1Christian Video® Magazine

2October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

October 2010VOL. 3, NO. 10

7 Special FeatureThree Videos Every Church Website Should Have

by PAUL STEINBRUECK

9 Greg’s Toolkit“A Picture’s Worth 1000 Words”

by GREGORY FISH

11 ArticlePassion and Purpose, Death and Life

by MARTIN BAGGS

14 Interview Athanatos Ministries: Defending God’s Plan for Marriage, Family, and

Life through Creative Arts such aas Film and Literatureby ROBERT KRAMER

16 Article7 Do-It-Yourself Video Production Formats/Genres

by JAY M DELP

Editorial 3

Cover Story 4Ministry & Streaming Video Online Where’s all this Headed?by STEVE HEWITT

October 2010 3Christian Video® Magazine

Christian Video Magazine is published monthly by Christian Video Magazine, Inc.

Editor-in-ChiefSteve Hewitt – steve@ccmag.com

ProductionDaystar Digital DesignMike Hewitt

Contributing EditorsGeorge TempleGregory FishStewart H. RedwineMark CarrollJay M. DelpMartin BaggsRobert Kramer

Copy Editor Gina Hewitt

Corporate Home OfficeMailing Address:PO Box 319Belton, MO 64012

Phone: (816) 331-5252Fax: 800-456-1868

Copyright 2010 by Christian Video Magazine, Inc.All Rights Reserved

Written materials submitted to Christian Video Magazine become the property of Christian Video Maga-zine, Inc., upon receipt and may not necessarily be returned. Christian Video Magazine reserves the right to make any changes to materi-als submitted for publication that are deemed necessary for editorial purposes. The content of this publica-tion is the sole property of Christian Video Magazine. Copy or distribution of articles or content can be done so on an individual basis. Multiple copies or distribution may not be done without the express permission of Christian Video Magazine. Views expressed in the articles and reviews printed within are not necessarily the views of the editor, publisher, or em-ployees of Christian Video Magazine, or Christian Video Magazine, Inc.

In next month’s issue, you will be given instructions on where you

will be able to upload the link and information for any Christian

video you would like to submit for our Christian Video Awards,

2010. There will be different categories, but the defining point

is that the video had to be released during the 2010 year. This

means people WILL be able to submit videos up to and including

December 31, 2010.

We had a lot of cool categories last year, recognizing not only

videos created for use in churches as a call to worship, or sermon

illustration, but videos that were used to promote a church or a

church event. What categories do you think we missed last year?

Send me your suggestions for us to consider, and if we like it, we

will include it in this year’s contest!

Even if you are NOT a video producer, think about the Christian

videos you really liked this last year. Contact the producer and

suggest they include it in our contest! They will get some great ex-

posure, and we have cash prizes. More information NEXT month!

Together We Serve Him,

Steve Hewitt

from the desk of the editorby STEVE HEWITT

It’s Time for our Second Annual Christian Video Awards!

4October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

Where’s all this headed?

Cover Storyby STEVE HEWITT

This year has been exciting for ministry-based video production and distribu-tion. Although some churches have been streaming their services online for years, recent advances in technologies that give more options and offer lower prices have made online streaming a reality for churches on almost any size budget.

Ministry and Streaming Video Online

One such technology is the Digital Media Receiver (DMR), or probably better known by names such as AppleTV, Roku, Boxee, and GoogleTV. These TV boxes essentially deliver online video directly to your TV via an Internet connection, often times in full HD quality. The DMR known as Roku sparked a revolution in the ministry space. The ability to create custom channels offers a new and affordable way of delivering sermons, lessons, and training materials to multi-sites and home-based groups.

History In November 2009 Roku announced “open develop-ment for TV’s with channel store’ as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, making them the first (and currently only) DMR to allow custom channels to be built for their box. Almost a year later churchcrunch.com posted a blog about Northland Church, based out of Florida, that was the first church to launch a Roku Channel. Northland brought their live and archived worship services to the Roku. Let the revolution begin! Unlike the other Internet boxes, Roku has been the only one to offer custom channel creation. They’ve also

landed some big content names with the likes of Vimeo, Hulu Plus, Amazon On Demand and other services. Last month with the release of the second version of Ap-pleTV’s $99 device, Roku dropped its pricing for its HD only box to $59.99. Now what do I mean by Revolution? Well for start-ers, if your church is streaming videos online for ser-mons, small groups, training or even multi-site campus-es---you’re either struggling with handing out DVDs or you have folks trying to hook laptops up to their TVs in their home. Both scenarios are cumbersome and require an expensive infrastructure for duplication and stream-ing. Now if you had a device like the Roku and could get your content delivered in a cost effective and simple way by connecting to a wireless network, wouldn’t life be a lot easier? For several years, Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas has been doing some interesting and innovative moves with technology and video in the ministry. It’s a mega-church with over 8,000 in weekly attendance on 5 campuses. It’s also where Max Lucado and Sr. Minister Randy Frazee share the pulpit. Randy began leading Oak Hills over two years ago bringing with him a neighbor-hood vision for the church; he was previously a teaching

