this on Lifehacker and I’m using it now. It does some really cool things like lets you save searches, has a filter assistant, gives you label colors, lets you preview conversations in your inbox and more. Read about it here on Lifehacker. The post includes instructions on how to download it.

Well that’s what’s happening in my corner of the blogosphere. I’d love to hear what you’re reading. Leave some comments and we’ll check out your favorite blogs and haunts.

PowerPlugs for PowerPoint

A big thanks to reader danlwil for pointing me to PowerPlugs: Video Backgrounds for PowerPoint. PowerPlugs from Crystal Graphics is a line of plugins for PowerPoint, and this particular plugin lets you (finally!) use moving backgrounds in PowerPoint. With it, you can take those awesome worship backgrounds you’ve been wanting to use, put them into PowerPoint and then key or put up the worship lyrics over the motion backgrounds. If you’re using PowerPoint for worship, you need to check it out. This would open up a whole new world to you and your congregation. Moving backgrounds are a powerful tool for worship.

Here’s danlwil’s comment left on a blog post I wrote recently about how, as far as I could tell, you couldn’t key text over moving backgrounds in PowerPoint:

We use PPT for our productions. There is a video player plugin by chrystal graphics that allows moving video in PPT… It is a memory hog, and a little clutzy… just this year they updated it to work in presentation mode… That helped alot… transitions are a bit sketchy and it (along with Microsoft is a bit unstable)… however.. I’ve learned to switch between multiple computers which gives me better flexability and stability.

So… I haven’t used the PowerPlugs plugin myself, and danlwil does list a few caveats about the functionality of it, but if it lets you use motion backgrounds, it’s definitely worth looking into. It looks like it will run you $149. So, it’s not free but it’s not as expensive as some of the other solutions and it looks like they offer a satisfaction gauranteed or your money back type policy. Check it all out for yourself here. And if you do end up using it, leave us some comments with your thoughts so we can pass those along to others.

Imagine every piece of film, video, radio, presentation equipment and software that you can think of all under one roof. Add in hundreds and even thousands of pieces of technology that you’ve never even heard of. Sprinkle in a dozen conferences on different topics complete with world renowned speakers and worshops. And what do you have? The National Association of Broadcasters Conference. Coming up in Las Vegas, April 14th-19th, NAB is one of biggest and most comprehensive broadcasting/film/video/television/radio/etc. conferences in the world.

Of particular interest to readers of this blog, The Technologies for Worship Conference, held during NAB, is a place to get information on the latest techniques and technologies in the worship field, to hear from some of the top experts in the field, and to take workshops focused on audio/video and film/video production as it relates to the worship environment.

It might be too late for you to make plans to go this year, but if you can go, go. If you’re thinking about buying equipment for your church, for your company, if you want to see the latest video gear, computer gear, software, anything… If you’re planning on making any big tech purchases or if you just want to wander around for days in awe, go. Even if you just get an exhibits pass, it’s worth it. You can literally walk around for days and not see all the gear on display at NAB. It’s a great time to see the equipment you’re thinking/wondering about, to get your hands on it and to ask the knowledgeable sales reps who are there what they think about it and how you might be able to use it. The scope of NAB is mind blowing. And if you get all geeked up about film/video/presentation equipment, you will be in techie heaven.

Some of the speakers this year are:

Dale Alexander, Creative Technologies Consulting

Phil Cooke, Producer/Director

Paul Crouch Jr., Trinity Broadcasting Network

Craig Janssen, Acoustic Dimensions

Alex Kendrick, Sherwood Baptist Church

Jerry Rose, Total Living Network

And here are some of the workshops:

Saturday

Video Production Technologies (Basic)—Learn to create video and audio systems in one day!
Graphic Design Process & Brainstorming Techniques—See the Graphic Design Process in action.
Dynamic Worship by Design—Learn to build or improve a great worship environment

Sunday

Video Production Techniques (Advanced)—Participate in the video production cycle from scriptwriting to distribution.
Ministry Production Design—Learn to improve the presentation of your message.
Intro to 3D: Modeling, Animating, Lighting—Learn about the fundamentals of 3D Animation.
Hands-on Audio Mixing Workshop—Sit at a station with a live mixer, EQ, compressor/limiter/gat, effects, amplifier, headphones and more!

