Life – Page 16

2015 In Review

2015 has been a great year for the site. We reached record page views and two entries were featured by the WordPress editorial team! I tried some new stuff. Some worked, some didn’t. I did a lot more links which everyone is enjoying much more than I originally thought. I previewed a chapter of the book I have been working on and lastly showed Liam’s age 4 video. I learned a lot this year and look forward to what next year brings.

As usual, here are the top 10 entries from 2015 based on site traffic:

1. Transparency – A honest look into why its ok being you. (Featured on WordPress)
2. A Walk in the Park – A vivid memory of Nonni that lessoned me in humility. (Featured on WordPress)
3. Chapter 3 Preview – One Chapter of my book about filmmaking and challenging yourself.
4. #2 – A look forward to our newest addition, Luca
5. The Team That Stole New York – Thoughts on the magical season of the 2015 New York Mets.
6. Podcasts – The arrival of a new medium in my life that is 2nd only to film.
7. Me & Apple Watch – A not so simple Apple Watch Review
8. The Graduate – My wife Lindsey graduates and deserves more praise then this post gives.
9. Age 4 Video – Annual video of my son, Liam
10. CBC Video Diary Part 1 – First installment of 4 regarding the process of planning, filming and editing a welcome video for my church.

I have some different type of stuff planned for 2015 including possibly releasing my book 1 chapter at a time instead of traditional means of publishing, more video projects and most importantly; many more Nonni memories.

Thanks so much for making 2015 the best year for Nonni’s at 7. It means the world to me a small audience is enjoying this site.

I hope you all the best for 2016. Thank you again for reading the site.

-Danny

Life

CBC Video Diary #4

The clock in the upper right corner of my mac reads 1:54am. And as I type the Camden Baptist Church “welcome video” is exporting to Compressor. Which means….. drum roll…. It’s complete! The CBC welcome video is finished! As always, I have a mixed bag of emotions. But the most prominent of those is happy!

It has been a crazy 7 months and this project has certainly served me the ups and downs. I’m always mixed with the “feels” when a project like this is over. Whether you know the subjects in the video or not, you do get attached to them. You spend late nights trying to get things to work. You spend countless hours staring at the characters in whatever film you are working on. And then like the best of relationships past, there gone. Just with one click of a button. Gone.

Nonetheless, I feel relieved. This (for me) was a major undertaking and I can’t stress enough; without the help of My wife Lindsey, John and Mandy Lynch and Bro Edward and his wife Ms. Faith, this process would have been an extremely difficult undertaking. I’m thankful I had a support group when needed and extra eyes on demand. The older I get, the more I learn nothing worth substance is usually executing alone. Most good results are spawned from teamwork. This project was no different.

A word on the finished product if I may. I’ve always had an issue with making things creatively and then letting them go in to the public. This is no different, but with this current project I feel “OK”. My only job was to put together a video to replicate the true heart of Camden Baptist Church. I wasn’t commissioned to make a super polished video by any means. (But I feel confident in the quality.) I wasn’t tasked to buy new equipment and shoot out of this world shots. (But I feel this time around I really stretched my equipment as far as it can go and reached it’s full potential). At the end of the day I looked at this project like such: It had to stand the test of time. This video’s main objective is to inform church searchers that there is a place called Camden Baptist Church and the people there will welcome you with open arms. The video must succeed on capturing the essence of CBC so when a newcomer attends the video doesn’t feel fabricated or convoluted. This was the goal.

I can sit here honestly stating I feel the video has hit the mark we were going for. Of course this is none of my doing, but the result of much prayer and grace. I’m thrilled it’s finished and in my opinion an accurate representation of the church. But I’m more excited of what the future brings. If one, just one visitor comes because they viewed the video, this was worth every second of the six months it took.

So whats next you ask? Currently I am working on the website. Brother Edward, Ms. Faith and I have discussed about how and where we would like to place the video and those talks are ongoing and still in discussion. Personally, I’ve always wanted to do a sort of “cover” page for the site introducing the video and simply presenting it. If the reader didn’t come for the video they can simply click the “continue to site” button. Also the video’s long term home will be one of the main pictures tiles on the bottom of the home page. I’m not sure how long the cover page will last, but ill be checking analytics on it to determine if the plays we are receiving from there are substantial or not. If not I don’t mind at all just placing it in it’s home on the homepage.