October 2010 5Christian Video® Magazine

By STEVE HEWITTCover Story

pastor at Willow Creek and author of “The Connecting Church”. I caught up with Gerry True who is the Min-ister of Communications at Oak Hills and I heard some interesting things. “We’re in the middle of implementing a multi-year strategy aimed at reaching our city through a unique neighborhood focused approach. It brings some interest-ing challenges as we ask our congregation to open up their homes. I essentially cannot walk next door to our head of training and tell her if you want neighborhood-based training you have to ask everybody to come back to the building so my team can support it! We are determined to deliver our content to people rather than requiring people to come to our content. We think it can be delivered to the family living room.” stated Gerry. Oak Hills Church with its large attendance also has, as one would assume, a large annual operating budget. But the church is focused on its outreach and there’s

also another interesting twist as outlined by Gerry, “our church approaches anything we do first and foremost with the question, are we being good stewards of God’s resources? And the second question we usually ask is what can we do that helps this neighborhood movement to be replicable by even the smallest church with limited resources? In other words, can we do something at Oak Hills Church that any church can do and what tools can we create that others may find helpful?” Oak Hills made a move about a year ago to storing its archive sermons on Vimeo. As most of you know, a Plus account allows you to load and block advertising to your content in HD for just $60 for an entire year. The church teamed up with its longstanding partner, Upper-Room Technologies, who is focused on bringing high-software products to the local church at an affordable cost. Within a few months, UpperRoom released a prod-uct called Media Fusion that allowed a church to embed

6October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

By STEVE HEWITTCover Story

a simple piece of code on their existing website allowing a church to build a sermon series directly from many sources including Vimeo and YouTube. It even allows churches to create podcasts and add multiple PDFs all for just $10 per month. It wasn’t a surprise to find Media Fusion popular among churches all over the country, Up-perRoom adds a new church everyday. Gerry True and Andy Ivankovich, the CEO of Up-perRoom, had a novel thought. What if a channel could be built in Roku utilizing the church’s existing videos on Vimeo instead of paying a custom streaming service? And make it easy for Oak Hills to deliver video to its multi-sites and member homes? Within the week the UpperRoom team went to work. Talking with Northland Church and a few other developers, the team was able to get accepted in the Roku development community and access the Software Development Kit (SDK). “Building the basic framework of the channel was simple and took our developers a few sleepless nights to get it up and working,” Andy said. “The real trouble came when we tried to access our Vimeo APIs. Playing formats in MP4 were not a problem but we knew that Oak Hills and many churches have loaded in multiple formats like WMV and others. Our team just went about blind researching every post that we could find related to the Roku and using the Vimeo feeds,” said Andy. He was pointing out a significant problem. Vimeo has been working for many months to create an HTML5 video player on its main website which is currently in Flash, unsupported by Roku. But in August, Vimeo released a special closed API to allow their hosted videos to be played on devices like the iPhone and iPad but not available to the public or other developers. “I think it hit us on a Friday night. We were stuck and the idea was losing steam quickly. Our lead devel-oper continued to try every coding trick he could think of and went without sleep for almost two days as I con-tacted Vimeo and reached out to Roku to find a solution. On Monday evening, while in our lab, I hear a whopping and shouting as our Roku channel was playing the past weekend’s Vimeo sermon video. I sent a text to Gerry

