As our way of saying Happy Thanksgiving, enjoy the full version of our Thanksgiving Fanatic video:

Our Workshop at the National Worship Leader Conference

Our workshop yesterday went awesomely. I don’t think that’s actually a word but it went really well. We had about 75 people attend and only about 60 seats, so it was standing room only. We talked about making your media matter and the big idea for us is that all the media you use should serve the message and shouldn’t be used simply because it’s cool. When used properly, media can work hand in hand with all of your programming to build a theme for your service that perfectly sets up the pastor’s message. We ran a mock Creative Team meeting. We gave away a free Programming Pack to everyone who attended. It was great.

We also kicked off our session with a video we shot on the first day of the conference. It was a Man On The Street Video where Lee asked people at the conference what they thought about eleven72. It was our fun way of introducing ourselves. Check it out:

Feedreaders, here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7rWjnp7p7g

I know the 4th is still a few days away, but I wanted to send out this birthday greeting. What a blessing to live in a country where we are free to worship God and to follow after Christ. It’s my prayer that we would take advantage of that freedom and allow God to work in and through us to reach people with His life changing message of true freedom. The freedom found only in putting your life fully and completely in the hands of Christ.

We have some great 4th of July resources on our Seasonal Tab. Jump over there and check them out. We made a 4th friendly version of our very popular For Freedom video and we’ve also got a couple of great countdowns for your 4th of July festivities. Click here to peruse our 4th collection. We hope you find something you can use.

I’m going out of town next week, so keep an eye out for some brilliant blog posts from my partner Lee. I’m retreating to the mountains of New Mexico and will be without an internet connection. Although I’ll be spending time with family, I also hope to find time to connect more deeply with God in His beautiful creation.

Happy 4th and God Bless!

Teenage Affluenza Spreading Fast

Came across this video on YouTube this morning. From the view count, I’m far from the first one to see it (441,000 views and counting), but I wanted to share it anyway. It makes such a great point in such a creative way. I found myself laughing and feeling ashamed in the same breath. Very well done.

If you’re reading the fee, here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFZz6ICzpjI

We’re really excited that our brand new Memorial Day video, For Freedom has been received so enthusiastically. We’re setting daily sales records with it on our site and it’s also selling really well with other distributors. It’s always really gratifying to make something that so many people can use. It’s humbling to think about and we’re really grateful that God is blessing the video in this way. You can check it out by clicking here.

I’m also really excited about the reponses we’ve received on last Friday’s post, Been Caught Stealing. Check out the comments we’ve gotten and jump into the fray with your own. I’m thinking we need to talk some more about what actually constitutes a parody. So, that will be food for a new post some time soon.

In other news, it’s been a busy week here in eleven72 country and that’s kept me off the blog. It’s mostly personal stuff, but I’ll let you in on some of the what’s goings ons…

I wrecked my car a couple of weeks ago (no serious injuries but the car was totalled) and so I’d spent the last 10 days or so hunting for a replacement. Yesterday, after much research and agonizing, I became the proud owner of a 2003 Ford F-150. There was much rejoicing as I can now get back to work and eleven72 now has a work truck to haul around production equipment, props and what not.

And earlier today, I helped Lee and his family move into a new place. So, their family is in transition to a new house today. And this should be the start of a great new chapter in their families history. So that’s exciting.

Talk to you later.

So… I saw a video this morning on a certain distributors website which shall remain nameless. The video is a “Christianized” copy of a video put out by the ONE campaign. The ONE campaign video uses highly recognizeable faces and a stark black and white aesthetic to draw attention to the startling statistic that a child dies every three seconds from AIDS or extreme poverty. The video is really well done, highly creative and very effective in communicating its message. Click here to watch it now.

Imagine my surprise when I’m looking through the new releases on a certain website and I come across a video that is an exact copy of this video. It’s black and white, shot on a white background, the people in the video aren’t the same celebrities but they are snapping every three seconds. Then the text comes up and it’s been changed to reflect that every three seconds (same as in the ONE video) six people die. The point the video is trying to make is that people are dying every second and a lot of those people don’t know Christ as Savior. I get that. And I applaud the filmmakers for trying to make that point. I just wish they would have taken inspiration from the ONE video and used that inspiration to creatively come up with their own original idea. As it is, to me it seems they’ve just stolen the idea. They give no credit to the original creators and they are passing it off as an original work. I could go on but I think I’ve made my point.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this in the church video space. It’s one of the most blatant copies I’ve seen, but it’s not the first. We need to be innovators. We need to be drawing on the creativity that God has given us to come up with original and powerful ways to communicate truth. And we need to be above reproach. There is a difference between parody and stealing. There is a difference between homage and rip off. And it just seems wrong.

I would really love it if you guys would weigh in on this topic and let me know your thoughts. I really feel like this is a discussion we all need to be having as makers and users of media and most importantly as bearers of the image of Christ.

We made a short (silly) video to show off our new office space. It’s just a sublease, but for us, it’s a big step forward in the life of our little company. Here’s the video:

For those of you reading the feed, here’s a link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvvFzN8yhGk

Enjoy!