Crosspoint.tv

I have really been digging what these guys are doing.
Very cool promo for their new series.

Today my Dad retires…

March 31st, 2008 my dad is retiring from his job and begins an incredible, new stage of life. My mom will follow in a couple of months.

I will never forget when my dad came into my brother and I’s room at the age of 6 to tell us he had gotten fired from his then job. We asked why. He said “because daddy’s boss didn’t think he was giving 100%, and daddy’s boss was right.” That was thirty years ago. He got a new job soon after and he never left the place. That speaks volumes.

I wish I had a picture for everything that those thirty years represented to me. Here is a glimpse of the memories that dad provided:

- The one and only house I ever grew up in (San Jose, CA). Bought in 1970 for not so much money. He and mom still live there. Worth, well, a bunch of money.
- Atari
- A catchers uniform for Christmas when I wasn’t even in baseball.
- My first bike. (Rampar)
- My first football.
- My first football league.
- My first pair of drumsticks. Tons more over the years.
- An above ground swimming pool in the backyard (that was sunk in the dirt enough to only make it 2 feet above ground).
- My first Drumset (found in a pawn shop)(I had to pay half)
- My second drumset (electronic) (Again, I had to pay half.)
- Allowances
- Camping with the Boy Scouts.
- Summer camps at church.
- $20 on Sunday nights during high school (and yes sometimes college) to take my girlfriend out to dinner.
- My ‘69 volkswagon bug (I had to fix it and keep it running)
- My Saturn SL (I had to pay half)
- 49er season tickets watching Joe Montana during the 80’s.
- College tuition
- My AAA card
- Our first Macintosh computer. I literally grew up on one. In the city where they built them.

In college mom would give my brother and I the gas card for a one time fill-up. She wouldn’t see it for a month. Then we heard the famous “mom!!! Get the gas card from the boys please!! We never thought he would notice the snacks that were charged.

When my brother and I played football together in college, there wasn’t an away game or home game they ever missed. That meant traveling all over California to see their boys in action. After the game, they would let us invite whoever to dinner. Home or away.

The first time I got to run out of the Dallas Cowboys locker room and onto the field – my dad and mom were there. That wasn’t cheap.
He was also there in Germany with mom and Jiyoung (we were dating back then) to see two football games while I played with the Frankfurt Galaxy.

Flying out from California to Atlanta again, and again, and again. Then the kids were born. Again, and again, and again.

As I think back to this company, this job, the place that dad went to everyday as a salesman for the past thirty something years, I have great memories of what it had provided. I hope they have great memories as well.

And now, being a dad and a husband, I have great appreciation and respect for what he has done.

Congratulations dad. Happy retirement. You’re a gift.
(NOW COME ON OUT TO GEORGIA!!!)

Gots me a new book!!

I came across this book “Uncredited” from a site called you work for them. It’s a HUGE (and heavy) book that is full of MOVIE titles.
Like a TON OF THEM. It is great inspiration for some quick visuals that might inspire you. Clear a bookshelf.

After Effects wonderland

Just came across this place.
Have fun. Lots of links to all sorts of After Effects love.

Easter

You hear it a lot from us guys and gals that work at North Point, Buckhead, and Browns Bridge (Los, Reid, Amber, Tyler, Shove, Elliott, Josh, Dave, Shae, Shane and others) that it is a blessing and an honor to work with such amazing people under incredible leadership. Good Friday and Easter Sunday were no exception.

All three campuses had a unique aspect to them.
All three campuses presented the same message packaged in a different way.

For North Point – we opened the whole service with the following 3 screen extravaganza:
(Click Here)
(As you watch the movie – the middle video represents our Center Screen HD and the upper right and left screens represent our IMAGE MAG screens. Things pick up at about 1:27. I couldn’t figure out how to get the white out of QuickTime so please ignore the bottom corners)

The whole opener was inspired by Max Lucado’s “No Wonder they Call Him Savior” and Eddie Kirkland had an idea in a creative meeting to focus on the words in a chapter that was dedicated to the Easter story. Mike (our graphic designer) came up with the printed look.

Then Reid (North Point Music guy) walks into my office and says “hey I have been working on something for the opener”.
I was off to the races in creating something that we prayed would begin a journey for the day.

Matt followed by blowing us all away with an incredible Title Package …

… that again Reid cranked out a score for that was based on an original song Eddie Kirkland and Steve Fee wrote.

Ultimately I really feel like the service was a success not because of three or four videos and great worship but because lives were changed at the end of the service when Andy gave the invitation.

What a week and what a Sunday.
Happy Easter.

Just in case you were wondering…

Stanford going all the way.
This is pure brilliance.
Pac 10 all the way!

John Piper and the Prosperity Gospel

Jonathan Acuff sent this to me and I had to post it.
WOW!

Thoughts on this?

“God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him in the midst of loss not prosperity.”
- John Piper

Media team road trip!!

From left Dave, Matt, Ryan, Tripp, Mike. You gotta make the stop at QTwhen your on a roadtrip. .
Looking forward to meeting Ken from newspring tonight.

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

TenBefore 3-2-08 for North Point, Buckhead and Browns Bridge

Ok – this post is a doozey so grab a cup of coffee if your interested and get a feel for what three campuses experience right before the services start on a Sunday morning.