immediately that we have “Cracked the Code” a familiar term around Oak Hills when we have it!” stated Andy. What had happened was Sreeram Jadapolu, Upper-Room’s lead developer and CIO, had used some tools to reverse engineer the source files from Vimeo and loaded a script back to the Oak Hills Roku channel. “We’re up now running fast to rollout the channel to the congregation. But what’s also an added bonus is that we are available to an estimated 1 million Roku devices spreading the Gospel to places Oak Hills Church would never have had access to,” said Gerry. UpperRoom is also taking the Roku a step further. “After building the Oak Hills Channel, we had a quick team meeting and decided to create a Media Fusion Channel allowing any church using a Media Fusion console to immediately be available on Roku for the same $10 per month. This means that all of their sermons or other content would be available to the same million people currently using the devices. I wouldn’t want any-one to go through a sleepless night coding something that we’ve already done. And it happens to be our mission,” said Andy. It will be interesting to see the development in these spaces. Some newer flat screen monitors are already available with Internet connectivity. For now Roku is the only open channel device available but GoogleTV and Boxee have already stated that they plan to do the same in upcoming months. It’s nice to know a church with a vision united with a company with a mission is helping to pave the way. You can read more and buy a Roku at roku.com. You can follow Oak Hills Church at oakhillschurch.com and Gerry True at his blog, leadingwideopen.com UpperRoom is found at uroomtech.com and their media product that ties in the Roku channel can be pur-chased at startthefusion.com

October 2010 7Christian Video® Magazine

by PAUL STEINBRUECK

Three Videos Every

Special Feature

Just a few years ago, there was very little video on the web. The majority of Internet users still used slow dial-up connections which made it painfully slow to download video. Most web hosting accounts included so little disk space that a couple minute video would fill up the entire account. It was just impractical to put video on a website. But all that has changed.

Church Website Should Have

More than 70% of people in first-world countries have broadband Internet access. Disk space allocations in web hosting accounts have expanded from megs to gigs. With the explosion of video-sharing sites like YouTube, online video has gone from the techno-geek fringes to the mainstream. We now live in a very video-oriented, media world. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. Online video helps to engage and connect with visitors on a personal level. And yet very few churches have added any video at all to their websites. That’s why we’re doing Video Month at OurChurch.Com, and why I want to talk about three videos every church website should have.

A Brief Introduction Every church ought to have a brief video introduc-ing the visitor to the church. The primary purpose of the video is to connect with the visitor on an emotional level, to demonstrate that your church cares about people like them and they would be warmly accepted if they crossed your threshold on a Sunday. It should not be primarily informational. Informational details about theology, church history, driving directions, service times, etc should already be in the text web pages.

The video should feature and be narrated by the se-nior pastor, because he or she is the face of the church. The video should give a brief overview of the vision and values of the church. It should mention what the church considers to be it’s most important ministries, cutting away to images of children’s ministry, Sunday services, people feeding the needy, or whatever is at the core of who you are as a church. It should be warm, and conclude with an invitation to the viewer to join you for a Sunday service. There are lots of pitfalls to avoid when making this video. I’ll list some of the most important ones.

Don’t make it too long. A minute is ideal.•

Don’t try to make every ministry in the church •happy by turning into a laundry list of activities.Don’t get into details about theology and church •history.Don’t use Christian terms that unchurched •people can’t identify with.Don’t settle for poor quality. Make sure the •lighting, audio, narration, editing and so on are good. Better to have no video than a bad one.

8October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

A Glimpse inside a Service People will feel much more com-fortable attending a service in person if they know what to expect, and there’s no better way to help them know what to expect than by providing a video on your church website for them to see. The majority of visitors, though, prob-ably won’t watch an entire service. So, I recommend putting two service videos on church websites – one a full service and a second video which is edited down to 3-5 minutes.

Personal Stories People who are genuinely seek-ing God are looking a God who truly makes a difference in people’s lives. They are not satisfied with the way their lives are now and are hoping to find a God and a church that can help change that. If God is at work in your church, you should have no shortage of personal stories of people whose lives have been transformed by the power of God. Video tape some of these people telling their stories and put them on your church website (with their permission, of course). Not only do videos of people’s personal stories indicate God is work-ing powerfully in your church, but they help visitors to identify with the people in your church and let them know they are welcome. For this reason, you want to have a diversity in the people whose stories you share – diversity in age, gender, ethnicity, economic status, and spiritual journey. For example, you can feature a young man who found redemption from drugs or alcohol, a middle age woman who found comfort in the midst of divorce and depression, or a white-collar professional who was successful but not truly fulfilled until they found Christ at your church. Different visitors will identify with different stories, and realize “there is hope for someone like me at that church.”

I would love to post examples of churches that have these 3 videos on their websites, but unfortunately I’m strapped for time today. So, if you know of a church that has one or more of these types of videos on its site, please post a link here so everyone can see some examples. And if you have any other church video ideas, post them as well.

By PAUL STEINBRUECKSpecial FeatureStory

October 2010 9Christian Video® Magazine

by GREGORY FISH

“A Picture’s Worth 1000 Words”

Greg’s Toolkit

We’ve all heard the saying before. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.” This phrase has become such a well-known saying because it’s true. You could read this whole article and walk away without much of an emotional experience. Look at a picture of your kids if you have them, and the emotions are instantly in play in some sort of way. Pictures and images move the soul in ways that words alone cannot. Words are powerful, indeed. But a picture can accomplish more.

