Come and See Meets Kyte TV

Kyte TV is a new platform (in beta) that allows anyone to have in essence a TV channel that can be embedded anywhere and can carry anything and everything from live broadcasts, to audio files, to slide shows to high end produced videos. You create a channel on Kyte and that channel can go anywhere and when you update it with new content, it updates everywhere simultaneously. It's very very cool.

I talked a little about Come and See TV when I posted a video a few days ago for a band called Rumor of Glory. Intrigued by the Kyte TV platform, I signed up and posted the Rumor of Glory video on a new channel I created called Come and See TV. Now, I'm going to embed that channel here on the blog. Say you became a fan of Come and See TV, but don't want to go to Kyte or to our site or to our Facebook page or whatever but you still want to be able to see Come and See TV. You can take the embed code and Come and See TV can live wherever you want it to. And whenever we update it, it will update on your site. That's what they say anyway. Without further adieu, here it is... Introducing Come and See TV:

Giving Birth to a New Idea

We're in the early stages of a big project here at eleven72. It's called Come and See TV. And it promises to be a place that invites people from all walks of life to Come and See what Jesus is up to in the world, where He's living, how He's moving, and how He's using those willing in His church body to communicate His love. The idea comes from the Gospel of John, Chapter One, verses 35-46. Read it and you'll find two instances where the phrase is used. In the first instance, Jesus invites his first disciples to join Him on his journey, to come and see for themselves where He's living and what He's up to. In the second instance, it's used in response to the question of a skeptic, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" The answer, "Come and see."

A big element of the vision for Come and See is a series of videos about people from all walks of life who are passionately seeking after Christ. We've recently wrapped what we hope will become the first video of thousands in this series. Episode 1 is about a band called Rumor of Glory. It's about how their band and first album, "The Story" came to be. Here's a sneak peak of Come and See TV:

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.

Rumor of Glory

I recently had the pleasure and good fortune to do a photo shoot with some good friends of mine, JJ Plasencio and Tony Hugh (aka - Rumor of Glory). JJ wrote the song "I Will Remember" that's featured in our video of the same name. He is the Music Director for Gateway Church and the former Bassist for Sixpence None the Richer. JJ and Tony are all around rad musicians. Anyway. The photos were for a unique double disc album they just put out. Part 1 of the album is "The Story." Part 2 is "The Glory." "The Story" is a concept album about a man's journey of faith and is essentially Tony's story. "The Glory" is what they call a compilation of musical psalms and is essentially worship music written with Seekers, New Believers and Prodigals in mind. To find out more about Tony's journey of faith and to hear some of the fantastic music God, JJ, and Tony produced, check out their MySpace page (Some of the photos I took are scrolling on the Myspace page).

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

Better off Rock'd

Depression affects more than 19 million people each year in the US. In any typical high school classroom, it is likely that three students have made a suicide attempt in the last year. Among college students, there are an estimated 1,100 suicides per year (an average of 3 per day).

Those are some sobering facts. Better off Rock'd wants to do something about it. Started by a good friend of mine, Better off Rock'd is putting together their first tour to raise money for suicide prevention. This is a great endeavor and it's being put together by a guy who has a real heart for following Christ and for young people. And they've gotten some of the biggest names in Christian rock involved. The bill so far includes Seventh Day Slumber, Everyday Sunday, Nevertheless, and Stephen Speaks. Check out their Myspace page and if you're in the Austin or Ft. Worth area in June, be sure to check out a show. I'll be there shooting video highlights of the event. I hope to see you there!