It’s safe to say that I make videos for ministry. On average, I make two. Generally I make the “bumper video” that comes just before the sermon and then there is a wild card project that comes up for one of the other things we are doing at Romeo. I’ve made videos for our kids ministry, student ministry, church services, marriage ministry, websites, on and on.
So how do we do it?
- It starts with the end result in mind. We ask the question: “What does this video need to communicate?” before we think of the ideas that go into it.
- We brainstorm the concept. Will it be funny? Will it be dramatic? Will it be shocking? Will it be thought provoking?
- We decide how much time its worth. Several months ago I spent 5 hours on a video that was less than 1 minute long and we used 1 time. It was awesome… but it wasn’t worth the time. So now we spend time time deciding the importance of the video. I spent 30+ hours on a video a couple months back and it was totally worth it.
- We filter ideas based on time… including edit time.
- We sketch out the videos time line. This is fluid when we go to actually shooting the video, but at this point it helps to do a sketch to determine stuff for the rest of the steps.
- We agree on a time to shoot the video. Getting this scheduled is important so that it doesn’t happen the day before we need it!
- I map out what I’ll need for the shoot. Video and sound equipment, people, props, permission, stuff like that.
- We shoot the video. Once we get on site or set up… the video tends to change a lot. But agreeing on what to communicate and the sketch of the shoot ahead of time is pretty huge.
- I edit the movie. The big decision is… to use iMovie or Adobe Premiere? That depends entirely on the type of video we’re creating. Most bumper videos are simple so I do them in iMovie. If I need a video with effects and layers and a lot of those details really matter… Premiere it is.
- I publish the movie. 9 out of 10 times I publish it to YouTube so I can show it to a couple of people before making the final version for use in our ministry.
- I premier it. There is nothing quite as exciting as an audience seeing your idea on the big screen for the first time.
For those who do video in their ministry, how do you do it differently?
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