The classic example given when thinking along these lines is the sentence, “The boy is sad.” Words can tells us this fact. But images and video can show us exactly what is going on. Then you can see what would take several more words or sentences to tell you. You can see the answer to the questions that you might have if you are simply reading “The boy is sad.” What’s the boy like? Is he a little boy or a big boy? Is he pouting or is he distraught? The picture says it all and elimi-nates the guesswork. Add music and you’ve got it made. You’ve seen the animal commercials with the sad music and even sadder looking animals waiting for someone to be-come their owner. These techniques, obviously, are great when soliciting aid of any sort for any number of causes. They pull on our heartstrings and elicit a re-sponse, a decision as to what we will do after watching the plea. Much less effective would be a white back-ground with simple black text stating the facts. Why bring this up at all? Well, this is Christian Video Magazine. Filmed video is going to show what we are filming. If we are trying to capture a certain emotion, then let’s go after the one that we want. That might mean more takes to fine tune the acting. Many videos for church use, however are animations that are not filmed at all. Many are text only with moving back-

grounds and such. Typography can be very creative these days, and even evoke emotion in ways that a book or static document cannot. However, at times we need to use pictures (real photos) to solidify the message. I encourage you to not use text only as an easy way out, when images can truly enhance your project. At times, you will want to use text only, but that is beside the point. We can utilize real photos in a powerful way. Espe-cially in a serious video. (See just one example- http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/mini-movies/19231/What-Was-On-His-Mind) Serious or funny video, photos can make all the difference! One thing to keep in mind is to use royalty-free photos, of course, or pictures you have created on your own. There are some open source sharing sites that provide some royalty-free photos free of charge, and there are paid outfits as well. Just search “stock photography”. It can be a tedious process to track down the perfect image. That’s why I bought Digital Juice’s Photo Knockouts Collec-tion 1- http://www.digitaljuice.com/products/products.asp?pid=1114. Like most products at digital juice, look to buy when they are on sale. I picked it up for $99, I think, when their list price is $499! I think it’s work having around the studio. They have over 12,500 pho-tos, at super high 39 mega pixel resolution, perfectly

10October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by GREGORY FISHGreg’s Toolkit

cut, to use however you can imagine it. I’ve use this product so far on one video. It’s a remake of an old classic countdown that I put to-gether. My original video had a good run, but this version is much more modern-looking than that one, and it’s in HD- http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/countdowns/20386/Bulletin-Bloopers-Countdown. The music is better as well as the images. The old version had some interesting transitions that I remember mak-ing, but the down-side was that I used a lot more clip art than I wanted to. My rule now and my advice for any presentation or publication is avoid clip art at all costs. Clip art is dated and pretty tacky, unless that’s the look you’re going for! Real photos are so much better, as you can see in the comparison graphic that I provided. Use photos as a visual metaphor. I used After Effects to piece this video together. Each blooper and its picture counterparts were a pre-composition. That way I could animate them in and out. I stuck with a simple rotation in and out through-out the whole video. For this I had to make it a 3D layer and move the anchor point down to the bottom so it could swing as if on a hinge. Using the photo-knock-out pictures I took two of the model’s poses so that I could give them some movement. Many went from pose to pose with a simple dissolve, but others had ro-tating or 360 degree swirl effects. I feel that these edits gave the video a lot of life and make the 5 minutes go by quickly.

Phil Cooke, in his article- http://www.churchlead-ers.com/worship/worship-blogs/145374-why-design-is-the-language-of-this-generation.html, does a masterful job of relaying the importance of our design decisions. He says, “Today, we live in a design driven generation, and if the Church is going to make an impact, design is the language we must learn. In Western culture, content has always been king. From the earliest days of the Hebrew Scriptures, to the spread of Christianity across Western Europe and eventually America, we’ve been a “word based” people...As a result - and rightly so - con-tent has been far more important than form in our art, writing, media, music, and architecture. But today, we live in a design culture, and form has become a critical key to connecting with the public.” I wholeheartedly, agree. May we improve our design elements, then, in order to reach this generation!

Gregory is a preacher in South Texas with a passion for combining the timeless message of God’s grace with the technology of our day. On the side he pro-duces videos for “FishXpressions” at various Christian video websites. Without formal training, he has set out to learn how to create better and higher quality films. Apart from this column, he also maintains a production blog with tips, helpful links, and other musings at www.fishxpressions.wordpress.com.