Well, there you have it. Thank you guys for following this diary of sorts. I originally planned for much more than 4 entires, but time is tough nowadays and honestly I’m just glad I got 4 out. I hope you somewhat enjoyed this and maybe learned something about Final Cut Pro in the process. I have been really excited to hear from some younger readers and how the young kids still have a interest in editing.

OH YA… the video! I almost forgot. I will post the video on this site as soon as it is live on Camdenbaptistchurch.com for your viewing pleasure. I am really looking forward to your guys take on it, positive or negative.

Once again, thank you guys a bunch and Ill be in touch soon with the finished product.

Life

CBC Video Diary #3

Well, I am pleased to report the video is moving along quite nicely. Not without a major scare though (we’ll get into that). November was an extremely stressful month for planning shots, executing angles, coordinating with people to make certain shots happen, etc. It was all worth it and I am happy to report, Filming is wrapped!

First things first though, about a month ago I made a mistake. (enter amateur hour) I accidentally misplaced my entire timeline. I know, I know. Basically the video just disappeared. I’m sure you could imagine my enthusiasm. There was a big moment of denial which lasted around an hour, followed by cold sweats and a pounding headache. I traveled my mac up and down to the ends of long lost file directories. No CBC.FCP (file name) to be found. It was like stealthy magic trick. Im not gonna lie, it was impressive. But frightening to say the least. After an hour of nothing, I caved and called Apple customer support.

Screen Shot 2015-12-08 at 2.12.53 PM — an empty timeline is a scary thing

Since I am using a “pro” software I am able to call Apple’s support line and reach for the safety raft. I was pretty confident Apple had a solution, they had always helped me in the past. So while on the inside I was crying, I felt Apple would pull me out of it. Nop. Not only could they not help me. A supervisor gave me a lecture on backups, especially working with a large video project (Thanks, Apple).

After about another hour of scouring my computers hard drive to no avail, I opened up Final Cut Pro and bit the bullet. I started rebuilding from scratch the entire video. This was months of work, but I had no choice. I was pulling down files to place into my timeline one at a time. Anyone who is aware of the process knows how insane this sounds. But really, what were my options?

All of sudden I pulled down a file with an odd name. It was labeled that days date. I dragged it to my timeline and low and behold it was my original video that went missing! To this moment, I still have no idea how my 5 minute edited cut of the video got removed from my timeline and mixed in with 400 clips of random footage. If I would have been allowed to run around with no pants discharging whipped cream in my mouth, I would have! I was extremely happy to say the least!

After that incident I directly went into filming. I have attended every church service I could with camera in hand. I went with the bus ministry with my clanky tripod and toted my camera equipment in the hallways of nursing homes for the nursing home ministry. I lugged my trusty tripod and camera around church to every Sunday school class, every special occasion. In all actuality it was pretty fun, but certainly exhausting. A mental note: filming is exhausting. I always forget this.

Screen Shot 2015-12-08 at 2.08.05 PM — Some in church shots and a quite pleasant punch in.

Last week is when I really sat down and dug my heels in with the editing. I had a goal of trying to make something cohesive and feel like “one” video after a 2 night edit session. This was hard because I had literally 400 plus clips of footage I had to condense into a 5 or so minute video. Luckily making the audio narrative really helped.

When I felt the product was about 80% complete I wanted to show it to Bro. Edward. After all it’s his video. I knew once achieving around 80% completion, the rest of the work would really be just polishing the actual footage in the timeline. Polishing is tough and takes a considerable amount of time. So therefore I dint want to be polishing video that wasn’t going to make it into the final cut. And I didn’t have the authority to claim Final Cut, Bro Edward did.

I was nervous showing him, but felt somewhat confident that the product told the story he wanted. But most definitely my goal was; if there was something in here he didn’t want or like, I wanted to know now. Before putting a final polish on it. Luckily, he loved it. He kept telling me he thought it was finished. Or that I didn’t need to do anything else to it. Of course I know, and every filmmaker in the world knows thats not true. But this was a good sign. I was on the right track.

