This is not a political blog, nor do I intend to make it one. That being said, I do want to mention some news from last week that I feel will go unnoticed by most conservative, creative folks out there. The company Hobby Lobby, based in Oklahoma City, OK has come under fire for their stance against the White House’s HHS mandate (Health & Human Services). Hobby Lobby’s CEO and founder David Green is a Christian. Last week he said in a statement, "We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate”, and “With great reluctance” followed with a federal lawsuit challenging the mandate. So what is the big deal about this healthcare mandate? Part of the White House’s recent heath care law requires employers to provide coverage for the morning-after pill and similar drugs that may cause the end of a life. Green also states, “It goes against the biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million per day in government fines.” This will begin January 2013 when the insurance year starts.
As you can probably imagine, this has stirred debate about Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice, with some mentioning boycotts of Hobby Lobby. I have read some articles and comments concerning boycotts and am quite surprised at some of the viewpoints. Here is one example. I also find it disconcerting, that in the quest for Pro-Choice laws and regulations, many of these commenters don’t seem to realize that this healthcare mandate is being forced upon some U.S. citizens who do not wish to participate. Can you really justify a boycott because Hobby Lobby doesn’t want to participate in buying some of these drugs that go against their values? On a much less important note, it seems that several of the boycott comments are rather partisan, and simply showing irritation toward “selfish” conservatives. I would submit to those individuals David Green’s statement. He mentions that Hobby Lobby has been adding jobs during this weak economy, starts full-time employees 80% above minimum wage, and is closed on Sundays so workers can spend time with family. With all of these things considered, I think that Hobby Lobby would be one of the last places that U.S. citizens would wish to boycott.
The 40 year history of Hobby Lobby is a pretty amazing story, and David Green is quick to praise the Lord for the store’s success. I hope you will take the time to read his statement concerning Hobby Lobby’s actions. It’s only a few paragraphs. The links for this and other articles I have referenced are at the bottom of this post.
I never knew that Hobby Lobby was owned by a Christian until a few years back. When strolling through the aisles, I recognized the music coming from the speakers. It was classical guitarist Christopher Parkening who is a Christian. I was able to hear Parkening play in concert as well as hear his testimony when I was In college. Truly amazing music! (Parkening is a world renowned guitarist, and actually just retired this summer. Check out his website here.) Anyway, hearing a Christian artist in the store surprised me, and since then I have been a huge fan of Hobby Lobby.
So to those that are Christian creatives, I would ask that you make it a point to add Hobby Lobby to your next shopping list. Not only is it a really cool place to find art stuff, it is also a company that is run on biblical principals. To be honest, Hobby Lobby’s stance on the White House’s Health and Human Services mandate is ancillary. I will conclude with one more quote from David Green’s statement which will summarize why I am “Lobbying for Hobby Lobby”.
“We're Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I've always said that the first two goals of our business are 1) to run our business in harmony with God's laws, and 2) to focus on people more than money.” - David Green
As many of you know I love commercials. If you haven’t seen the recent Old Spice commercials, you are missing out. (See some of them here) They are 30 second mix of ridiculous, masculine scenes with tough guys in crazy scenarios. When watching them, I find myself in an awkward state of confusion and uncontrollable laughter.
The other day I stumbled upon another Old Spice advertisement, but this one was a little bit different. This one was on STEROIDS!!! It is musical, interactive and hilarious! Somehow they Old Spice folks have harnessed the power of Vimeo and created an interactive beatbox setup on a video they created. You can click the link or the picture above to check it out. When it get’s to the end Terry Crews will give you some instructions on how to play the musical sounds. HaHa! My favorite is the “Flame Sax” using letters Z, X, and C. Or “Gimme a Hat” using the left bracket key “[“
This weekend we will be having our annual Missions Conference at Victory Baptist Church in Loganville, GA. Like many of the events at Victory, we had a request for a “funny video” to use for the conference. The video below is what we came up with. We tried to make it like the DirecTV commercials where the announcer guy strings together a list of cause and effects. My favorite is the “Don’t have a grandson with a dog collar” one. (See Here)
We had some other things in the works, but they did not end up getting used. I wanted to try to make a commercial similar to the “Confidence” Cars.com commercials. (See Here) I have been playing around with my video production capabilities, and was wanting to try some chromakey or “green screen” projects. This was a good excuse to see what we could do. The basic idea for the commercial was to have a missionary on deputation, deciding whether or not to buy a car. Unfortunately, we were not able to finish putting it all together, but I thought you may enjoy seeing the rough draft. Much thanks to my pals Jason King, Chris Waye, and his son Lawson Waye. Lawson is the one who inspired this idea, because the Cars.com commercial is his favorite. Here it is below.