October 201011Christian Video® Magazine

by MARTIN BAGGSArticle

Departures

What do flying geese have in common with a dead octopus? Both function as a metaphor in this slow, but moving, masterpiece which won Japan’s first ever Oscar (Best Foreign Picture, 2009). Departures is about dreams dashed and passions rekindled. It offers a portrait of a man who has found meaning in his life. Fundamentally, though, it is a tale about death, and with it, life.

Remember, before showing clips from movies, be sure you have a license to do so. Check out Church Video License to be sure you are legal. www.cvli.com

Passion and Purpose, Death and Life

Daigo Koboyashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a profes-sional cellist in a Tokyo orchestra. After completing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony to an almost empty house, the orchestra is dissolved. That night when his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), is preparing octopus for din-ner it suddenly moves -- it seems to be alive. But when they cast it into the Tokyo Bay to freedom, it simply floats lifeless atop the water. The tossing of the dead octopus represents the dreams that Daigo has to cast off. He had dreamt of showing his wife the big cities of the world with his music. Now that dream is gone. When he sells his expensive cello to recoup some of the cost he real-izes, “What I’d always thought of as my dream maybe hadn’t been one after all.” It is the final nail in the cof-fin. With no job in Tokyo, Daigo and Mika leave the big city and return to Yamagata, his hometown, where his

deceased mother has left him an old home. Rent-free, all he needs now is a job. When he responds to a news-paper advertisement asking for a person to help with “departures” he thinks it has to do with travel. Really it has to do with death. Daigo’s new job is as a “Nokanshi,” or professional

encoffineer. In Japan families no longer prepare the bodies of their loved ones for the final journey. Neither do the undertakers. This task has become a niche career. The Nokanshi go into the homes

of the grieving and ritually disrobe, wash, re-clothe, and make-up the bodies. It sounds morbid, but it is actual-ly an act of beauty in the hands of a caring professional. For Daigo this undesired job becomes a journey of personal discovery as he learns lessons of life along-side the master, Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki). He does not realize at first that the job has its own occupational hazards. The smells of rotting corpses are enough to bring up lunch. And these smells stick to his clothing

12October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by MARTIN BAGGSArticle

and body, enough for others to notice. But there are blessings, too. The careful and solemn ritual is an act of grace given to those living. Daigo grows into the job until he finally understands this is his calling, his purpose in life. Though not a Christian film, we can see in Daigo a person who has found his vocation, his ministry. Like the cleaners in Sunshine Cleaning, those who come to clean up after death or make up the dead to look beau-tiful are performing an act of ministry that others will not or cannot do. They are serving those who are in deepest need. Director Yojiro Takita brings a sense of grace and gravity to the funeral rituals. With long lin-gering cinematography and a re-markably emotive original score, the film is beautiful to watch, eschewing trivial sentimentality. Though death is central to the film, it is not heavy and somber. Rather, it portrays these rituals as celebrating the life of the one who has gone. And in doing so, it is both respecting the dead and giving hope to the living. Food features prominently. Nokanshis get very hungry after performing a funeral ceremony. Their job requires intense con-centration and that generates immense hunger. We see Daigo eat a number of meals here, from romantic dinners with his wife, to thoughtful musings with his boss. In the latter, the wise Sasaki tells him, “The living eat the dead. Unless they’re plants. Unless you want to die you eat.” Eating is part of life and Nokanshis eat with gusto and enjoyment. Eating a

large and delicious meal after a ritual seems appropri-ate, as a way of endorsing the value of life, having been in the midst of death. There is another occupational hazard of a Nokanshi: shame. People look down on them. It is a profession no one wants, but everyone needs. When Mika eventually