Presently I am proud to say I have a picture lock and am deep in “magic” month. Really, just tightening the screw and polishing everything. It looks like I will hit my goal of launching sometime in January! I really, really can’t wait for people to see it at this point. I should be posting one more update to this series as time goes on.

Screen Shot 2015-12-08 at 2.05.10 PM — finished timeline

Thanks for following along!

Life

Falling Snow

To get in the Christmas spirit here on the site, I have implemented some wintery graphics. This will be temporary and quite possibly a tradition… or not, who knows.

Not working so well on mobile yet, but if you visit this site on a desktop or laptop and possibly a tablet you will see what I hope to be some charming snowflakes falling about so. Here’s to an early Merry Christmas!

Life, Links

A Guaranteed Smile

With all the craziness in today’s world I strongly demand things like this get noticed!

Sometimes when I’m having a not so great day, I watch this and it makes me smile. Trust me, It’s worth your time:

Told you it was worth it.

Did you smile?

Deep Thoughts, Life

Too Much Stuff

With Christmas around the corner and black Friday just in our rearview mirrors, I decided to do some research on financials and numbers on the holiday season.

This started last week while at work. The news was on and all they were speaking of was gift ideas and black friday this and Christmas lay away that. I got thinking; how much money is really spent in the holidays season? What I found was kind of staggering. The statistics are really quite unbelievable.

The average American home has nearly tripled in size over the last 50 years yet, over 50% of us with two-car garages have room for only one vehicle inside. Our homes contain more televisions than people. (crazy)

We spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches ($100 billion in my findings) than on higher education. And the average American woman owns 30 outfits, one for every day of the month—in 1930, that figure was 9, yes 9. Home organization, the service that’s trying to find places for all our clutter, is now an $8 billion industry, growing at a rate of 10 percent each year. Decluttering is today’s dieting industry and gym membership paradigm. Good intentions, poor follow through.

Our living spaces have become filled with possessions of every kind: our countertops are crowded, our closets are stuffed, our bedrooms are filled, and our drawers are overflowing. And yet, this Black Friday weekend, we have accumulated more stuff. It is estimated 140 million Americans went shopping last weekend.

We spent $50 billion last weekend. And over the course of the entire holiday season, we will spend $600 billion adding more and more things to our already crowded homes.

Let’s start here: Before buying a whole bunch of stuff for your loved ones this holiday season, maybe you should ask if they even want a whole bunch of stuff. You might be surprised by their response.

This money we are spending actually holds within it enormous potential. Consider this: Nearly half the world’s population, 2.8 billion people, survive on less than $2 a day. To put that into perspective, Americans will spend, on average, roughly $400 per person this weekend… in just three days, we will spend more than half the annual income of 2.8 billion individuals.

Which is fine, I think, if we were buying things that actually improved our lives. But, in reality, most of the stuff we buy these days doesn’t.
If you know me personally, you know the thought of excess and extras really bother me. I try and try harder to live simple and efficient. But the pull is strong. As the young ones say, the struggle is real.

This isn’t a “trying to change the world” post. But just food for thought. I think numbers are really interesting. And the numbers and statistics I’ve found on American spending during the holiday season is somewhat crazy and excessive.

Life

The Team That Stole New York

The truth is, the Mets’ run towards the playoffs and World Series was magical. It was full of moments that I’ll never forget, from Wilmer’s walk-off on that fateful Friday night to Murph’s homer off Zack Greinke in Game 5 of the NLDS. Everything came together at the perfect time to form what I genuinely thought was the “team of destiny.”

But that’s what will make this loss so hard to swallow. The fact is the Royals aren’t some unbeatable super team that matched up perfectly with the Mets. They were more than beatable. The Mets led in every single game of this series, including three leads in the eighth inning or later. They blew all but one.

There is no one specific person or unit to blame. For whatever reason, almost everything that could have gone wrong did. Throughout the series, the offense was as potent as it was in June with John Mayberry Jr. hitting cleanup. It felt like Daniel Murphy was playing every position on defense. Terry Collins‘ job essentially devolved into “how can I avoid using almost my entire bullpen?” That’s not a formula for winning a series, let alone one against an offense that will make you pay for every mistake.