Also, I was working on my first motion graphic project using Apple’s Motion 5. In our print and web promotions for the 2012 Missions Conference we had a world map with arrows coming out of Georgia going to locations in the world. I made a motion graphic of this as well, to be part of an intro to the conference. After a lot of trial and error, I was pleased with the final result, check it out below.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that I have had several requests to watch the different church videos we have made over the years. From teen allnighter promos to church skits - these are hilarious. Some are on my Facebook video page, but they often won’t load or are low quality. So, I have been pondering gathering them all and putting them in a single location. If you would like to happen let me know. There are several videos, each in different locations, different formats, etc. so it would take some time to gather. But if folks want to watch them, it would be worth it to compile these. Let me know!
I recently wrote a blog about an interesting graphic I saw in an article about iPad sales. (See Here) They took a bunch of information from a survey about iPads and created a visual chart of sorts to show the results. Apparently, these guys were just jumping on the bandwagon.
Over the course of the last week or so, I have had multiple exposures to the latest design trend……. The Infographic. Yes, thats right, it’s the latest art form. haha! Text creatively mixed with visuals is nothing new to advertising, we see it everyday. However, The Infographic, blends fact nuggets with related icons or images to create something very interesting. Say you have an advertisement showing numbers and stats. This is usually considered very boring and dull, but with a little bit of creative design, viewers are captivated by what they see. Instead of dismissing this information, they are actually entertained and mesmerized. Amazing!
Since I am a sports ‘o holic, when I hear the word “Stat” or “Statistics” my mind immediately goes to sports, especially Major League Baseball. Since baseball has been around forever and the rules largely unchanged, both old and current stats are comparable. That being the case, baseball statistics are very popular and often talked about. In fact, you probably can’t watch one episode of SportsCenter without hearing some ridiculous baseball stat that only the aforementioned Stat Monkey could come up with. Heard of the the recent film Moneyball starring Brad Pitt? It was based on a true story all about statistics and how they effected the game. Also, I recently read an article during the NBA playoffs, that shared how some tech savvy coaches were using statistical heat maps to help prepare their teams defensively. (image above & Link) Images were created (similar to a Doppler Radar) to show where the apposing teams were shooting higher percentages. The coaches then could help their players defend the oppositions “Hot Spots”. Stats do lend themselves to sports, but are expanding into other interesting advertising avenues.
So, text and letters be aware! Numbers are trending in the advertising world. If you want to see some of this in action, I recently found the infographic jackpot. www.InfoGraphicWorld.com While admittedly, it was sports articles from ESPN.com that led me here, I was surprised at the variety of corporations that are using them. After looking at several of them, I realized how effective info graphics can actually be. When you get done reading a good one, you feel like you have learned something. I found myself reading an info graphic that was comparing 5 other info graphics to see which was the best - and I was enjoying it! hahah!
So what does all of this have to do with you? Im just warning you. If you are a commercial/advertising nerd (like myself) be prepared to see a lot of stats, but be prepared to like them.
Should you find yourself in the need of a good info graphic, Let me know. I kind of want to work on one now. Below are a few links to some cool ones I found.
R.A. Dickey Info Graphic - He’s the New York Mets pitcher who should have started the 2012 All-Star game tonight. Truly an amazing story. And he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for goodness sake.