October 201013Christian Video® Magazine

by MARTIN BAGGSArticle

finds out what he does, she asks, “Aren’t you ashamed of having a job like that? . . . Touching dead people?” And when he goes to touch her, she recoils in disgust, “Don’t touch me. You’re filthy!” Rejected by friends, he is now rejected by his wife. Departures presents a portrait of the stigma carried by certain people in the Bible. Lepers were shunned, avoided due to their physical condition. They had to cover their faces and shout out, “Unclean! Unclean!” (Lev. 13:45) whereupon people would retreat from the leper’s presence. But they had no control over this dis-ease; it was not their choice. Closer to Daigo is Simon the tanner (Acts 10:6). He dealt with dead bodies and was considered unclean. His was a shameful profession. What jobs carry this kind of stigma today? Probably undertakers and morticians. Dealing with the dead has always been a societal opprobrium. No one, it seems, wants to see or touch the dead. But other jobs also carry similar disesteem: refuse collectors, janitors, people who perform the tasks we sweep under the carpet. See-ing Daigo work this stigmatic job as a ministry reminds us of the inherent dignity of these jobs regardless of public opinion. Director Yojiro Takita chooses the cello as Daigo’s instrument carefully, even though creating an orchestral score for cellos is difficult to do. The cello is a large instrument with a wide range of sound, something like the depths of the human voice. More than this, though, its shape resembles the feminine form: curvaceous and graceful. Playing the cello resonates with the act of encoffining, where both the instrument and the corpse need to be cradled gently with care and affection. Dai-go’s attention to detail in his work reignites the memory of the cello he has left behind Finding his purpose in living, Daigo rekindles his passion for music. This brings us back to the geese. When he finds his childhood cello, he begins to play again, now for fun not for funds. We see him playing outdoors, amidst nature, both in the cold of a harsh winter and the cherry blossoms of a new spring. When he sees the geese flying free, we recognize this as a metaphor for the fresh freedom he now finds in his mu-sic. No longer is it constricting, holding him to dreams

that would prove dead. Music once more enables him to experience and enjoy life. His purpose promotes his passion. They go hand in hand, as much of life seems to do. Few films take on the subject of death. It is too tricky and not usually a good commercial enterprise. We tend to avoid it in common conversation, because it makes us face our own mortality. It took 15 years from the conception of the film’s idea until it became reality. But death is slowly creeping up on all of us. Life, though, is tied to death. Daigo tells Mika, “Everyone dies. I will and so will you.” He is one of the gatekeepers on the journey to the next life. Toward the end, another funeral worker says, “I’ve often thought . . . that maybe death is a gateway. Dying doesn’t mean the end. You go through it and on to the next thing. It’s a gate.” Both he and Daigo have it right. Life encompasses death, and death is indeed a gate-way to the next life we all will pass through. But we can prepare ourselves now for that future journey even while we are living. Jesus says “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (Jn. 10:9). He is the gate to life. If we put our faith in him, then we can be assured that when we die we will move into his pres-ence. Later we will brought into a new life in the new earth which will be his eternal kingdom (2 Pet. 1:11). Death will then be a gateway to that future life with King Jesus. Nobody wants to think about death. But, as Depar-tures shows, by facing death we look at life differently. We cannot live an authentic life if we avoid death. Are you ready for your departure yet?

Copyright ©2010, Martin Baggs

Martin works as an engineering manager in the high tech industry. He leads a monthly film review group at Mosaic Church in Portland, Oregon. He writes film responses from a biblical perspective on his blog: www.mosaicmovieconnectgroup.blogspot.com

14October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

By ROBERT KRAMERInterview

Athanatos Ministries:

Anthony Horvath is the Founder and Director of Athanatos Ministries. His ministry is committed to applying the Christian world view in creative contexts that range from Christian apologetics to education to literature and the arts and anything else it can imagine to edify the church. They are currently building a 2011 Apologetics conference featuring speakers on Marriage and the Audio/Visual image. We had the privilege of speaking with Anthony recent-ly about his ministry.

Defending God’s Plan for Marriage, Family, and Life

CVM: Can you tell me about Athanatos?

ANTHONY: I was raised in the Lutheran school system all the way through college. I went to University actu-ally to be a Pastor and became an Atheist instead. When I came through that experience, I realized that I had not been equipped, even with all of that Christian education, to handle anything more than the most rudimentary questions. And I realized there was a problem. So, right about then, my Sophomore or Junior year in college, I began soaking up as much apologetics stuff as I could. And I did not become a Pastor. Instead I went into teaching. I maintained my interest in and passion for apolo-getics throughout my professional church work. Then, about 7 years ago, I realized that all of the Athe-ists and unbelievers that I was interacting with had been raised in the Church. And it occurred to me that what we really needed to do was to keep them from falling away in the first place. What I figured out is that the Church is turning out young people who are kind of set up to fail. For a while, ACM was dedicated to providing arguments and curriculum and things of that sort. Then it dawned on me that people are really getting their world view from the me-dia. So, we decided to try to hit that particular aspect head on. We want to try to repackage the ideas of C.S. Lewis,

J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig and others in ways that can be readily received by the media generation.

CVM: So that led you to literature and sponsoring a writ-ing contest?