It’s a shame. The brand of baseball the Mets played to get themselves to the World Series was seen only briefly over the last week, through Matt Harvey‘s eight scoreless innings last night. In what was going to be his final outing of the season, Harvey gave the Mets everything he had. He lives for these moments. He gained every ounce of respect back from me last night. He had to be fatigued after being pushed well past the brink, but he didn’t show it one bit. I don’t care how much money or how many years it takes to get him to stay: He needs to be a Met for a long, long time.

Harvey’s outing really embodied what the 2015 Mets were as a team, and not just in the sense that he provided great starting pitching. Even when the Mets were floundering, with their offense looking absolutely pathetic, they were still able to grind out wins. When the offense couldn’t score, the starters stepped up their game. Somehow, despite all the injuries and disappointing performances from Mets hitters early on, they were able to hold on in the NL East race.

This held true even after the Mets acquired Yoenis Cespedes, Kelly Johnson, and Juan Uribe. While they certainly got lucky by finding the hottest hitter on the planet for just one top 100 prospect, the Mets continued to play with heart and passion.

Sandy Alderson will have a lot of work to do this offseason. Daniel Murphy is gone. Yoenis Cespedes is probably gone as well. Juan Lagares clearly needs Tommy John surgery. The bullpen needs to be completely rebuilt. And all of this needs to be done under whatever payroll cap the cheapskate Wilpons set.

That being said, the foundation for a winning team is there. The Mets still have one of the most incredible collections of young pitchers baseball has ever seen, and that’s only going to get better next year with the addition of Zack Wheeler. Michael Conforto looks like he is not only a major league regular, but a budding All-Star. David Wright, while maybe not the David Wright of old, is not going away any time soon. This team should be good for a long, long time. It’s just a matter of plugging in the correct complimentary players.

But the 2015 Mets should not simply be a team with great young pitching, or one that made smart deadline transactions. This year’s team was much more than that.

This year’s team awoke a fan base which had been dormant and frustrated for almost a decade. It united a city behind the Mets for the first time in 30 years. They had charisma. They had a captain who had given his blood, sweat, and tears for this franchise. They had great starting pitchers who didn’t care who they were facing or how many innings they were up to.

I’ve never had as much fun as I’ve had rooting for the 2015 New York Mets. They had every reason to quit. Badly timed injuries, suspensions, or heartbreaking losses could have been used as excuses to just give up. But they didn’t. They loved each other and their fans too much to just roll over. I am so proud to be a Mets fan and to see what 2016 brings.

Life

CBC Video Diary #2

The project is trucking along. In many ways I have been kind of surprised by how smooth some tasks have been. In more ways, frustrated by fixing some of my shortcomings as a filmmaker. Nonetheless, the project is in fairly healthy shape and still tracking a possible January completion.

Recently, I have finished my audio narrative. Basically that means the audio narration from Bro. Edward is in place and it seems completed. As of now, I am satisfied in how the dialogue flows. I think it tells the right story, at the right pace, in the right tone of delivery. I guess time will be the judge of all the elements at play. But at this point. That audio is a pretty firm lock, and thats good thing .

Audio shots all mapped and connected on the bottom row. Top row in the timeline will be my main sets of fill shots.

Moving on but staying with audio. I always knew finding the right music was going to be difficult. Exactly like my “Family Videos”, the tone of the music I know, but finding the actual track that will be placed is always a complicated feat. For me, the music is a huge element in a video like this. If we are going to try and recreate how the church feels accurately – which is the goal – then the music needs to feel the most spot on in my opinion. Especially because in a church like CBC, music plays such a big role as the general “feel”.

I searched high and low for literally weeks on end and nothing came. To be honest, I was getting scared imagining a future where the music would fall short. Then at church 2 weeks ago something hit me. Bro Edward does so much of his talking with piano playing in the background. And what is this video? It’s him mostly speaking. So soft piano music would work. And it would be a precise representation of what church is actually like there. So my idea of “big production feel” music was left at sea and my search began of old gospel hymns, softly played. Nothing big, just subtle. Blending in instead of demanding attention. I found a keeper and pleasantly am surprised how well it is working in the current cut. Check and moving on.