This is a “what’s in your wallet?” kind of post. I wanted to point out a couple of feeds that I subscribe to that aren’t Christian per se, but from which I get a lot of useful information.

Lifehacker - Lifehacker is kind of a productivity blog. Tons and tons of posts. Everything from opinions on how to get the most out of Google apps to MacGyver tips like how to clean up gasoline stains with dish detergent. A good resource. Check it out.

The Free Geek - I just found this one through Lifehacker. It’s new, but a highlight for me was a recent post on 101 Shareware and Freeware Programs Every Nerd Needs. The post is really well organized and points you to all kinds of great resources for things like encoding audio and video, photo editing, internet browsing, etc. Good stuff.

What’s in your wallet? I’d love to hear more about the feeds and blogs that you keep up with. Drop us a comment so we can surf over and have a look.

Powerpoint and Motion Backs
SPOILER: If you find this post boring you at any point or if you just don’t have the time, skip to the end for links to presentation software sights and a couple of reviews.

Did you know that 90% of churches use PowerPoint in their services on Sunday morning? Wow! Now that’s not an official number, but I got it from a reliable source. Lee and I had lunch with our friend Greg Atkinson of Church Video Ideas a few weeks back (click here to read about Greg and that meeting). We were talking about the ease and flexibility of being able to put your own text up over moving backgrounds and wondering why more people weren’t doing that, when Greg gently reminded us that most people are using PowerPoint and you can’t key text over video in PowerPoint. Flash Forward…

I got an email yesterday from a guy whose church wants to use moving worship backgrounds, but they’re using PowerPoint. He wanted to know if there was any way to put words up over a moving background in PowerPoint? The short answer, as far as I can tell, is no. But I don’t think that’s the complete answer, because I’ve heard there are Plugins for PowerPoint that will let you key text over video. However, in searching, I haven’t been able to locate any of these Plugins. Anyone out there know where you can get a Plugin for PowerPoint that lets you key text over motion? If so, please leave a comment and let us know where to find it and then I’ll post about it.

So, what do you do if you want to put those lyrics up over a moving worship background. The only good answer I can give is you bite the bullet and purchase some software made specifically for use in worship settings. At first glance, price tags in the $300-$500 range seem prohibitive, but if you’re using projectors and computers and trying to make your worship service dynamic with video and moving worship backgrounds, then you really have to have one of these programs. They’re made for just such a purpose. BTW- The Standard version of Microsoft Office 2007 retails for $399, so it’s not cheap either (we just don’t generally have to pay for it because we already have a copy on the computer we’re using or we get a copy from someone, etc, etc).

Most of the worship software companies offer a free trial on their product. So, I would encourage you to check them out, give them a test drive and see what you think. I know not everyone can afford these solutions right away, but if you start now, you can figure out what will work best for you and work towards finding the resources to make it possible.

Here’s a list of the products I know about that are being used in the worship environment:

Easy Worship (PC), MediaShout (PC), Sunday Plus (PC), Pro Presenter (Mac) and Live Worship (PC and Mac).

Check out the websites and look for the free trials. Here are a couple of reviews I found online that you might find useful (both written by Greg Atkinson):

Announcing ProPresenter 3.0

Review of Easy Worship 2006

And, finally, here’s a link to a post I wrote about this kind of stuff a while back, in case you want to see what I had to say back then. I know being under resourced is a huge part of the work we do and deciding what best to do with your limited resources is difficult. Please email me or leave a comment if you have any questions or concerns and I’ll do my best to help.