PRAISE THE LORD!! IT HAS BEEN FOUND!!!

I am ecstatic to announce to you that the original recording of “Fenrick’s First Adventure” has been found! After having given up all hope that this video would ever be seen again, it has now been resurrected. And not only has it been found, but also restored for viewing with modern technology!

Though I had nothing personally to do with this particular video, somewhere down the line it was transferred into my custody. Now, after cleaning my desk drawer at work I have uncovered it in it’s original form. Though unfortunately this “original form” was that of a “Video CD”…?? I know right? What in the world is that? Well long story short it was originally created on a Windows PC(bleh) and required such technology to be able to view it again. And now, thanks to my buddy Daniel at Germantown Baptist, it is made public for all to glory in again! (much applause for Daniel).

So without further ado… I present the original, in unaltered form…. Fenrick’s First Adventure.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is also another video that we made starring Fenrick. This one was never lost, but still provides quality entertainment if you know anything about student revivals.

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://vimeo.com/m/#/25203750

For of those of you who know me, you know that John Piper is one of my greatest spiritual heroes. And for those of you that know Piper you know that the glory of God is the loudest proclamation of his heart to the point that it’s almost a cliche within his sermons.

Needless to say, this message(http://vimeo.com/m/#/25203750) from the SBC pastor’s conference last week was no different. Though he took a different approach than i’d heard him take before, the result was nothing short of causing me to reflect on the God-centeredness of God. I will say though that this time my mind wandered down many paths after the message finished. Many thoughts entered my mind concerning the righteousness of Christ and his imputation of that on us and how that shines light on our purpose in this life. But nonetheless, I once again came to the ends of those paths with more breathtaking assurance that the glory of God is the ultimate desire of God, and the ultimate provider of satisfaction for those that make it their ultimate desire as well.

I pray that this desire become my strongest pursuit in life.

The site I maintain for the ONE8 Network just got a facelift. It’s been less than 6 months since launch, but I’ve learned so much since then.

I added a more simple texture as the background and brought the dynamic content onto the homepage to keep things fresh. I think the new look makes it look more like a real resource site, which is what it is. I hope church planters and ministers alike can find it much more useful now.

If you have any tips/suggestions/complaints feel free to chime in!

http://one8.org

Just finished a new site design for my friends at the X-tended Missions Network. The XMN is a Southern Baptist regional association for North Mississippi. They are support partners for us at Revision Church as well the ONE8 Church Planting Network.

I wised up and teamed with Jason Charnes on this one and he really added a lot of great elements that I couldn’t have accomplished by myself. As always, it’s powered by WordPress and we used the Biznizz Theme by Woo Themes, which has turned out to offer a powerhouse of great features for what we wanted to accomplish. I really enjoyed implementing the photos that they wanted to display. In fact, the way the whole site is very photography-driven is one of my favorite parts about it.

Check it out!

We just finished up Disciple-NOW at Germantown Baptist. I’m not going to lie, it was a pretty incredible weekend. A DNOW unlike any other DNOW I’ve experienced actually. The Student staff steered a different direction than we typically have before… and the response was amazing! I’m generally skeptical of emotional, mountain-top events. But I felt this time that the maturity of the students at this church really culminated through the weekend and they expressed that outwardly more than I’ve seen before. One of the more powerful things for me to see was one night when we gave out blind folds and had the students worship with them on. The goal was for them to be free of distractions and know that no one was watching or judging them(except the camera:) ). Seeing them choose their physical mode of worship was very moving. Here’s the recap video I put together as well as the animated intro video we used to kick off the weekend.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For my DSLR film guys: I rented a RedRock Micro Captain Stubling Rig for the weekend and it worked great! It was my first time with a follow-focus and I’ve realized it’s really the only way to go when shooting documentary, hand-held content. I guess truthfully it’s the only way to go period. I also purchased the bargain-buy Cannon 50mm 1.4 which is a no-brainer for beginners. I wouldn’t have been able to shoot all the low-light content without it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For my AE animators: The intro video was a fun little challenge I forced myself through. I made myself animate the tree from scratch. When I first saw the logo that was created by our T-shirt designers I thought I could just cheat by incorporating Andrew K’s “Evolution” swirls to get the growth effect. But that wasn’t enough for me. I knew there was a way to do it for real. Luckily I found out when looking through the files that most of the logo was the same identical branch replicated. So I used Write-on to make it grow and scaled the leaves individually. Then I replicated the branch and got it pretty dang close to matching the original shape of the designer. I felt much better afterwards.

