When I started out doing videos for youth ministry 16 years ago, it was mostly motivated by how bad they were and in a lot of ways I was very embarrassed that our youth ministry even produced such terribly made videos. But as the video team grew and the technology became more accessible and affordable, talent also started to emerge.

So I just wanted to take some time to highlight some amazing work that is happening around the world that in my opinion is lifting the bar of what is possible in church media.

This first video is from Jono Shaw. His Sin city/Film Noir take on a mens conference promo has some amazing moodiness and some killer compositing!

Check out the making of it here too:

The Rock by Chris Loope – very nice design work with a nice track to boot

Silent Transitions by Salomon – Setting the bar pretty high, Salomon also designed the music and filmed this masterpiece.

God of the Broken by Dan Stevers – Beautiful integration and imagery. I always get a bit teary watching this…

Hillsong conference News 2010 by Yun Khang Lai – A nice little piece that makes a fairly boring idea a little bit more interesting for the audience

The I Heart revolution – Jackie Pullinger by Glenn Stewart – Glenn always does amazing work and in a lot of ways has the set the bar high for me personally. I owe a lot to this guy (but I would never admit it

Hillsong NYC by Paul Nevison (graded by Glenn Stewart) – A bit of an unsung hero, Paul’s documentary style is to be reckoned with. If there is an awesome doco to be cut, he is definitely the man.

C3 Screen Visuals Montage by Matt Fezz – Some amazing visual work for C3. Some of the best visual work for church I have seen

Anyways, hopefully something here has inspired you. Just always remember to keep honing your craft, and finding new and better ways to do things. The bar may look high, but it’s definitely not out of reach

Just so you understand, I used to be rubbish, and to prove it, here is a video video I made 10 years ago:

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Well there is nothing official yet, but I am pretty sure there will be one.

Starting last year, we had our first inaugural Easter Film Festival called “Art from the Heart”. Yours truly put in a killa film, amongst some other greats from the film making community including Glenn Stewart [I-Heart] , Ben Field [Home & Away] , Annette Sicari [Bruno] to name a few.

In any case, if any of you out there is thinking about making a film for the Easter Festival, now is the time to start! One of the things that helped me get started on making the film is pretty much writing everything and any idea down no matter how good or bad the idea was. Ideas ranged from a Jesus style anime, to romantic comedies,  dark dramas to scifi.

IDEAS ARE FREE!

I think as filmmakers we should always have a bank of ideas ready to go, cause the reality is you’re going to run out eventually and there are going to be days when you are just not inspired. So if you any idea, no matter how you feel about, you should write it down, grab that PDA or iphone or crackberry or post it or napkin and jot it down. I promise you won’t regret it!

And with that I’ll leave you with a video my friend/colleague/guru Glenn Stewart made for the Art for the Heart Festival last year. It’s pretty kick arse so I hope you guys enjoy it!

PS. for all the Twilight fans out there, New Moon was hilariously bad, but I can see why girls like it. Shirts off anyone? And yeah Team-Jacob all the way!