ChurchKreatives - A Community For Creative Christ Followers

Shooting Canon 7d Interviews

Matt Coleman — 2010-03-04T11:59:23-08:00

Often many times I have very little time to knock out an interview, but lots of time to edit. So, I have been shooting in 1080 and editing on a 720 timeline. Why? Two reasons….first off, I do this because I am typically limited to the amount of time that I have to shoot. I know that shooting in 1080 I will be able to drop a clip on a 720 timeline and have plenty of room to zoom in, pan or tilt. Now with one clip I can have two angles… a wide and a close up. Secondly, 1080 is great, but not always necessary for some projects. I have had friends ask me “why downsize?” My reason, this will mostly be seen online, on screens at church, or on DVD. I have had the pleasure of having a short film on Showtime a couple years back, and even still, that short was shot on SD….480p. That being said, 1080 is great, but not always necessary. For future projects that will be broadcast or blow up for film I will shoot and edit in 1080.

Moving on, I am used to recording audio straight into my camera via a small mixer, or just plugging straight into the camera. But with the 7D, the audio is set with an audio gain control…not good. Meaning I have no control of the audio levels going into the audio unless I get another piece of gear. But even if you do get another piece of gear to control the gain, it still does not sound great. It is too noisy. What happens is if your subject gets quiet, the camera adjust the room noise, and raises it. So I use the Zoom H4N. This is new for me. I simply strap the H4N to a boom mic and away I go. I would not recommend using the camera as the source to record your audio. Syncing is crucial. Always have a slate or someone that can clap for you. Or you can buy Plural Eyes. This is a pretty cool software app that syncs up multiple cameras buy analyzing the waveforms and syncing your audio….granted you have good, not blow out or muddy audio.

Lastly, sharp focus. The 7D has a cool little feature to check your focus. It enables you to zoom the image in 5 times and 10 times to make sure you get a sharp focus. On set, I sometimes use a 30″ HD monitor (because I have nothing smaller.) By doing this I could make sure I had sharp focus for the entire shot.

Lighting is such a hassle for me. Always has. I have no real knowledge about lighting techniques. Only from experiences (read my blog on failure). But as long as you can have a fast lens, lighting can sometimes be minimal. I typically use a china ball. Like from Target. For 15 bucks you can have a great soft light that is easy to pack away and transport. I mostly bounce light too. Get a 5 in 1 reflector. Get your subject next to a window, and bounce any natural lighting.

Lastly, my most favorite thing about shooting with the 7D is the size. I can get into some of the smallest, cramped spaces.

I have a short film that I shot with the 7D in a contest. To watch my short, go to The Doorpost Film Competition, and search for my film called “Down, Right, Hearted”.

Forming creative communities

Brandon Riley — 2010-03-03T17:03:58-08:00

One of the things I have noticed that is difficult about forming creative communities in the church is that from the outset they don’t seem all that important. As important as we can think creative communities are, often we “creatives” are the only ones who hold them as important. Part of the reason others may not see them as critical or important is because of the lack of immediate impact and effect. Take for instance sunday school teachers…imagine they decide to not show up one week, just imagine the chaos that would ensue, especially in the children’s department and not to mention missing the lesson for that week? And what about the choir….if half of them decided to no-show? We could probably configure a pretty long list of people, responsibilities in the church that if not done, someone would notice. However, when it comes to creatives in the church, it is very likely that no one will notice if creatives don’t meet in communities for the purpose of creating art that is bigger than themselves. As artists and creatives we can’t let this idea threaten the importance of meeting in communities or threaten the idea that creating art is critical. It’s interesting to read the Genesis account and to see the story of a place that was encapsulated in beauty. When God created eden, he made sure to care that it was beautiful, not just a utilitarian place for life.

Over the last year in our church we have slowly been trying to form creative communities of artists. We have slowly started to develop photo teams, writing teams, media teams etc… all for the purpose of telling the story of God and our church in creative and redemptive ways. Recently we entered into the 168 project in LA, which helped to force us to create a short film in a matter of two weeks. Doing such a project really brought creative people of all types together in a short amount of time and seemed very beneficial to helping us form our initial community. Now that this project is over, our hope is to continue creating films and to continue developing artists in the church.

Its not always easy to put metrics on stories and show the impact they have. One thing we can know about pursuing this craft of storytelling is knowing that Christ was a master at metaphors and parables. Its very clear in the gospels that Jesus used parables as one of his primary methods for teaching. Jesus was often asked to perform miracles, but was rarely asked to tell a confusing parable and yet both were important. One we can immediately see the results and the other we don’t…..but both are important.

As leaders in the church, we must be about creating communities of artists for the purpose of telling stories. The stories we tell will hopefully be artistic, inspiring and move others to live out their faith in new and real ways. We won’t see an immediate effect/impact and we may never know how it impacts someone but that should not stop us from pursuing this call of telling stories.

Prayer for Hollywood

Matt Coleman — 2010-02-21T10:22:37-08:00

It’s not like I know them. But at time, it does seem like I do. I have always thought Heath Ledger was an amazing actor. When he passed, I was messed up. It’s not like I worshiped him, or like he was even one of my top five favorite actors. Here’s my theory, I believe as we sit and watch actors in films and on TV, we sort of feel like we sometime get to know them in a more intimate way…why is that? It is weird. Maybe I am alone on this, I dunno. But here is my point. When Heath Ledger died, my heart weeped for his family, and his child. I prayed for them. I prayed a lot. I prayed that God would have mercy on his family, and somehow God would send a believer across their paths and they would come to know God. And I prayed that if they already knew the true God, that through Heaths death they would evangelize His glory. And when the Brittany Murphy died, I prayed the same.

