We love our church. And having moved a couple times in the past few years, we recognize this as a tremendous gift.
So, this Easter, I wanted to take some time out of my production schedule to make a promotional video for Calvary Community. But as I was writing and thinking about what I hoped people would say, I kept thinking of how this contradicted a blog post I had recently read by Josh Harris.
Basically, he argued that we shouldn’t love the church because of the people there, the programs, the building, or the leadership… which didn’t leave me me with many topics remaining for a traditional promo video. Instead, Harris states we should love love the church because of “who shed his blood to obtain the church”; namely Jesus Christ. So, humbled and rightly corrected, I scrapped the idea and decided to make a video that promoted Jesus specifically instead of a local gathering of His people.
May this video, by Grace, help you see how sweet it is to “love the church because Jesus loves the church.”
Text Copyright Josh Harris, 2010, Excerpt from “We Are Here To Love the Church” Used with permission.
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this video provided that you do not alter its content in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on your website is preferred.
As a video guy, I always have fun watching the Superbowl. But to be honest, I watch it more for the production values than for the game itself. For some reason, I’ve always been more into individual adventure sports more than team sports.
Either way, it was fun to see someone I’ve had the privilege of working with – Len Dawson – get some air time during the trophy presentation at the big game. And even though I’m not a die-hard sports guy, getting to work with a Superbowl MVP and NFL hall of famer was pretty cool.
Anyway, a couple months back we did some testimonial videos for Associated Audiologists, in Kansas City, and Len Dawson was the main spokesperson. The project wasn’t heavy on effects, but it communicates well to it’s target audience and we had a great time putting everything together.
Click on this link or the photo below to view the final project.
I recently had the opportunity to do an animation project for Redeemer City to City – a phenomenal church planting and content resource organization based in New York City – and I had a great time working on the project. More importantly, they were really happy with the final result and how it represented their identity. Check out the video below to view the final animation.
As I posted yesterday, I think it is critical for every motion graphic designer to constantly be learning. And it’s even better when that learning yields tangible results. Although work and learning can be separate endeavors, they shouldn’t always be mutually exclusive. Which means, if you’re taking time away from paying work to learn something new, that new knowledge should eventually show up in your projects in order to make it profitable.
This whole personal learning diversion started with an actual paying job. I’m currently working on a logo identity piece where the client asked me to make the logo look less like plastic – roughen it up just a bit – and at the time I didn’t know how to achieve what they were asking for. So, armed with a manual, Google, and couple tutorial sites, I got to work and was able to create the results they desired. And now that I know what I’m doing, I can get back to the real job, finish up my project, and make my discoveries pay for themselves.
On top of that, I thought I should make my discoveries profitable to you as well. So I’m offering my test scene from yesterday as a free looping background for use in your own work. Feel free to use it as an animated background in a project, use it as a displacement map, put it in your worship software, or use it for whatever else you come up with – and if you end up with something you are really proud of, I’d love to see what you did. After all, we’re all supposed to be learning.
Stats: TMG Cube Loop
Frame Dimensions: 720 x 1280
Duration: 3600 frames, 2:30 @ 24fps
Number of Cubes: 50 x 50 grid array; 2500 – Render Instances
Render Time: 19.45 hours – C4DR11.5, Mac OS 10.5.8, 2 x 3 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon, 10 GB
I am a firm believer that leaders are always supposed to be learning. Not only because you can’t take others where you’ve never been, but because that’s the nature of being in the motion design business.
To get into the industry you have to do a lot of learning. And I’m not just talking about the technical side of things – although there’s no argument that this is critical.
But to stay in the industry you have to learn even more and at a much quicker pace. There’s new versions, new app’s, new gear, new territory, new techniques, new clients. new jobs, new plugins, new business angles and more. So instead of just doing your full-time production job to pay the bills, You always have to be learning as well to keep up with your clients and your own personal goals.
As a father of five with our sixth on the way, it’s sometimes difficult to find a balance between work (paying gigs) and play (non-paying, or for hire learning opportunities), but both are required for a business to succeed. If I get too unbalanced in either category, the business will fail.
So today was a day for learning. I’ve been receiving more frequent requests for 3D work in the past quarter, and actually done a few jobs dabbling in Cinema4D, but now it’s time to get serious. I have so much to learn – and it’s a great reminder of what it is like to be a student after spending some time being the teacher.
All in all, i think it was a day well spent. I’ll be back on the other side of the business model tomorrow.
