Today has been long and I'm not done yet. So here's a photo from today. Consider it 500 words of blogging. I'd say it was 1000 but it's not a fantastic photo.

New Years Eve was pretty great. I'd tell you all about it, but I made a video instead. This is it:

I stuck the video I made with youth group up the other day.

If you haven't already seen it, here it is for your viewing pleasure:

I preached on singleness in church the other night. I'll upload the sermon soon. Maybe nowish. But here is the video I showed at the beginning of the sermon. I realised I left off my phone number. Oops.

Enjoy.



Update: The sermon is now available here on my preaching blog.

I've been doing more video making. This time with Bevis. We filmed last Wednesday. I finished editing today. It was all for work.

So here you go my lovely blog readers, How to Meet the Queen parts one and two. (Yeah, cop that Harry Potter, I bring out both parts on the same day!)

Part One:



Part Two:



I hope you've found it helpful.

So I bought myself a Canon 7D last Saturday. I have been thinking about buying one for about a year now. Finally I actually got around to getting it.

It's a very nice camera. Too nice for someone as unskilled as me. I got it for it's video capabilities, which are pretty sweet for a camera of it's price range. It's a DSLR camera so it's not primarily designed for video stuff. But it does do very good stuff.

When I was in the shop the woman showed me everything I needed to buy. Thousands of dollars worth of camera, lens, bags and filters. She said "Is there anything else you need?"

"I just need to know whether to buy it today or not." I said.

"Tell you what, if you buy it today I'll throw in a free dvd."

So I bought it. Who can resist a free dvd?

I went and played with it on Sunday. Me and one of the kids in the youth group made a video. I pretty much shot the video with the settings on straight out of the box. It's not a very good video but I learned a few things. Firstly I need to work on my focusing skills. Secondly, colour correction, better dynamic range and getting a good ISO is also important. But I'm looking forward to improving, which I'm sure I will.

Anyway, this is what we made.



This morning I was waiting to get picked up by Dan and April and spied some good mist, so I went and photographed it. This was one of the better ones I think. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm pretty happy with the camera.

The next post I write will be about Justin Bieber. So to avoid having two Bieber posts in a row, is the intro video I made for Donny Jaffa at Soul this year. Mum, you'll love it.

I left the Howie's tonight after doing some rehersing for our LIVE VIDEO tomorrow night and I called Ant to see what we were planning for tomorrow day. As I was talking on the phone, I could hear someone in the street talking. I looked around and saw someone else talking on the phone as they walked along. And they seemed to be only talking when Ant was talking. And suprise, suprise, it was Ant. I called him just as he walked down the street that I was in. Amazing.

So we hung up and talking in real life.

For all those of you who were fans of Podcasting with Howie and Tom, we'll be back. But live on the computer screen. Streaming video right to your computer.

8pm AEST, 25th December 2010. Right here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/howie-and-tom-live

It'll be better than all your crap presents, but not nearly as good as your good ones.

A lot of people have been asking me how the video went down so I thought I should share.

The teachers liked it and the students seemed to warm to it. I showed it at the beginning of the talk and the students looked like that couldn't figure out what to make of it for the first minute or so. But after that they started laughing a bit. Which is probably about as much as you can hope for from a high school group. High school doesn't generally make teenagers enthusiastic and excited about anything coming from the front.

At very least, it wasn't an major disaster, so I'm thankful for that.

I'm speaking at a school on Thursday in a series they're doing called "Life According to YouTube". This is an excellent idea. They asked me to speak on spiritual gifts, and I couldn't find any videos on YouTube that would work, so I decided to make my own. I'm really hoping the 200 high school students get the joke.

Special thanks to Howie for being Director of Photography and lending all his technical equipment to the cause.

So I worked on a video a little while ago for Soul Survivor to promote next year's Soul in the City. It's finally made to the Tube. And this is it:



This is one of three versions of the same video I made. The other two should be on the Soul Survivor Channel. They're pretty much the same but with Geldo saying different things in the middle, and a little bit of different footage over the top.

If you're wondering, I shot about a third of the footage, and I edited the video and made it look pretty (in youthy kinda way).

If this video doesn't go viral and get 30,000 people to Soul in the City, I don't know what will.