Why can’t we pray for Hollywood more? The influence it has on society is amazing. The influence it has on the church is astounding. As kreatives, we too are influenced.

If we truly believed that God could change Hollywood for His glory…would you pray for it….for them? Stop complaining about the bad movies. Stop complaining about the nudity, the themes, etc…. Pray. God is bigger than the Spielberg, bigger than Jerry Bruckheimer. Join me in praying for Hollywood.

Mosaic church brings their creativity to the super bowl

Brandon Riley — 2010-02-07T18:26:18-08:00

If case you didn’t see the Doritos commercial, Mosaic Church in California created, you really need to. Out of 4000 submissions, “Casket” became a top six finalists and was voted to air during the Super Bowl.

“Leader and author Erwin McManus (Executive Producer of “Casket”) decided to take a shot at advertising and entered Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. After hearing about the contest from Kevin T. Willson (the Director of “Casket”), they rallied together their community from Mosaic, the church Erwin leads, to take a faithful leap into the advertising world by entering their first “create a commercial competition.”
(from their website)

Way to go Mosaic for using your creative people to influence culture and show that Christians can have fun too. Finally a wholesome commercial we can laugh at that asks eternal questions in a very creative way.

Live Blogging Via Scribble Live

Bobby Chandler — 2010-01-27T20:39:52-08:00

Refining the creative process

Brandon Riley — 2010-01-25T06:40:43-08:00

I’ve come to realize that the farther I plan out projects the more time I end up allowing myself to really think, pray and discuss ideas for these projects and the better I feel about them. Sometimes I’ll sit in a “creative meeting” where the only ideas are using movie clips or interviewing people. While there is nothing wrong with occasionally using movie clips or interviewing people, as a video producer these are the two things I abhor. I have discovered that people who don’t use a creative process to come up with ideas quickly revert to using something that has already been created or something so easy that it would be impossible to screw up. In my opinion one of the most important parts of a creative process is time. While it might be possible to brainstorm ideas on a whiteboard and quickly come up with a solution, involving time into the equation allows for ideas to marinate and for God to speak to us.

Below are some ideas for refining the creative process

1. Know the sermon/series/event/program the video/media is supposed to support
2. Brainstorm with one or more individuals around a whiteboard throwing out all possible ideas
3. Pray and ask God for ideas
4. Allow some time (week or month) between your first brainstorming session and the meeting where everything will be decided
4. Write down ideas that come to you
5. Combine your ideas with ideas from the whiteboard and call a creative meeting

Failing

Matt Coleman — 2010-01-24T10:57:14-08:00

I have dropped the ball, ate my words, embarrassed my friends, family, co-workers, and humiliated myself more times that I can count.
Thomas Edison once said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” Thank you Thomas Edison! When I read this years ago, I started to look at life different. I started to try more, not harder, more. The more I tried the better I got. The “take home” for me was that I decided I would not get discouraged when I failed, (or not fail but found a way that didn’t work). Our God is merciful. And so should we, especially to ourselves. So next time your ministry lead says something or gives you that not so positive encounter about something you just created… let it roll off your shoulders. Get back out there. Learn from your mistake. Now put your hand down and take the word “fail” out of your vocabulary.

Software to help creatives colloborate

Brandon Riley — 2010-01-19T05:44:34-08:00

I stumbled upon this site called celtx that allows creatives to collaborate like never before. Celtx is the world’s first all-in-one media pre-production system. It replaces ‘paper & binder’ pre-production with a digital approach that’s more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share. I remember searching for something like this a year ago and never finding anything like it. Not only is this software great, its free to use by yourself and easy to afford if you use it to collaborate with others. If you are working on a project that is very complicated and involves a lot of people, this program is definitely for you. Say you are creating a short film, you can use celtx to colloboratively write the script, storyboard and create the shooting schedule without ever having to send an email.

Whoa! Amazing Music Video

Bobby Chandler — 2010-01-12T22:37:10-08:00

The hardest thing about being a creative

Brandon Riley — 2010-01-11T16:57:35-08:00

One of my favorite essays on aesthetics comes from French Philosopher and thinker Jacques Maritain on Christian Art. In this essay Maritain explains that what makes art distinctly “Christian” is not that there is an obvious cross somewhere in the painting, but that the art bears within it the character of Christianity. He explains that what makes art distinctly “Christian” is that it is made from a Christian and this art necessarily flows out of his being. One of my favorite parts about this essay is that Maritain explains the difficulty a Christian artists must face. The role of the “Christian artist” Maritain would explain is doubly difficult because he must try and master being a Christian at the same time he is mastering being a really good artist.

Maritain writes, “Do not make the absurd attempt to dissociate in yourself the artist and the Christian. They are one, if you are truly Christian, and if your art is not isolated from your soul by some system of aesthetics. But apply only the artist to the work; precisely because the artist and the Christian are one, the work will derive wholly from each of them.”

This past week I was at a conference… passion 2010 to be exact. One of the speakers, Andy Stanley (pastor at NPCC) said something that hit home on a number of levels. Stanley said that it is a mistake to determine what you want to do before you determine who you want to be. I think this would resonate with Maritain in his quest to challenge the Christian artist to first focus on being a really good Christian and out of that let what he must do “his art” flow from a life that is rich in Christ and not in self. Yes we can produce “Christian art” as decent Christians, however the best “Christian art” will always come from the artists who is attempting to master the Christian life and draws from the most inspiring source of all the Holy Spirit.