It's not often I get to make a completely original video. That is not totally true, all of the videos I make are original. What I mean by that is it isn't often I get to make original collaberative works. I do what I am strong at and I skip the stuff I don't do well. When I make bumper videos they are short scripted (because script writing is just not one of my strengths) and heavy on the the motion graphics (which I can do). I often make things using tutorials I have recently watched, or I use other video styles I have seen others make, or I buy templates and just populate all the needed stuff.
Often my time lines on these videos are painfully short so getting anyone else involved is really difficult. I think good videos are easy, but I think GREAT videos are always collaborative works. Case in point, for Easter I knew what I was going to do graphically weeks in advance thanks to some great design by Elyse Darling our awesome graphic designer. Seriously she makes my job EASY, her great designs (her strength) always lend themselves to animating (my strength). For this bumper I used a technique I had never done before, and didn't even know how to do, but thanks to the great design I had a clear direction. Once I know WHAT I wanted to do the masking alone still took me almost 2 days. In the end I had a great Easter animation, but a single animation by itself is not much.
In the testing phase of the animation Bill Morrison our IT guy looked at it while I was turning pieces on and off trying to make it work and made a suggestion that really MADE the animation. He told me to take the background out... I would have never done it, but it totally worked.
So 2 weeks before Easter while sitting in my office reading scripture (something I NEVER do enough of) this script wrote itself (literally) it took me 10 minutes maybe 15 minutes and I had the script done and the actor I wanted to read it all picked out, I knew exactly how I wanted the whole project to work into the the one animation I had finished.
Now let me stress how weak I am at this part of my craft, If I have any copy at all you can pretty much bet I didn't write it. So to write a script (a pretty good one I think) in no time is almost a miracle of old testament proportions.
I got Karl to do the music (CLEARLY his strength), and got his son Tadhg to read the script. Tadgh is a rockstar so I knew it wouldn't be a problem.
After all this talk I bet it's going to seem a little underwhelming ... but hey I didn't make it for you, and in my personal opinion I think it's one of my better works.
Also Mike's message isn't bad either :-)
Did Jesus really rise from the dead? from Hope Community Church on Vimeo.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Easter Firsts
We had lots of firsts this Easter at Hope. To start with we had
10,000+ people in attendance, over 2 campuses and 4 venues, for the record we normally run about 7,000. We had 6
services in the main campus, 6 in the overflow chapel (video venue), 2
in our multi-site, 2 at our new young adult video venue (called The
Venue).
Second we did a cool video projection in the main auditorium which required me to build a double mask. Which I have never even heard of, I doubt we are the first to do it, but it was a first for us. (I will do a whole post on that later)
Third it was the first real week for our young adult venue and they had about 200 people.
Great weekend all around.
Second we did a cool video projection in the main auditorium which required me to build a double mask. Which I have never even heard of, I doubt we are the first to do it, but it was a first for us. (I will do a whole post on that later)
Third it was the first real week for our young adult venue and they had about 200 people.
Great weekend all around.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Ross Crossover Solo Video Switcher
Link to an article from Church Production Magazine this months issue. I really enjoyed using this switcher, I wouldn't mind moving over to this platform. With the more churches moving to multi-sites
The Solo/Cross over is a great scalable option, it would be able to get a great small switcher for less than 10K for the multi-site and have a Crossover 16 at the main campus. This way you have a consistent format across the campuses.
See more here:
http://www.churchproduction.com/go.php/article/video_review_ross_crossover_solo_production_switcher_full_length_version
The Solo/Cross over is a great scalable option, it would be able to get a great small switcher for less than 10K for the multi-site and have a Crossover 16 at the main campus. This way you have a consistent format across the campuses.
See more here:
http://www.churchproduction.com/go.php/article/video_review_ross_crossover_solo_production_switcher_full_length_version
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Senority 2
To continue me earlier post on seniority and staff.
First explanations: When a company decides to hire someone there is usually a pretty easy P v. L(Profit versus Loss) number. New hire salary (minus) money new hire brings in (equals) profit or loss. If the new hire will bring in more money then his salary... hire them. In a church you can't quantify all hires by giving going up, many will have absolutely no net affect on giving. I think I can safely say no one is giving more money to the church because I was brought on.
This means in the church world (again we are not exception) if there is no need, there is no hire.
Case in point I think our IT guy has been on... less then a year. When the staff is only 25 people a full time IT guy is prolly a waste. On a growing staff of 100, 1 full time IT guy is GROSSLY overworked. Especially, when you take in to account all that was done IT wise in the 14 years before he was brought on that he would have no knowledge of. His learning curve had to have been more like a learning cliff...and for most of the hires moving forward that is how it will be.
This leads to the results... the obvious one is stated above. Though the staff is 100 people big, in many places like many churches, we are understaffed. One of the other results is places that are understaffed, those people have to be as good as if they were properly staffed. That means if there is an understaffed area somewhere the people holding down those forts are REALLY good (again we are no exception) If fact I could regale you with tales of about 1/2 the staff explaining how each one is uniquely gifted in their area of expertise. Unfortunately I have already made this post entirely too long
First explanations: When a company decides to hire someone there is usually a pretty easy P v. L(Profit versus Loss) number. New hire salary (minus) money new hire brings in (equals) profit or loss. If the new hire will bring in more money then his salary... hire them. In a church you can't quantify all hires by giving going up, many will have absolutely no net affect on giving. I think I can safely say no one is giving more money to the church because I was brought on.
This means in the church world (again we are not exception) if there is no need, there is no hire.