Like I mentioned earlier, all of the audio nearly is finished, so my focus now is on shots. I need a bunch of them. Mostly every service I attend in the month of November I will be shooting. Thats the level of shots needed in a video like this. Sure the final cut will end up around 5 minutes, but I’ve discovered by doing this, you need shots and shots and more shots and back ups and fill shots. So shots it is.

Some of my recently captured fill shots during service.

So, It seems all of November will be big on picking up shots of various things. Bus route, Sunday School classes, Super church, in service shots, Nursery etc. Anything really Bro. Edward speaks on in the video, I need ample coverage.

More words on shots and cinematography: I’m shooting everything with the idea that when I go back to Final Cut, I have the option to play with these. I am shooting a tiny bit wider and zoomed out then normal. The main reason for this is to play with the notion of a Ken Burns or dolly effect to be added to everything. Im not sure if that idea will pan out in the final cut, but I like the idea of leaving that option open. So there’s that. Of course I don’t have to do that, but I want to make this video as good as possible. So I’m willing to put in the extra work and try it. if it doesn’t work, I’ll revert to my originals.

Changing elements like Position, Rotation and Scaling in Final Cut can achieve you a dolly like movement on your video. It’s just extremely time consuming.

Then comes December. If all goes well and according to some sort of plan, December will be my magic month. This is common phrase in the filmmaking world. Basically by then, you hope that you have all the footage you need and all feels right to where you can really maneuver the video and tweak elements to really make it a strong project.

Anyhow, I’m moving forward and all is going decently right now. Like I mentioned, November is going to be a shooting month and December will hopefully be a Magic Month with the hopes of release on the website sometime in January!

Thanks for following along and I will certainly update this video diary some point in November. Any questions as usual you could use the contact tab on the site.

Happy Shooting!

Life

Podcasts

Growing up I was the kid that fell in love with movies. I was the kid carrying a camera everywhere. Movies to me, were larger than life. The intimacy and connection entangled me. They say, when you find your right “art” these two elements will co exist, Intimacy and Connection. For me I guess that was film. Some people love music, some people love books, some people love painting and some people even love cooking as an art. But for me, it was popping in a VHS and seeing familiar faces. That medium has really never been challenged before. Until now.

I discovered Podcasts while working 3rd shift at Home Depot. It was lonely job and I didn’t mind it one bit. I stayed to myself and did my work. But after awhile, it became routine. I started searching for Audiobooks. Some form of education that I could learn and be entertained at the same time while working. The medium held my interest just fine, but I really was yearning for the 2 elements that hooked my love of Film, Intimacy and Connection. Once I found the existence of Podcasts, it all just sort of clicked.

Podcasts are amazingly personal, yet open for discussion. They don’t apologize for their existence but are extremely gentle upon introduction. They are to the point, narrative dialogues that can pair perfectly with your personal interests or unlearned territory that are ready for your consumption. If you haven’t gotten it yet, Podcasts can be whatever you want them to be. A major medium in your life, or just a thing you turn on once in awhile. But most importantly, a medium that you can build a relationship with.

When I first found Podcasts a few things stuck out at me immediately: Podcasts were updated weekly in most scenarios and most importantly you could tailor your listening content to your own interests. The 7 year old me would have loved the option to listen to an in depth film review minutes after watching a movie for the first time. Now that was possible. Another aspect I loved about podcasts is the hosts. They were always the same and not working for a huge company. Usually, they were just normal people working day jobs and coming home and talking about what they loved, whether that be film, tech, politics, stories. Whatever. There was a real grass roots movement feeling to the medium that I loved.

So, my very first podcast I listened to was “Filmspotting”. A weekly show keeping you up to date with the world a film and sprinkling in a review or 2. To me, this was a miracle. Here were people talking exactly about things I was interested in. It was like finding new friends. Friends with the same interests. I didn’t have to get lucky and catch a review on the radio or google search for my interests. These people were actively talking about it, weekly.

