Dead or Alive Video

Posted by will | Filed under Christianity, Creativity, Make, Tips, Video

There have been quite a few questions about how we did the Dead or Alive video (below, but with added live footage) for the Unleash conference. If you were in the Production Breakout at Unleash you will recall Ken talking how sometimes we pitch video ideas to Perry and our senior management team and sometimes Perry will come to us with a clearly defined idea of what he wants. In the case of the Dead or Alive video he came to us with a fairly complete idea of what he wanted.

See the first notes mainly Shane, our creative arts pastor and my notes (warning legibility is questionable and I started taking notes from the second ideas on the first). Later after talking to Perry a little more, Shane came back with mainly the same ideas, but a few new things.

Lee gave me a reference click of him strumming the guitar and singing the words along with a metronome beat that we send to the in-ear monitors that the band wears while playing in order to keep them on tempo.

I used Handbrake and Mpeg Streamclip to rip the Passion DVD footage into a .mov file. I then took the DVD footage into Final Cut Pro and began to lay down the pieces that Perry had asked for. After getting the key pieces Perry wanted in place, I started finding and laying in the other scenes that were needed in order to convey the overall message that Perry needed. In addition to the Passion footage, I added in the dirt road footage because of the feel and meaning that it added to the piece.

Next, I showed the firest cut to Perry to get his feedback. He was fine with everything except for when the beating started and how long it lasted. Those two things did not fit with the vision that God had given him for this piece. Personally, I liked the first version just fine, but God did not give me the message to preach at Unleash, and therefore I did not know what the video should look like to support that message. As I blogged about previously, it is not about my personal preference it is about reaching people for Jesus and I know that Perry knows that it is not about his personal preference, it is about what God wants. I trust Perry’s leadership and know that if he needs a video a certain way in order to make the point that God has told him to make, then I will create the video in such a manner.

After getting that feedback, I then changed that part of the video, tightened some stuff up and added in the scripture passages that were composited by the talented Ben Coleman.

As a side note, I love the comradery that we have as a staff, if you don’t believe it, check out this snipit out of the reference click from Lee, I was rolling on the ground when I caught that part.

Hopefully, this helps explains how we make a video that Perry has a direct vision for happen. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Permalink | March 18th, 2008

3 Responses to “Dead or Alive Video”

  1. Ben Milstead Says:
    March 18th, 2008 at 5:45 pm

    This was one of the most uniquely moving things I’ve ever seen in a church. I was proud to be a Springer!!

  2. Ben Milstead Says:
    March 18th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    This was one of the most uniquely moving things I’ve ever seen in a church. I was proud to be a Springer! Thank you for all your hard work and for posting the footage here as well.

  3. Kjell Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

    Wow . . . um, wow. Wish I had been there for that. Nothing like I’ve ever seen before. And the musical performance too.

    Wow.

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