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.

We had a reader send us a request for more posts/information on the how to of editing. How do you edit? That’s a really big question. The answer is simple and complicated all at the same time.

Editing in film or video is sequencing images or clips into a timeline. Choosing to place one moving clip after another in a certain order. In the end, editing is story telling. I had an editing professor who said the editor is the person who tells the joke. Someone thinks up the joke. Someone writes it. Someone records and/or captures it. And then the editor decides how it should be told.

One of the most eye opening assignments I had in film school was to edit together a scene from raw footage of the TV show Highlander. Anyone remember that show? Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod? Anyone? It wasn’t a very good show, but I’m getting way off point. Everyone in the class was given the same raw footage to work with. We all spent a couple of weeks working on our cuts. And then we watched them together. Same footage. Totally different scenes. Everyone in the class told a totally different joke.

And so… You can learn how to push the right buttons, how this software works and that software works. And you can debate the merits of Final Cut Pro vs. Avid vs. Premiere. But before you get into any of that, if you want to be an editor, you need to study and think and watch and decide how you want to tell your jokes. Anyone can learn how to cut images into a sequence, but it takes a lifetime to learn where to place those cuts in order to have the impact you want. Every frame counts. Every moment matters. Where should you cut?

There’s an excellent documentary about editing called “The Cutting Edge - The Magic of Movie Editing.” It’s a feature length documentary about the art and craft of film editing. You can order a DVD copy through Amazon. It was recently available online through Google video but it seems it’s been taken down. I’ll let you know if I find it somewhere. I also highly recommend Walter Murch’s book “In the Blink of an Eye,” also available through Amazon and other fine book stores. In the Blink of an Eye is the best book I’ve ever read about the philosophy or thought process that goes in to editing. Walter Murch is a long time editor for Francis Ford Coppola and edited, among other things, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. More recently, he was the editor on Cold Mountain, one of the first big budget features to be cut entirely with Final Cut Pro.

We’ll post more on editing in the near future (something more hands on and practical :).

In my years as a Media Director at Gateway Church here in Austin, we spent a lot of time in Programming Meetings discussing the purpose of Sermon Illustration videos. That is, videos used to set up or to set up a main point in the pastor’s sermon. In broad strokes, we talked about what our videos should do for the Pastor? How much should they say? Where should they leave off?

We came up with a pretty simple metaphor that we used as a guideline. The metaphor goes something like this: You’re on a ball field playing softball. It’s a slow pitch game where you pitch to your own team. The pastor is at the plate. You’re the pitcher and the ball is the Sermon Illustration video. Your job as the pitcher (film/videomaker) is to throw up a nice slow pitch for the pastor so that he can knock that pitch out of the park.

So, let’s break that metaphor down. First, it’s a team effort. Programming and doing church on Sundays takes a team of people all working together toward a common goal. The big goal being to reach people with the life changing message of Jesus Christ. Each week, the pastor gives a message and that message is the anchor of the weekly service. Every element in the service should function to help set up that message, to set up that home run.

You are not the batter. The video is not there to hit the homerun. The pastor is the batter. The message is hopefully the homerun. What do I mean?

In the context of church, video Sermon Illustrations are not the message. Often times, when used well, they function to set up the message. In this way, they often raise questions that they don’t answer. The videos can give voice to the thoughts, fears, doubts and questions that the people in the congregation have. Following this, the pastor can come up and speak to those thoughts, fears, doubts and questions. He can provide answers from God’s Word.

Oftentimes, this means leaving things open ended in our videos. We need to leave room for the pastor’s message. When viewed alone, one might think the videos don’t give a strong enough answer, don’t resolve enough, but we have to remember that in the context of Sermon Illustrations and church, these videos are not designed or created to stand alone. And they aren’t designed to give the message. That is the pastor’s job.

Remember, throw up a nice slow pitch and you’ll be able to watch with joy as the ball sails out of the park.

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: