A Good Reminder for Myself

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 :).

eleven72 World Headquarters - 4:30 PM CST

Thought you all might like to take a look around. You know, see where all the magic happens.

(Above) Lee kickin' it in Edit Suite #1, as in we have one Edit Suite


(Above) My workspace, etc. Featuring a drafting desk my dad made for my
sister in 1983. I rescued The Virgin from the dumpster outside our office.

(Above) Check out the killer big screen where we watch movies
on Monday mornings.

(Above) What's in the fridge? Nothing good, that's for sure.

Have you surfed the new site?

I haven't been blogging very regularly for a number of reasons. A big one is that we were having a lot of trouble integrating the blog into our new website. I'm still not 100% happy with how the blog looks on the site, but we'll figure it out. I am, however, really happy with the new site (www.eleven72.com). I love the new design. More than that, I love that we finally have a solid shopping cart and customers are able to reliably get their downloads. I'd love to hear any impressions from you guys on the site, what are your impressions, how does it function, what are your likes or dislikes? We're getting ready to roll it out to our email list. We wanted to make sure it was working properly before we formally introducted it.

So I'm hoping to get back on the blogging train. Find some useful stuff to talk about. Etc.

Come follow me... on Twitter... where I Tweet or something... www.twitter.com/storme

What do you think of all the hubbub over this Huckabee ad? I actually don't know much about Huckabee or what I think about him, but all this buzz definitely makes me want to figure out what I think. Thoughts?



Check out this funny response in an interview with Huckabee:

A Thought on The Price of Sermon Illustrations

I was just thinking... You know because we get complaints about the prices of our videos and it twists me up inside to think that people think we're somehow gouging them when really we're trying our best to serve them... Did you realize that you could buy a $20 Sermon Illustration every week. That's purchase and show a $20 video every week for a year and only spend $1040. Wow. I never thought about that before. That's a video every week for less than it would cost to produce just one single video on your own. Good stuff.

Connect With Us

I've gone and got myself all into all these networking sites. I know. I know. I'm about a decade late to the party. But still, I'd love to be your friend :). Connect with us, check out our videos, learn more about us, etc, at:

Facebook (Storme) - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=643683368
Facebook (Lee) - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=661682128
YouTube - www.youtube.com/eleven72
MySpace - www.myspace.com/eleven72
GodTube - http://www.godtube.com/uprofile?UID=175198 (not much here from us... yet)
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=19074797

Most fans paid $0 for Radiohead Album. This according to an AP Business article I came across at Brietbart.com. Google radiohead rainbows and you'll get hits on other articles about the same. The stats say that a little over 60% of the folks who downloaded the album opted to pay nothing, while about 38% of the folks paid an average of $6 each. So , a majority, when given the choice, chose not to pay anything, even though what Radiohead was doing was so great, so cool, so revolutionary. But with all the worldwide publicity they got, and at $6 a person for the remaining 38%, and with the site getting 1.2 million visitors, I'm sure they're glad they did it nonetheless.

I've been following all this Radiohead stuff, trying to figure out what to make of it. Just to catch you up on a few things you might not know about the whole affair.

• Radiohead, in a move that was considered revolutionary decided to bypass the record industry and release their album themselves, telling fans they could come and download the album from a special site and pay whatever they like, including nothing.
  
• The tracks up for download were not high quality audio files. They were low quality/low bitrate/whatever MP3s.
• In conjunction with the downloading stunt, Radiohead offered a collector's edition release of the album with all kinds of extra goodies for something like $80.
• A couple of weeks after making the album available online, it came out that Radiohead would be selling a CD at Big Box retailers like Best Buy come 2008. And no, the CD, with the high quality sound files, would not be pay whatever you want. This angered some folks and they began to say that the whole download the album thing was just some kind of publicity stunt and it wasn't entirely sincere and, with it on its way to the shelves of Best Buy, it was no longer revolutionary.

And now, here we are. 1.2 million people visited the download site. 38% of the people who downloaded the album paid $6 on average. 62% of the people opted to get it for free. What's all this mean? I'm not sure. I've thought about all this in relation to the way that we sell videos. It would be cool to try something like this with our media library, for a short period of time, see what kind of results we got. See what people were/are willing to pay. But we wouldn't get the press that Radiohead got to drive traffic to our site, we don't have nearly nearly as many fans or potential customers, etc, etc.It's not apples to apples when you compare us to them. But it does cause you to think. And so it goes.

Brand New Website Coming Very Soon!

Here's a sneak peak at our new design. The redesigned site will have a new, reliable, shopping cart. It will be fully searchable. It will be much better organized. We're really excited about it and we can hardly wait for you all to see it!

This Just In...

We've been hard at work on seasonal content these last few weeks. Busy producing four videos simultaneously. Our first of the four is posted on our site now. It's called Thanksgiving Fanatic and it's a funny little mocumentary about a guy who's absolutely crazy about Thanksgiving. We'll be posting a version to YouTube soon, but until then you can Click Here to check it out on our site.

The guy playing the fanatic is a fabulous actor by the name of Ryan Wickerham. Google him, he's done some great work. He's largely responsible for bringing the funny to this short and he also brought in all the other great actors you see in it. It was so exciting to work with such great talent and I'm looking forward to future productions with this cast and crew.

Look for two brand new Christmas illustrations and a brand new New Years illustration very soon.

Where does our name come from?

A friend of ours, Travis Currin, out of North Carolina left a comment asking us about the origins of our name. People often assume, for obvious reasons, that eleven72 must be a chapter and verse out of the Bible. The problem is that not many books have 72 verses. The only one I am familiar with is Psalm 119. So... Our name isn't out of the Bible. The name has really simple origins really. Nothing too clever. Lee and I were both born in November of 1972. 11/72. We threw around a lot of names early on, but ultimately we settled on something simple that has to do with who we are and where we come from. We had to put something on the application we sent in to start the company, right? And so, eleven72.

Really the name fits us well, because the company is just the two of us and our lives have a lot of similarities. Both born in November of 72. Both married. Both have two kids born relatively close together. Both of our firstborns are girls. And both of our youngest are boys. Both of us have a passion for filmmaking and storytelling. And on it goes.

Top Ten Most Flattering Portrayals of Christians in Film

Brett McCraken, a grad student at UCLA who writes film reviews and such for Relevant Magazine and Christianity Today has a blog up and running called The Search. It looks to be a very promising blog. On it, he's posted a list of what he considers the Top Ten Most Flattering Portrayals of Christians in Film. My favorite film on the list is #9. But I've only seen two films on the list, so it looks like I've got some homework to do. Click here to check out the list.

Fogscreen Takes Projectors Up a Notch

Every once in a while I stumble on a projector type gadget and I am compelled to post about it. Previous posts included a projector small enough to be incorporated into a cellphone and a projector bright enough to blind people from three quarters of a mile (see those posts here).

Now this (quoted from Gizmodo).

The FogScreen is the advertising industry's latest weapon in the fight against peace and quiet. The projector can fill spaces like subway tunnels with floating ads that you can actually walk through. It sprays a very fine mist of dry fog, created from water by an ultrasonic wave, which can then be projected on to just as if it were a hard surface.

Did I mention you can walk through it. Now that is cool. Check it out:


Or the Feedreader link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZK5Y_J-UCY

Here's something we're really excited about here. Worship House is spinning off a magazine called Collide. Billed as the place "where media and the church converge," it's the first magazine that I know of that's geared specifically toward using media in the Church. The whole project is being headed up by Scott McClellen, who used to do advertising and what not for Worship House. He's a really sharp, creative guy and so I have high hopes for the magazine. No pressure Scott :). Anyway, we're getting a subscription and I'm adding the Collide Blog to our blogroll. I encourage you to check out their website. You can find it here.

Oh, yeah, and if you subscribe now, you'll be entered to win an iPhone. So do it.

Rockin' the NWLC

I haven't blogged this week because I've been wrapped in thought about how to best sum up our amazing experience at the National Worship Leader Conference last week. Finally, with a lot of help from my trusty friend Lee, I figured the best way to sum it up was with a video. Remember, no one made you watch it :).

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

Beginning and Developing Your Church’s Media Ministry - Pt. 1

Greg Atkinson of Church Video Ideas is writing a 3 part series of articles for a great blog called Monday Morning Insight. The series is entitled "Beginning and Developing Your Church's Media Ministry" and Pt. 1 is up today. I just read it and I think it will be a great resource for those of you out there who are just wading into starting this thing called Media Ministry at your church. Greg has tons of experience with Media Ministry, he's on staff leading a Media Ministry at a church in Dallas, he used to be on staff with Worship House Media, and before that he was a Worship Leader. Not to mention he is in demand and travels the country speaking and teaching about Media Ministry at a lot of the big ministry conferences. This first article has a lot of good, practical advice about making sure to lay a firm foundation with regards to starting your Media Ministry. Seeking the Lord. Setting it up right. And always remembering that it is a ministry and that it needs to have Christ as its center. But enough from me. Click here and read it yourself.

Video Projector as Bright as the Sun :)

Sanyo debuts "world's brightest" PLC-XF47 and PLC-XP100L projectors

Check this projector out. 15,000 lumens. If you get hit by the beam, will you get burned :)? This could definitely overcome those bright ambient environments. It also features wireless HD streaming. Pretty cool. The price tag ($30,000) puts it out of reach for most of us mere mortals, but hopefully this signals brighter and cheaper projectors to come. It would be great to finally have some affordable projectors that are bright enough to work well in the environments that smaller churches have to deal with. High school cafeterias, rooms with big windows, etc.

Here's the review written up by engadget:

Sanyo's got some high claims here, boasting of the "world's highest light output" on its new 15,000 lumen PLC-XF47 projector (pictured), and the "brightest portable LCD projector" in its 6500 lumen PLC-XP100L. Both projectors feature 2000:1 contrast ratios and inputs aplenty. It's not just the lamps getting fancy here, Sanyo has packed wireless HD streaming into its PLC-XF47, which can do uncompressed 720p and 1080i video up to 100 feet away with less than a millisecond of latency. The resolution is a mere 1024 x 768, so super HD cinema is a bit of a non-starter, and the $30k pricetag is always a turnoff, but if you need this kind of muscle behind a projector, we're guessing you'll figure out a way to scrounge up the cash. The PCL-XP100L matches the resolution, but thirds the pricetag, at $10k. The PLC-XF47 will be out in October, preceeded by the PLC-XP100L in September. If all of this is just too much for you, Sanyo also has the PDG-DXT10L coming in September for $7k and featuring 5200 lumens and a 2100:1 contrast ratio.

Zentation

Zentation is a cool new web tool that makes it easy to synch video to powerpoint presentations. In our world that means it would be really easy for you to put your sermons/messages online and display both the video of the pastor speaking and his powerpoint in the same web browser window. And right now Zentation is in beta and available for free. I don't know if I'm making sense. Hit this link and go on over to the Zentation site to have a look. It will all make sense there. Thanks to Blake Atwood at the BetaChurch blog for the info on this. I think Zentation could be a really good fit for churches looking for an inexpensive way to get their sermons up on the web.

National Worship Leader Conference

Have I told you that Lee and I are presenting a couple of sessions/workshops/whatchamacallits at Worship Leader Magazines' National Worship Leader Conference? It's true, we are. You can scroll down through all the presenters to see our ugly mugs and bios here. That proves it.

Seriously, though. We are honored to have been asked/invited by Worship House Media to present a couple of sessions at the conference. We're calling our session "Stop Substance Abuse: Make Your Media Matter." The basic message will be style over substance. We'll be talking and having a dialogue about using all the media in your service to support the overall theme. How all of your media can work together to set up and support the message that the pastor has for everyone. We've got a basic outline, but we're still working on the details. Whatever happens, I know it's going to be a lot of fun and I can't wait.

The conference is July 23-26th right here in river city. That's right here in Austin, TX, where we live and love and play. We're looking forward to having such a great event right here in our hometown. And we're really really excited that we get to be a part of it. If you're going to be in Austin for the conference, let us know. We would love to have a chance to meet any and all the folks who happen by this blog and who happen to be coming to the conference.

For more information on the conference, click here to go to their site.

Music Videos

Shooting the Better Off Rock'd show made me remember how much I want to do another music video. I worked on a couple of videos for a band called Slider's Fault a while back. Here's one I Directed. I'd love to know what you think. I'm looking forward to a time when I get to Direct my next one :). If you've Directed or crewed on a music video or have a favorite, send me a link so I can check it out. In the meantime, enjoy Last Call For Sympathy by Sliders Fault:



Here's a link for feed readers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2PqJs-6nIw

Two Great Short Films

Check out these shorts by Hallmark. The cinematography, acting, writing, direction. Man these are good. I want to be able to pull of shorts like this, to tell stories this well, to move people this much in our space. Man.





If you're reading this on a feed, here are the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRX7tdh1Ww4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-rMgkctHPo

These are two of my favorites, but you can find lots of these great Hallmark spots on YouTube.

Back to the old drawing board.

Better Off Rock'd Debrief

I had a great time shooting video this past weekend for the Better Off Rock'd Tour. It felt so good to be behind the camera again, finding those shots, trying to capture those moments. I really love shooting life. Along the way, I got to meet some fabulous people and listen to some awesome rock n' roll.

Some highlights:

You may not get me on this, but the way the lights hit people onstage, the contrast, the lights coming into the lens and washing the picture out, getting those extreme close ups... I just dig it so much.

The performances. In their own way, Stephen Speaks, Nevertheless, Everyday Sunday and Seventh Day Slumber all gave fantastic performances. It was so refreshing to see good bands playing good music and sharing their faith, love and passion for God.

I wasn't really familiar with these bands before this weekend, but now I'm a fan of each and every one of them. Being out on the road isn't easy. Being away from family and friends. I really respect what these guys do and how they represent Jesus Christ in doing it.

I picked up a copy of Everyday Sunday's latest album, Wake Up! Wake Up! after the shows. The album is fantastic. I'm digging it and find myself worshiping and crying out to God along with the lyrics on tracks like Wake Up! Wake Up! and Take Me Out. The whole album is just plain good. I got a chance to talk to Trey Pearson the lead singer on Saturday and we had a good conversation. We talked about video, what I do, what he does. There may even be some kind of music video collaboration in our future. That would be very cool, but it was great just to meet and talk and share the experience of doing what we do.

I also really dug and respected the way Joseph from Seventh Day Slumber works his testimony into their set. He has an incredible story of how Jesus Christ saved his life quite literally and pulled him out of a world of drug addiction that had led him to jail and to life on the streets. The fact that he is up there on stage sharing that story and playing great music... Our God is so awesome.

Anyway. This post is rambling. I just wanted to share a little bit. Check out the bands, buy the music, go see them if they come through your town. You won't be disappointed.

Better Off Rock'd

Backstage for Better Off Rock'd. I'm hanging out backstage at La Zona Rosa here in Austin, TX. I'm waiting for things to pick up, shooting some video here and there and anticipating a great show and a great night. I've been asked by my good friend Eric Klein to shoot highlights of the first ever Better Off Rock'd shows. Tonight we're here in Austin and tomorrow night we're at the Ridglea Theater in Ft. Worth, TX.

The lineup includes some really great Christian bands. Seventh Day Slumber, Everyday Sunday, Stephen Speaks and Nevertheless. I'm really excited. And it should be a great night. If you happen to be in Austin or Ft. Worth, you should come out and check things out. Nevertheless is coming in now to do a sound check, so I better run to get some footage.

The proceeds for the Better Off Rock'd shows go to benefit suicide prevention. It's a great cause. Check out the Better Off Rock'd myspace page for more info.

Evan Almighty Screening

Thanks to Grace Hill Media and Universal, Lee and I were able to attend an advanced screening of Evan Almighty last night. I could definitely pick some theological bones with the filmmakers, but overall we really enjoyed it.

The film, if you haven't heard, is essentially Bruce Almighty II. This time around, the story focuses on Evan Baxter, who was the co-anchor in Bruce Almighty that acted as a thorn in Bruce's side. In this go round, Evan gets elected to Congress on the broad campaign promise to "change the world." Desperate to succeed in this new office, Evan figures it can't hurt to pray about it. But, of course, he doesn't know what he's asking for. In answer to Evan's prayer that God help him "change the world," God gives Evan the job of building an Ark ala Genesis 6:14. I won't spoil it with any further explanation. Suffice it to say, Steve Carrell gives a funny, touching, fantastic performance and the supporting cast is equally great.

For me, the film succeeds, in spite of missing it on some Christian doctrinal issues, because it tackles the big concept of faith and following God. And in doing that, it can't help but hit at the truth sometimes. And when it does it makes you smile, it makes you laugh, and it even makes you think.

So I'd recommend checking it out when it hits the theaters in a couple of weeks. It's a great date night kind of a flick.

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

My father used to tell me, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." That may be over simplifying things, but in light of some of the criticism I see flying around in Christian circles, I think it's something we need to think about. There is a disturbing trend in culture that I see infecting us as Christians. It's this need to be critical, to tear people down, to be just downright mean. In our space it shows up in the comments and reviews left about videos on sites like SermonSpice and WorshipHouse. People going as far as to say things like, "there's a reason why it's free." And here are a couple of comments pulled off WorshipHouse... "pretty lousy." That was all they said. This one might be the worst I've seen: "Really stupid. Not deep, not funny, just stupid.." And here's my favorite comment that one of our videos has received, "Nice concept, but it's been done. And better. By others." By who? When? What am I supposed to do with that?

This is just a small sample of the comments out there. You can surf around and see them for your self. I'm not trying to whine or cry about it. I just think we need to have a frank and open conversation about this. Why do we, as Christians feel a need to tear down these films and videos (and here's the important part) without offering anything constructive to put in their place. Let me explain what I mean by way of a C.S. Lewis quote. Everybody loves Lewis, right? Once, when Lewis was criticized for oversimplifying the Gospel, he responded to his critic:

[He] would be a more helpful critic if he advised a cure as well
as asserting many diseases. How does he himself do such
work? What methods, and with what success, does he employ
when he is trying to convert the great mass of storekeepers,
lawyers, realtors, morticians, policemen and artisans who surround
him in his own city?