Then I thought, if I could find a podcast on Film, why not Technology? And so Macbreak Weekly was discovered. I can’t stress enough that the discovery of these shows were equivalent to walking into a new room of all familiar faces. It was a great time, this podcasting discovery time. I searched for every interest I had: Writing, Filming, Preaching, History, Basketball, Storytelling. They were all there. It truly was like opening a door I never knew existed.

How I listened changed dramatically in my first couple of months. At the beginning, I was listening on my phone through the internet browser, which was not ideal. My cell phone bill was climbing because I was streaming everything. As my show volume got larger I searched for an app that could handle all the podcasts. I was pleasantly surprised to find Instacast. Instacast was the first “paid” app I ever purchased on a mobile platform, but boy was it worth it.

Instacast also had some great features. Most impressively to me, I didn’t have to go searching for new episodes anymore. When a Podcast released a new episode, Instacast would just alert my phone. This was truly magical! Also, Instacast organized my Podcasts by date of episodes and allowed an area for “show notes” to be easily accessible.

I wanted to write about Podcasts a year or so ago but I figured not many readers would be interested. So I scratched the idea. Then something interesting happened. Something no one could have predicted

A podcast titled “Serial” was released. This was significant to the world of Podcasting mainly because the general public took notice. Big notice. Serial climbed to the top of Podcasting charts overnight and mentioned on nearly every “real” news station. Sure, Serial was a fresh take because it involved a true story; but i’d like to think it took off maybe because the general mass of people fell in love with how personal podcasting is.

Either way, Podcasting benefitted from Serial greatly and now more people than ever are listening. If you’ve never listened to a podcast, I would highly recommend them. Whatever your interests are. You can find a show and start connected with people. Not in a artificial, invisible Facebook way. But in a real, insightful, eye opening way.

Nowadays I am subscribed to about 30 podcasts and I don’t listen to all them weekly. But that’s the great thing about it. Theres no pressure to keep up. If you miss an episode, just catch the new one next week. No big deal.

As of today my Podcast app of choice in Overcast. Not only is it simple in design. Also, it comes equipped with a featured titled “Smart Speed”. Which intelligently cuts out gaps in-between talking without the listener ever noticing. As of today, Overcast has saved 62 hours of my life by intelligently speeding up podcasts.

Nothing will ever replace Movies in my life. But for me it was important to be open to new mediums. Since my Podcast listening has started, I’ve learned countless things about countless subjects. I’ve even learned about myself more and more as I am exposed to a vast variety of topics.

Below I have made a starter kit, if you will. Maybe you’ve never listened to Podcasts or are interested but don’t know how. That perfectly reasonable. Below is a great place to start!

I would really love to hear any feedback if you already listen to Podcasts or this helped you discover some! Happy Podcasting and enjoy!

PODCAST STARTER KIT

Click to view my Podcast App of choice:

Overcast by Marco Arment

Some of my Favorite Podcasts:

Life

CBC Video Diary Part 1

Last year God put a crazy idea on my heart. I was in the middle of our church’s website redesign and it hit me…..

Since I’ve moved to GA, I have been really thinking about what matters. In pertains to everything. My time, my energy, my attention, my focus and of course church. Without going into details, I started to internally question what I could offer such an establishment.I just moved here. Im new in the church but that will never change the fact that God has done so much good for my family.

Anyways, I got to thinking what can I give back to the church and more importantly, to God. It’s a clear answer in my case. Im not very talented in many things, even in filming, i’m just not. But the truth is: filming is the only skill I possess to actually add something that Camden Baptist Church doesn’t have. Camden Baptist Church is lacking in some media departments, the biggest being a friendly online presence. Brother Edward and I sometimes take at length about how that issue can be fixed. I told him I really felt God laid it on my heart to film and finish a short 5 minute video about our church. For newcomers and church searchers to get a “accurate” feel for the church. He was extremely excited and agreed. We shook hands. And then…

I did what anyone in my position would do. I put it off and then put it off and then started, then stopped. Normal stuff really. But then I got serious. I starting doing gobs of research regarding professional videography. You see, I made a feature film before, but not an interview styled, 5 minute video of information driven by a narrative. When I get nervous or feel uncomfortable I try and understand the subject matter inside and out. Well, I did, then I did.