New post over at Revision Blog:

The Testimony of Suffering – How the importance of the Gospel is best displayed through endurance.

Why hello overly-neglected blogosphere…

Quite obviously, there’s been nothing going on here lately. Which interestingly enough is quite the opposite of what my life’s been like. Pretty much ever since the last post in october it’s been quite hectic and I just haven’t had much time, nor content to post more regularly. And quite frankly it’s not going to get much better anytime soon. But I thought at least I’d throw some updates of things I’ve been working on for you to check out. Especially since I was in a meeting today with our new brand and website consultants at GBC (Maurilio Amorim and the A Group) and he asked how many of us blogged. I quickly raised my hand and then was forced to sheepishly give the “eh, ish” dangling palm motion because I couldn’t remember when my last post was. So here’s my quarterly “feel guilty calling myself a blogger” post.

The last film I posted was literally the last one I’ve actually been able to produce. When November hit, the 5D went in my bag and only came out for some photo opps and Christmas documentation. But I hope to get back at it over the next few months and try out some new accessories that I’m wanting to get.

Most of my free time since December has been used working on Web design. I’m not sure i’ve quite earned the title of ”web designer”, but WordPress gives me enough power/knowledge to be dangerous. We just launched the website for a new church planting network in North Mississippi. It’s called ONE8 Network and the Director, George Ross, asked me to help him get a site going as well as a logo/branding scheme. It’s really my first time other than for Revision Church that I’ve been able to help with the entire package. Since it’s a birthing organization it will continue to grow. But I’ve been pleased with how it’s turned out.

A few other organizations have expressed interest as well and I’m looking forward to getting in deeper with WordPress and all it can do. Being able to help people get their companies up to date with a good website and online identity is becoming one of my passions. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but I’m excited about the possibilities. If you have any tips/resources in that area, PLEASE leave them with me!

The other huge thing that’s happened recently for me was the launch of Revision Church(read more on my involvement with them here). January 9th marked our very first weekly service, and it was incredible! We’re so pumped to finally be a “real church”. In fact it’s actually really hard to believe. It had been just a distant goal for so long that even at the end of the service I had to remind myself “hey, we get to do this again next week!”. You can check out the photos and recap of how our launch service went here on the Revision Blog, which, by the way, is blowin’ and goin’! I also have the privilege of administering that site and would love you to check it out. Our pastors set themselves a goal to each post a blog a week at this point with content on doctrine, daily life and personal stories from their own walks with Christ. We hope it can become a valuable resource for not just our members, but everyone who stumbles on it.

Those are the main things outside of working at GBC that I’ve been busy with lately. Hopefully I’ll have more portfolio items over the next few months to appease the nagging inside of me to actually run my own blog.

Made this quick intro for our Wednesday night student events at GBC.

Logo design was done in Adobe Illustrator and set to motion in After Effects. The heart monitor is obviously not quite realistic but I wasn’t familiar enough with Trapcode’s 3D stroke plugin to really do what I wanted to do.

Due to time constraints I just grabbed a project file from Andrew Kramer and modified it a little bit for the big reveal. Great tools when you’re in a jam.

I mixed the soundtrack myself using various effects I had, then blended it into Skillet’s “Dead Inside”.. which went great with the theme.

I saw this awesome piece of machinery in my dad’s office over the weekend and… well…. this is what happened.

Soundtrack was recorded straight off the device… no iTunes downloads here.

Used a Voigtlander 40mm f/4 from LensRentals with a close-up adapter.

These things just get more and more fun!

Enjoy…

Couldn’t pass it up… people, lights, motion, activity. So I went. Alone. Paid for parking, a ticket and one Ferris Wheel ride. It was great, and totally worth it.

Shot on the 5D with a basic of the basic 50mm f/1.4(and a few shots with a telephoto). For just $300 I’m going to have to get me one of these lenses.

Enjoy…