Yesterday I went to Newcastle. I went to do some filming for Soul Survivor with Geldo and the world's most famous Christian named Fuzz. Geldo was excited to tell me that he'd got me an HD camera. He did. It was a still SLR camera which also shot video at full HD. It was interesting. It meant the lens was lovely, but the functionality was terrible and you couldn't attach an external mic and the internal one was probably terrible. Plus I felt a bit dumb when Matt (Geldo) would send me off to film some Novacastrian youth worker and I'd pull out the camera and they'd say "You're filming me with that?"

Still I had fun, I like filming. I got to spend a lot of the day by myself travelling around the city filming stuff. I enjoyed that. I also ate noodles.

In the car home Geldo and Fuzz both gave me quotes for the blog. This time I don't have to pretend they're mine. That's nicer.

This is one of the videos we made for Soul Survivor this year.

Enjoy.

This is one of the videos we made at Soul Survivor. This was on the fourth day. I think it's the best one we did. The fact that you're not at Soul Survivor and you probably don't know the worship leader, it loses a lot of it's impact. But still I'm happy with it. For four hours work, I think it's alright.

It's time to continue to make Jem an internet star. The next Wisdom with Tabitha video is up, so it's time to keep making Jem famous! Watch it, comment on it, rate it, stick it on your blog!



Hooray for internet fame!

We went back to Beacon Hill tonight to do the last of principle production for the film. I got there a bit late because I was packing up at church. When I arrived they were just working on the jib.

When the jib was half done someone looked across the vast view of the Northern Beaches and beyond and said "I think that's rain coming". And sure enough it was. We spent the next half hour or so holding umbrellas over all the equipment till we packed up and went home. It wasn't really the planned outcome. Maybe we'll get it shot next time.

It was filming again today. It started at about 5:30am as I wandered hundreds of metres down my street to find my car buried in the rabbit warren of streets. This is the issue of getting home too late ore too early to get a park if there is a show on at the Enmore.

Anyway, we (Helen, Jon and I) made it to church late to meet the others. We got on the road and after a few shenanigans and stops to buy tape and breakfast we all made it all to Budgiwoi Beach, location one for the day.

We spent the day filming at the beach with a 3 metre high structure stuck in the sand and and a dingy on the beach. People kept looking at us as if we were a little strange. One kind surfer warned us that it'd be stupid to launch the dingy in the surf. Which is true. Had we tried to launch the boat we probably would caused someone or something a large amount of damage. It wasn't a particularly friendly see today.

It was slow work today for some reason. We did two shots in the water with a water proof camera case. They were pretty fun. It's hard work trying keep steady while the wave pound you and the the ocean is trying to suck you out to sea. Matt stood with me and kept me steady so I didn't drown. I did managed to get dumped in the shallows with the camera, it was extreme! And I was recording it all too! I'm sure it all looks fab!

In the middle of the day we got a large break while the special effects crew worked some magic. I slept in the beach tent. Brilliant!

When it was time to shoot again angry clouds were threatening and the whole thing had gone overcast. We moved fast and tried to make everything look the same. It was hard. Sea spray was covering everything and the lenses were misting up. But we got it all done.

Then, only 3 and a half hours behind schedule, we headed back to Sydney. We were planning on shooting again tonight, but alas the storm set in and we couldn't do it. I figured this was probably a good idea because we would have been filming on the top of a look out with a big, metal jib. I doubt the lighting rod thing, while looking cool, would have done much to advance the overall benefits of the production.

So we headed home. I came home to find the street full again and absolutly no where to park, so I took refuge at Jon and Helen's till it was safe to come home again. That was fun. Though I think we were all rather stuffed and sun burnt. They were kind to take me in in my hour of need.

I look forward to my rest tonight.

We finished the massive weekend of filming today. Lesley has summed it up pretty well. I did have fun shooting today. It was interesting how much the impending announcement impacted the day. I told Matt this morning it was coming so he could manage the day well for the few people who had just found out at the morning service and the rest of the people who were about to find out.

But apart from that it was a fun shoot. I love the jib. And I really enjoying the camera. Shooting in Chatswood last night with big lights and council permission was heaps cool. Plus we have Guy with us who knows what he's doing. We feel like we're becoming more and more pro.

So good for us. Now I'm going to sleep. And sleep well. No alarm tomorrow morning. Thank you God.

Finished filming again. Earlier than yesterday with no overtime that I know of. And I got an hour and half sleep in the middle of the day. Luxury.