SHOOTING

Im happy to report earlier this month we shot a huge portion of the video in the Pastor’s office. It was an experience again to say the least. Just being around lights and actors (in this case subjects). Being in control of something creatively was so refreshing. It was nice to be back.

The shoot itself went pretty smooth. I credit all to God and a wee bit to research. Brother Edward was calm and collected. I wasn’t sure how he would come off on camera. He has such a caring, personable touch in person and I just knew if I could get 50% on camera, we would be in really good shape.

Bro. Edward getting loose. He didn’t need much time.

Sound (as usual with me) was a real big concern. I did months of researching on best sound collecting through a DSLR. At the end of all that, either it was extremely expensive or not the results I strived for. So, I went back to the basics. One night at church it hit me, They already have a superb audio set up here. I just need to tap into that and record it on their mixer. Mrs. Faith informed that the only way to get a hard copy of this audio was on CD. At first I was nervous, but thankfully, my best friend, Jeremy had an external cd reader and was gracious enough to let me steal it for a little bit. All worked out perfectly, I was initially concerned about the bitrate the church was bringing in but I figured worst case scenario I could maneuver that in Logic on my mac. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. The sound was as clean as could be and super maneuverable in Final Cut Pro.

My partner in crime (who heads the church’s streaming service) brought along two soft boxes and his Canon 70d with bunch of lenses. I asked John to bring the 70d for b roll shots. Ha, more on that in a minute.

My shooting plan was to over-light Brother Edward and cool down highs in post mainly because my camera and kit lens (beloved Panasonic GH2, hacked 100mbps and 14-140 lens kit) does poorly in interiors with any inch of dark. But when I was framing John’s Canon for b-roll my mind blew. I mean blew. His picture was so great I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes. I immediately made the executive decision to switch. I ripped my (beloved?) Panasonic off my Manfrotto tripod and gently placed his 70d on. I relit the whole scene within 15 minutes for a completely different feel and look. The truth is, his canon handled dark supremely good and while the video’s final product will be overall bright, it was nice to gain some dimension instead of a washed out boring corporate look. My old and useless GH2(I kid, I kid) was bumped to b roll production and it performed just fine. Although driving home I definitely felt it staring at me.

the beast 70d overshadowing my beloved GH2.

Our shooting locations was to be held in Brother Edward’s office. His wooden shelves and books really stood out and gave a rich texture. I’m really happy with our main interview framing.

Shot “A”. Our main interview shot relit for richer and deeper tones.

Only filmmakers know this, but it was one of those thing were you research forever and think you have the right path, then you get on scene and sometimes you have to just go with your gut feeling, I’m glad I did and so far I’m feeling like it will pay off.

Anyhow, i’m super thankful to John and his family for helping me, and Brother Edward for participating and his awesome wife, Mrs. Faith for making my life 1,000x’s easier by labeling every single take on her audio CD.

NOW AND NEXT

Currently, I have just finished synching audio and video to all 72 takes. (without a slate mind you!) I still got some Final Cut Pro skill left! I have told Brother Edward I hope to have a final edit by the first of the year. I’m hoping I can keep this timeline, I kind of pride myself on timelines and quick turn arounds. Although this project my prove to push into 2016.

the joys of being back in Final Cut Pro! Synching like a villain. 72 takes times 2 because of 2 camera set up. Yup, Do the math!

I was talking to Lindsey yesterday and have been bouncing some ideas around and I feel the best way to move forward now since all the audio is synched, is to create a audio narrative. Basically before I actually go to the church and shoot in service footage. Already establish a complete audio narrative that makes sense. So if the narrative is locked and Bro Edward’s part about talking about the choir makes the cut, then I know “OK, I need choir shots”. This way I’m not wasting my time shooting stuff that will never make final cut. I think thats the best way to go about it moving forward. Im trying to work smarter not harder.

I will be posting updates and photos to the blog as they come.

In conclusion, It feels great to be doing something for God again. I know some people will laugh at that. But personally for me, it’s true. Maybe it means nothing to nobody, but maybe, just maybe. Someone will come visit the church because they watched this video. Truthfully, I rather fail trying for God, then succeeding at doing nothing for him.