All I'm saying is that if we feel the need to say something, and sometimes something needs to be said, let's be sure we're coming at it with a spirit of wanting to help, to encourage, to see our criticism used to further God's Kingdom and not just to tear down. And if we don't have anything helpful or constructive to offer, then why say anything at all?

Ya feel me?

Up Early With The French New Wave

If you're ever in our neck of the woods at 5AM on a Monday morning, you can join us for a movie screening at our office. Yes, I said 5AM. For years, Lee and I have been wanting to find more time to watch and study classic and influencial films. But with running the business and keeping up with our wives and children, it's been really hard to find the time. Thus, "the 5AM" was born. If you're willing to get up at 5 in the morning, you'll find there are far fewer demands on your time.

For the last couple of weeks, we've been checking out films from the French New Wave. Here's a blurb from Wikipedia about the movement:

The New Wave (French: la Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced (in part) by Italian Neorealism. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm. Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm.

So far we've taken in, Truffaut's 400 Blows and Godard's Band of Outsiders. Interestingly, Band of Outsiders in French is Band A Part, and that's where Tarintino's company that produced films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction got its name. If you watch Band of Outsiders and you know Tarintino's films, you'll definitely pick up on some of the influences there. I really liked both films, but Band of Outsiders was my favorite of the two. I just love the way these films feel real and alive and stripped down. The way that you can sense the filmmaker behind the camera. There is a joy in them. The joy of filmmaking and of storytelling and of trying to say something that matters.

If you have any suggestions for films we should definitely see, let us know what they are and we'll add them to our list. I get to pick the next film and I think I'm going to switch us over to an Italian track and pick up a copy of Bertolluci's The Conformist.

Best Wishes for Memorial Day

We wanted to wish everyone a happy Memorial Day. We hope you enjoy the day with family and friends. And don't forget to take some time out to reflect on and remember those who have given their lives so that we can have the freedom to enjoy days like this. Thank you to all the soldiers past and present who have served and are serving.

And thank you to everyone out there who helped make our Memorial Day video, For Freedom, our best selling video ever. We are so humbled and honored that our simple tribute video resonated with so many people out there. To think that we were a part of so many of your Memorial Day services all over the country just blows us away. We thank you and we thank God for his inspiration, for his blessings, and for the freedom he has afforded us all in Christ.

The Editblog

I've had some feedback that folks reading our blog would like some more information on editing. If you're an editor or are interested in editing, I wanted to point you to a blog that Lee and I try to keep up with. It's called The Editblog (click here to jump to it).

The Editblog keeps up with all the latest updates to programs like Final Cut Pro, Premiere and Avid (all the professional editing apps). It also points out good places to see film and video clips on the internet and handy little applications like the cool little widget posted about today:

VideoSpace is a dashboard widget from the good folks at Digital Heaven. According to the Digital Heaven Freeware section it is:

“a free widget for Mac OS X Tiger which calculates the disk space required for a given duration, codec, frame rate and audio setting. It works in both directions so you can calculate time to space or space to time as indicated by the direction of the arrow between the two input areas.”

And one of my favorite recent posts points you to where you can check out some of cinema's most famous long takes:

If you are looking to kill some time this weekend the check out The Long Take post over at the Daily Film Dose. They’ve put together a huge collection (thanks to You Tube) of some of the “greatest long tracking shots in cinema.”

There may be some questionable content in these clips. I didn't have a chance to watch them all. But you can definitely learn a lot by watching long takes done by some of cinema's greatest storytellers. My personal favorite is the shot from Goodfellas. I know it's a really violent film, but the shot they've chosen is one I've studied in film school and in a Steadicam workshop I attended in CA. It's one of the most famous shots ever committed to film. Watch the shot and check out how much is conveyed about the character played by Ray Liotta by this single take. I've embedded the clip from Youtube below. Magic.


For those of you on the feedreader, here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=666F4QWgjpU

I'd love to hear what you think about the Editblog and let me know what your favorite long take is.

For Freedom and Other News

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.

(I wanted to put an image here but I didn't want to steal it)

Been Caught Stealing

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.

Don't Waste Your Life

We've been working on getting our new Memorial Day video, For Freedom up on our site and out to our various distributors. So, I've got Memorial Day on my mind. Meanwhile, my small group is studying through a John Piper book called