Case in point I think our IT guy has been on... less then a year. When the staff is only 25 people a full time IT guy is prolly a waste. On a growing staff of 100, 1 full time IT guy is GROSSLY overworked. Especially, when you take in to account all that was done IT wise in the 14 years before he was brought on that he would have no knowledge of. His learning curve had to have been more like a learning cliff...and for most of the hires moving forward that is how it will be.
This leads to the results... the obvious one is stated above. Though the staff is 100 people big, in many places like many churches, we are understaffed. One of the other results is places that are understaffed, those people have to be as good as if they were properly staffed. That means if there is an understaffed area somewhere the people holding down those forts are REALLY good (again we are no exception) If fact I could regale you with tales of about 1/2 the staff explaining how each one is uniquely gifted in their area of expertise. Unfortunately I have already made this post entirely too long
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Seniority
This post is going to be a little big of a brag... good news is I am not going to brag about me. I have been at my church on staff 3 years and 11 months. So what? Not quite 4 years at a job is not really a big deal, especially for an organization that had been around almost 15 years. True.
However, let me put this in perspective a little. I could not tell you exactly what number staff I was but I can tell you I am in the first 25. Again no big deal, not really, except that in that 3 years 11 months we now have just shy of 100 people on staff.
Also like all companies that have been around a while, some of those people who were hired ahead of me are no longer with us. Off the top of my head I think there are only about 15 people currently on staff that have been here longer then me.
So what does that mean? It means the vast majority of that staff has been here less then 3 years. This should give you a little insight to the growth we have experienced in the past 4 years. Churches in general (and we are no exception) hire people sparingly, there are a lot of good (and some bad) explanations for this and there are some interesting results as well.
I think I will unpack these of the coming weeks to keep my posts down to reasonable size.
However, let me put this in perspective a little. I could not tell you exactly what number staff I was but I can tell you I am in the first 25. Again no big deal, not really, except that in that 3 years 11 months we now have just shy of 100 people on staff.
Also like all companies that have been around a while, some of those people who were hired ahead of me are no longer with us. Off the top of my head I think there are only about 15 people currently on staff that have been here longer then me.
So what does that mean? It means the vast majority of that staff has been here less then 3 years. This should give you a little insight to the growth we have experienced in the past 4 years. Churches in general (and we are no exception) hire people sparingly, there are a lot of good (and some bad) explanations for this and there are some interesting results as well.
I think I will unpack these of the coming weeks to keep my posts down to reasonable size.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Troubleshooting
I saw some posts recently talking about what is the most important thing a technical director can know. In my humble opinion troubleshooting is where tech guys earn their pay.
Point of fact not all tech will work all the time. It won't! And you are kidding yourself if you believe otherwise. While often the solution to tech failures is fairly simple (reconnecting cable, or flipping a switch) it is finding those cables and switches that can be a challenge.
When you look at a tech system as sophisticated as the one at Hope (and trust me ours is not THAT sophisticated, I mean it's no cakewalk, but it's not Northpoint either) The problem comes from the fact that there are MANY points of failure. Case in point I don't have signal in my monitor from cam 4. Well this could something as simple as camera 4 may be off right now, if it's not I have look at the information and separate facts that point to the failure from facts that have nothing to do with the failure. In the cam 4 example it could be something on the camera end ie off or dead battery, those are easy enough to check. If not that then I have to move up the single chain point by point, isolate what works from what is failing.
Guys who really know their stuff can work it both ends toward the middle at the same time, if you have ever watched Bob Blair or Bill Morrison troubleshot then you know what I am talking about. I can hold my own, but I admittedly I am not much good outside of the video world.
The funny thing about troubleshooting, you can't really teach it. It's like an art, you can teach people about it, and how to do it, but there is an extent that you are going to be naturally good at troubleshooting or not.
If you one of those who isn't, surround yourself with people who are. More importantly make sure they have all the information needed to help you. For example your troubleshooter will not do you much good if you put a DA and a signal converter in line somewhere and didn't tell him... when you add points of failure make sure everyone knows where they are.
Also line diagrams of signal paths ... HAVE them and keep them up to date. If it helps this is a convicting statement for me as well.
Point of fact not all tech will work all the time. It won't! And you are kidding yourself if you believe otherwise. While often the solution to tech failures is fairly simple (reconnecting cable, or flipping a switch) it is finding those cables and switches that can be a challenge.
When you look at a tech system as sophisticated as the one at Hope (and trust me ours is not THAT sophisticated, I mean it's no cakewalk, but it's not Northpoint either) The problem comes from the fact that there are MANY points of failure. Case in point I don't have signal in my monitor from cam 4. Well this could something as simple as camera 4 may be off right now, if it's not I have look at the information and separate facts that point to the failure from facts that have nothing to do with the failure. In the cam 4 example it could be something on the camera end ie off or dead battery, those are easy enough to check. If not that then I have to move up the single chain point by point, isolate what works from what is failing.
Guys who really know their stuff can work it both ends toward the middle at the same time, if you have ever watched Bob Blair or Bill Morrison troubleshot then you know what I am talking about. I can hold my own, but I admittedly I am not much good outside of the video world.
The funny thing about troubleshooting, you can't really teach it. It's like an art, you can teach people about it, and how to do it, but there is an extent that you are going to be naturally good at troubleshooting or not.
If you one of those who isn't, surround yourself with people who are. More importantly make sure they have all the information needed to help you. For example your troubleshooter will not do you much good if you put a DA and a signal converter in line somewhere and didn't tell him... when you add points of failure make sure everyone knows where they are.
Also line diagrams of signal paths ... HAVE them and keep them up to date. If it helps this is a convicting statement for me as well.
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