The War is one of our biggest events at Victory Baptist Church, so we always try to bring our A-Game. Earlier in the year when we were planning out the event, we wanted to do some creative promo videos again this year. This was the final straw In my decision to upgrade some equipment. My current setup for video was severely lacking, especially when it came to High Definition. After much debate I took the plunge on Final Cut Pro X, which deserves a whole blog article in its own right. I also upgraded my Canon DSLR to a T2i so I could get some HD video. And so the War at Victory 2012 Commercials began.
We released the first Commercial, “Gone Fishin”, two weeks before the event started on May 10th, as well as a movie trailer with a few clips from last year. A week later Commercial 2 , “The Basement”, followed and finally Commercial 3, “It’s Here”, on the morning of the event. As I mentioned in the Part 1 blog they were a success, they have been viewed over 1,000 times. Surprisingly, the Gone Fishin ad seemed to get the most response from people. It was funny because I really struggled a lot with that one. It all made sense when I was sketching out a script and shooting the video. But when I started editing it, it didn’t seem to make sense anymore. A guy goes fishing and some stranger pops out of the water, now what does that have to do with the War? After a lot of time and Mountain Dew it all seemed to work out. These seem to be the solution for many a creative problem, hahah!
A ton of thanks goes out to folks who helped out with the commercials, especially Dallas Brown and John Higgins. They did a great job and I am sure that their acting careers will continue to blossom.
Next, was the event videos themselves. This is my number one job during the War. I’ve got to get as many good video clips on the website as quick as possible. The goal is to have these video clips up for the kids to view as soon as each night finishes up. Then by the next morning, I try to have an edited highlight video finished. This is not an easy task, and fortunately I was able to get one of my best pals to help me this year. A huge thanks to Chris Waye. He got tons of great video, mastered the Youtube upload, and put up with me yelling at him every night. His assistance allowed me to concentrate on the slideshows and website updates, and it wouldn’t have been possible without him. Chris, since I can’t pay you, here is a shameless plug - Go to this website for the Waye Family - Missionaries to the British Isles - and assist them financially or prayerfully.
I also want to thank Tyler Payne for being my go to GoPro guy. I was able to get my hands on the new Hero2 from GoPro and got some awesome action shots. Adding the GoPro camera to the mix made the highlight videos a lot more entertaining. With all of the media that we got, it was difficult to choose which shots and clips to use. Really, that’s not a bad problem to have.
Finally, I wanted to give a shoutout to my uncle, J Hardee of Hardee Imaginations Photography. He and his photo assistants are also running around like crazy during the event, trying to get that perfect picture. I didn’t think he could outdo the pictures from the War event from last year, but he just might have done it! He took a ton of pics and you can see them on his website Here.
The War at Victory is really a giant undertaking. There are long hours spent in preparation, presentation, and post War cleanup. It took me over a week to recover. Wow! I can’t wait til next year!
Stay up to date with The War at Victory or check out the 2012 highlights at our site www.thewaratvictory.com
It is hard to believe but The War at Victory 2012 has been over for almost a week. Actually, I am still in the recovery process, haha! The War this year was an obvious success because there were lives changed and challenged just like every other year. But from a design and media standpoint I want the War to succeed as well. There is a lot of work put in and I want the event to look good. There was so much that went on I wanted to share, that I decided to break it up into 2 blog posts. In the first I will talk about the website, and then the video in the second. If you are unfamiliar with The War at Victory, my last blog HERE will fill you in, or visit the site HERE.
The plan for the website used for the war is very simple. We get tons of video and pics during the event, and we want to make as much as we can available online as soon as possible. It also serves as a great reference point for the teams scores, information, and special online challenges. Last year, I built a basic setup for the event with a gallery for pics and vids and a homepage which showed the score. This year I wanted to really incorporate the “Scoreboard” and make it look real. Considering I am a web design Novice! Let me put it simply, the 2012 War at Victory website is probably one of the coolest thing that I have ever been able to design!
After watching SportsCenter and Google searching baseball stadiums I decided to try and create the look of a digital scoreboard. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find what I was looking for so I tried sketching out some ideas. I put together a regular rectangular display frame with images inside. Then I incorporated a bunch of dots to overlay the images and give sort of a LED display feel to the viewer. Once I built and previewed a slideshow to be used on the website homepage, I knew I was headed in the right direction.
