Here’s a short promo I put together for the new series we’ll be starting at Calvary this weekend. I’m really excited about it.
As far as the project goes, I had a lot of fun playing with Depth of field on the title animations and incorporating live action smoke and dust with the particles to make everything sit together.
Anyone interested in seeing this as a tutorial? :) Yay, Nay, or Meh? Leave a comment and let me know.
I went to NAB with two goals: First, I wanted to touch a bunch of gear that I’ve only had the opportunity to read about – things like technocranes, enormous switchers, and 3D camera rigs. Second, I wanted to meet face-to-face with a bunch of my motion graphics friends and heroes from around the world; many of whom I have worked with remotely, but never met in person.
It was a real treat for me to get some one-on-one time with After Effects legends like Eran Stern, Nick Campbell, Aharon Rabinowitz, Harry Frank, John Dickinson, Rob Birnholtz, Topher Welch and several more.
Some of my personal show highlights included watching C4D demonstrations at the Maxon booth, getting to (briefly) play with a working prototype of the 5K Epic-X, and talking with some members of the After Effects development team about what I’d like to see in future releases.
All of this was amazing – and it made the trip a worthwhile success. After this year’s experience, I’m definitely planning on making NAB an annual event.
But even with all these wins, I left Vegas feeling pretty small – which is a really gracious thing. After all, the whole experience is designed to make you feel significant – at least temporarily.
And here’s what I thought was really interesting; the Stratosphere, the hotel where I stayed, did a great job of advertising their 108 story casino tower and it’s “breathtaking views” above the strip. They knew that a change of even a couple hundred vertical feet could radically change a person’s perception of reality. From the street level, all the buildings look enormous. But from just a little higher up, relative to the surrounding mountains, we begin to see how insignificant we really are.
So this is what fascinated me; if the deepest joys in life came from chasing everything that Vegas has to offer, there would be no need for an observation deck on the Stratosphere tower. It simply wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t long to see splendor, or beauty, or have our breath taken away by a desert sunset. Instead, we could all stay happily indoors forever playing with our software, shooting our cameras, or playing the slots without the slightest longing for something greater.
But the reality is this: we long for something great – something that will last forever. And the biggest exhibitions, casinos, or personal successes can never fill that gap. At least not for long. As one of my other heroes says, “even the Grand Canyon will not do. We were made to enjoy God.” And looking out my window at night, over the streets and to the surrounding mountains, helped me remember that all of this without Christ, will never satisfy me.
So, I left Vegas feeling happy and small.
I’m thankful for the experience. I’m thankful to be home. And I’m thankful I get to do what I do. Being around the most advanced production equipment on the planet and the people who know how to use it masterfully, only further reinforced my gratitude that life does not consist in the abundance of my possessions.
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.
Client: Associated Audiologists, Kansas City
Agency: Glacial Multimedia
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.
Redeemer City to City from Redeemer City to City on Vimeo.