ANTHONY: That’s right. That was our first broadside at-tempt, partially because my own background is as a writer, but mainly because I knew that there were a lot of Chris-tians out there who wanted to get their story out. And all of the media really boils down to writing at some level. So, it seemed the best course of action was to help get quality Christian writers out there. And help them permeate our society and culture. We’re now going into our third year and through our contests we’ve been able to connect with around 600 authors. And we’ve distributed around $5000 in rewards over that time. That’s not enough to live on but it helps boost a writer’s confidence a bit and encourages them to keep writing.

CVM: And I see that you’ve also done an Apologetics Web Conference. Can you tell me about that?

ANTHONY: Sure. My overall [purpose] of this is to get the greater Christian community to come on board with

through Creative Arts such as Film and Literature

October 201015Christian Video® Magazine

By ROBERT KRAMERInterview

this vision. It seems to me that there is a real problem in some of the artwork that we’re producing as Christians. There’s a lot of cheesiness and lack of substance in much of the product. You’ve got these sanctified story lines that don’t really connect to reality. And so they don’t really relate to anyone outside of a Christian audience. But at the same time, it takes money and resources and equipment to produce a high level of quality work. So the first online apologetics conference was Cast A Vision. Its goal was to get the Christian community in-volved in produced quality artistic expressions in print that resonate with a Christian world view. And our next one has the same over arching theme, but we’re going to focus on film, video, and the visual arts. We will hopefully tap into another area here where Christians really want to engage the culture.

CVM: Who will be speaking at this next conference?

ANTHONY: Our keynote is Dr. Gene Edward Veith Jr. He is a writer for World magazine and the Provost at Patrick Henry College. He’s been observing our cultural shifts for a long time and he has a strong emphasis on Christians act-ing out their faith in their vocations. We also have Dallas Jenkins. Who is a co-producer with Jenkins Entertainment. He will be speaking about quality Christian entertainment and that it can be done. And that it can be successful enough that it can keep going. And then we’re going to hit all of the bases. We’re going to hit all of the theological aspects as well as the artistic ones. So this conference has video as its emphasis and it also has a defense of a biblical model of marriage. So speakers like Dr. Ryan MacPherson will bring to bear just what the Bible says about marriage, because it’s important to know those details so that they can be accurately por-trayed on screen.

CVM: And along with the conference, you’re sponsoring a video contest.

ANTHONY: That’s right, yes. And I really hope people take advantage of that. We’ve got a $1000 cash prize for the winner. The winner will be determined by votes from the conference attendees, sponsors, and the wider global

audience. It really ties in with our goal which is going beyond casting a vision to backing it up with action and resources. I’m looking forward to seeing all sorts of cre-ative pieces and I hope that we can make some connections through the contest for our participants. I would love to be able to facilitate those kinds of connections.

CVM: So when’s the conference and contest launching?

ANTHONY: The online Apologetics conference is April 8th and 9th, 2011. And the video contest has launched though we haven’t really publicized it yet. We are able to take submissions as we speak. We will take submissions all the way up until April 8th. Although it should be noted that a large part of the scoring will be based on voting, so the sooner you get a video up the better.

CVM: Do you see yourself expanding to other mediums in the future?

ANTHONY: Our writing contests are pretty well estab-lished and will be maintained. We’re just getting into the video and film arena, maybe one day we’ll be able to have fully funded and produced films. It would be great to be in a position where we’re able to do that. I would love to explore radio programming at some point as well. Our ministry is already a publishing house, so we’re working in that direction but it’s really open ended. I haven’t shut any doors and as far as I’m concerned they’re all open and I’m waiting to see which one God shoves me through next.

CVM: We really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. And we’ll look forward to hearing more from you as the conference draws near.

ANTHONY: Thank you. It’s been great talking with you.

Anthony Horvath is the Executive Director of Athanatos Christian Ministries. His ministry hosts an online apolo-getics conference which brings the arts to bear on evange-lism. Learn more at http://www.onlineapologeticsconfer-ence.com

16October 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by JAY M. DELPAudible Audio for Video

If you’re like me (and the multitude of similar ministry “video heads”) you may find your-self falling into the trap (rut!?) of producing the same types of videos over and over again and using the same type of program format as a template over and over again. The purpose of this article is to freshen up our approach to producing videos for your ministry by reminding us all of the many different types of video formats, styles, & genres available. I suspect most of the following are not new to you; but when was the last time you stretched yourself and your media ministry by deliberately choosing a video program format which you may never have used (or haven’t used since the summer of 1993. The following content could also be used to effectively answer any out- of-touch soul (usually on the finance committee!) who happens to ask out loud (and somewhat sarcastically), “Why would we ever want to spend $$$’s on a video camera and video editing software/hardware?” (Yes, they are STILL out there!).