Let me start off by giving some credits:

Producer: well… that would be me.
Written & Directed (Kelly segments for all three campuses): Sunny Williams
Shooter for Green Screen: Dave Blakeslee
Green Screen Edit: Dave Blakeslee
Keyed: the guys let me do this.
Composited, Motion Graphics and Final Edit: Matt Gibson (our maximizer)

Click here to see NPCC’s TenBefore
Click here to see Buckhead’s TenBefore
Click here to see Browns Bridge TenBefore

Before you see the TenBefore’s, read below for a little bit of insight.

Each week the media team needs to export three different versions of the TenBefore. Much of the content is the same but there are specific elements that are different. three Churches – three Kelly intro’s – three logo’s.

For this particular week, all three churches are letting people know about “NEXT” an environment for those wishing to take the next step in getting connected. Whether it’s volunteering, finding out where to get plugged in, whatever you are interested in, we want them to not take up a seat but to get INVOLVED and find out what is NEXT.

So we needed to promote “I Want to be Great” a new four-part series that Clay Scroggins AND Andy were going to preach together. Clay is young, fun and is the High School pastor. Andy is, well, the senior pastor! So we convinced Andy to help us with the promo and I am so glad he did. He has a great sense of humor and pulled it off great. The concept obviously came from a certain Super Bowl ad but it worked perfect because of the series that was coming up. (This promo is in the Buckhead and Browns Bridge TenBefore and not in North Point’s. North Point had already ran it twice and instead did a Kelly VO with graphics.) Tripp and Tyler did great and continue to be a staple of laughs for our pre-service ideas! Tripp (guy on left), Adam, Matt, Ryan, Dave B. did a great job of getting this baby in the can on a tight turnaround with some TOUGH weather conditions and some serious illnesses. While one crew was shooting the golf scene, Dave was setting up in Andy’s office. We had 45 minutes to get Andy’s stuff.
A lot of details on this shoot. The picture in picture on the computer. The wall that needed to fall (thanks matt borbi). Finding a golf course in the dead of winter. Asking IT to give us a computer and CAMERA we could total. Good times.
I got to put the graphic together at the end and added the “falling” logo for a little fun. Mike (our graphic designer) worked really hard with Brian Manley to come up with this look. HUGE TEAM EFFORT. These are my favorite successes.

We started a new segment called “unplugged” and really it’s a way for our attenders to get to know our worship leaders in a fun and relate-able way. The cool thing about this is that all three campuses got involved. North Point (Dave and Tripp) shot and edited Kristian Stanfill’s video. Kaye at Buckhead shot and edited Chrystina Fincher’s video and Ryan Shove and Shae got to shoot Casey Darnell’s video. We know that there are a TON of ways to do this kind of video. Kaye originally came up with the Cribs type feel so we modeled after it however kept it a little bit “lower toned”. Our goal was to not make it CRIBS “look at me” but more of a get to know me segment as if you were invited over to the house. Browns Bridge went with a completely different route and came up with a powerful piece on Casey. I love Ryan’s set design. Matt from media worked his magic on the branding side of things.

Buckhead added a little segment called the “Just Tell Booth”. In early January we did a series called “Just Ask”. Buckhead decided to make a “confessional booth” for people who were invited to church by a friend, co-worker, family member, etc.. and to talk into a camera and tell their story of how someone “asked” them to church. I love this idea and I love that we were able to put it into the TenBefore that is specific to Buckhead.

Lastly – all three campuses took the opportunity to make people aware of one of our partnerships. This time we highlighted Southside Church in Peachtree City. I believe Joe Wiggleston took a ton of B-Roll for our guys to put together. Kelly did great with walking us through this campus. I can’t say enough about Kelly and the way she makes this look easy. Sunny Williams does an amazing job of writing these scripts and walking and directing Kelly during the shoots. Again, I am spoiled to work with incredible people.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all or just make a general comment. Believe it or not, I hate to write, but love to read.
Brad

Drive Conference. Have any Questions? Ask Andy!

Go to Drive Website. Click on flying plane banner. Check out the questions.
Good times!

Unleash Conference – we’re going!

So I am taking the media guys (Dave, Mike, Adam, Tripp, Matt, and Ryan) on a road trip and we are going to Unleash!
I have seen some blogs about it and quite frankly I am just looking forward to hanging out with the media team, going to a different church and seeing, hearing and meeting some different people. We are heading up Wednesday night, gettin’ some dinner, maybe a movie and then looking forward to a great day at Newspring. Last conference I went to was the Willow arts conference in 2006.
Who of you out there am I gonna get to meet!?

Twitter is Killing me!!!

So I twitter via iChat mostly, sometimes through my iPhone but about two weeks ago, everytime I do a Twitter update via my iChat I get the following message:

“TwitterIM is under maintenance at the moment. Please check back later.”

After about the 50th time over the coarse of a couple of weeks, I figured something was a miss. (Don’t ask!)
Has anybody had this happened before? I have reset Twitter settings. Took out Twitter as a buddy and then re-added. MY OS is still Tiger.

I will give a dollar to the person that helps me figure this out!