7 Do-It-Yourself Video Production Formats/Genres

1. MAN-ON-THE-STREET – One of the earliest and most popular formats when churches started shooting and editing their own ministry videos back in the late 80s and 90s. It remains a very powerful and popular video program format for three primary reasons: A) Simple to shoot. No broadcast camera or other fancy/expensive video equipment needed. A hand-held or lapel (wired or wireless) microphone and a camcorder with a mic input is all that is required (assuming your lighting is sufficient and your camera operator knows how to operate the camera ad-equately!). B) Simple to edit. No fancy editing required. Simply trim out the fluff and piece together the best of the best until you reach your ideal program length which can be done very easily and effectively with free editing software such as iMovie (MAC) or MovieMaker (PC). And C), the resulting video is usually very compelling and authentic - real people giving their real (hope-fully) opinion in real time…and on ANY topic on the planet.

2. EVENT HIGHLIGHTS – One of my absolute favorites. Whether it’s a VBS, youth retreat, missions trip, weekend confer-ence, youth rally, car wash, fund raising banquet, auction or any number of ministry events, they all deserve their own 2-4 min. highlight video. The 3 Ps – powerful, permanent and personal.

Not to mention indispensable in promoting NEXT YEARS same event. For multi-day events/trips you’ll edit two different highlight videos: one very short (2-3 min.) version to show the entire congregation and one much longer (perhaps 15-30 min.) for those who participated in the event/adventure.

3. STILL PHOTOS – Many media productions involving still photos/images take the form of PowerPoint presentations or other presentation software-based productions which is all fine and dandy. But if you want to take your still photo media programs to the next level produce them with video editing software and add motion (a.k.a. the Ken Burns’ effect), titles, music, transi-tions and effects (where appropriate). Although (IMHO) not as compelling as video, still photo video/media productions can be a very powerful format for any number of purposes. We’ve all seen them at weddings and funerals not to mention for event highlights, personal affirmation, celebrations and many other events and services. And some of you have happily discovered www.animoto.com!

4. TEXT/TITLE-DRIVEN – Who said you need photos or even video footage to produce a compelling video? Certainly

October 201017Christian Video® Magazine

by JAY M. DELPAudible Audio for Video

not, me! This is one of the most overlooked (or abused!) video production formats. Watch TV commercials’ use of text and titles. Notice how some of the most power-ful ministry videos available for purchase use words, text and titles so effectively. No-tice their font styles, motion, length of time on screen, sequencing, layout, and design. Add music and motion and your compelling text-based production possibilities are liter-ally endless.

5. DRAMA/SKITS/PLAYS – Prior to the power of video production trickling down to the masses Hollywood was the sole proprietor of dramatic video/visual content. Thankfully those days are gone forever. Every drama script becomes (or can become) a video script. Every skit book is a ready-made video production guide. Sure there are still many times when “live” acting is the way to go but very often producing a video of the same dramatic performance is just what the doctor ordered (and the young folks!). No need to memorize large blocks of dialogue. No nervousness the day of the big performance. No multi-week rehearsals. And all the flub ups end up on the editing room floor saving face for all. Plus you have the benefit of showing so many more close-ups than would be possible in a “live” multi-camera shoot/production.

6. MUSIC VIDEOS – Oh, the 80’s and it’s “gift” of the music video. With MTV leading the way, an endless stream of music videos (some with cheesy effects) continues to this day. But as a video program format the music video may be just the ticket – especially if you are working with children or young people. I remember one of the best music videos I ever shot was outside on an Indiana Christian college campus with about 6 students complete with curling iron microphones, clothing rack guitars, and a just-out-of-frame boom box (yes, I said “BOOM BOX”…the MP3 player/iPod was still just a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eye).

7. THE INTERVIEW – Like the Man-on-the-Street format, the

video interview (a.k.a. personal testimony/story) doesn’t require any fancy cameras or editing equipment to be effective although a “good listener” is mandatory. No other format is more compel-ling and personal. Everyone has a story to tell but few are given the opportunity to tell it. The video interview, not unlike the drama/skit video format allows the interviewee to save face and also allows you to remain control of your service since as you’ve already noticed, almost everyone who is given 2-3 minutes to speak “live” talks 5-7 minutes or more. Tape them. Edit them. Project them. Give a DVD copy to them. Problem solved.

I’m out of word count but not video formats/genres. The Parody, Commercial, News Cast, Monologue, Debate, and Documentary, all remain untouched but not untapped (thanks to you).