I continued to play around with the LED look and used the same effect to add a large Victory Baptist Church sign hovering over the scoreboard display. Now, the scoreboard really looked like something you would see in a stadium.
Eventually I decided to try to incorporate the lights effect on the website menu as well. I was really happy the way it all turned out.
That being said, a website that no one visits is worthless no matter how cool it looks. This year I was able to keep track of some traffic statistics for the site and the numbers were very encouraging. We averaged a little over 100 teenagers at the event each night. Over the course of the 3 Day event the website saw about 400 visits, with around 1000 page views! Considering the updated content was only on 2 pages, the Home page and Gallery page, I think those numbers were very good. Not only did we get visitors to browse, but we got them to come back again and again
The numbers on the War videos that we did were even more staggering. I will talk more about these in my next post, but here are the numbers as of today. You can check them out on the site HERE.
The War at Victory 2012 Promotional Commercials (4 of them): 1,001 views
One of the sites that I often check, Dealnews.com, had an article about tablets that was very interesting. They did a poll on those who were thinking of buying a new tablet, and had a lot of questions about the “new” iPad. What’s cool is they used a little creative design to make this way more visual than your typical survey. Way to go guys, this is what I call a survey!
Got some new software recently, just trying it out. This is a quick intro I made with one of the preloaded templates from Motion 5 and some effects from Final Cut Pro X. You can get a free one month trial for both of these at the App Store. So, even if you don’t really need the software, but want to create a few videos or intros like this for a project or website, it’s worth tryin’ out. The great thing is, this only took me a few minutes to do. I may put some more stuff up once I learn a little bit more about these programs.
Every year about this time I remind myself that Preseason NFL football is meaningless. I mean goodness, just last year was the perfect example. The San Francisco 49ers were 4-0 in the Preseason. They would end the Regular Season with one of the worst records in the NFC at 6-10.
“And to my only son Chauncey I bequeath my Direct TV......”
I am not here to bore you to death with sports statistics (though if you stay tuned I will give you some interesting numbers at the end)***. The NFL and its multibillion dollar majesty will bring out the very best advertising that everyone has to offer. You see all the corporate bigwigs know that people watch the NFL, and therefore people watch commercials during the NFL. So I guess Im trying to get everyone excited that the 2011 “OFFICIAL COMMERCIAL SEASON” is just around the corner.
I don’t know about you but I just love commercials! Wait.....let me take that back. I love gooooood commercials - yeah! And i get really stressed out when I see bad commercials. Like just the other day I saw a commercial with an indy car and a base jumper. It made no sense whatsoever! I began to rant about how awful the commercial was, and I couldn’t stop until I had convinced my roommate to agree. Anyways, back to happy thoughts.
With the new “OFFICIAL COMMERCIAL SEASON” just around the corner I thought I would share some of my favs so far this year. I know I will forget a few, but had to compile a 2011 Fav’s list recently to share with a friend. So here is what I’ve got so far. Please let me know what you think about these, and send some links to your favorites. I do love a good commercial!
FUNNIEST:
DIRECTV - The Will (featuring Chauncey......hilarious facial expression. I love it. Chauncey is not the only star of the latest set of Direct TV commercials. There are several "characters" that spin the benefits of using Direct TV - The Whale, The Truth, Russian Guy. If you get really bored, they are all worth watching. )
MOST CREATIVE:
Fox Sports South - BP with Chipper (I know im a Braves homer, but this is a really good commercial, especially since its a regional one. These regional commercials are usually really bad trust me! I also give kudos, because this was really cheap and easy to put together. Two words that “the network” managers love to hear. Im pretty sure this was done in about 5 minutes at spring training this year. Plus it cleverly show’s Chipper’s favorite hobby to Braves fans)
MOST PROFITABLE:
Burger King - The New Whopper (Finally a good quality fast food commercial. Im amazed at how many big corporations waste tons of money on bad advertising. Burger King went from slightly humorous “tiny hands” and “creepy King” commercials to HD footage of their Whopper that will make your mouth water. I actually want one right now!)
***Interesting NFL facts for sports nerds:
•2011 Chicago Bears went winless in all 4 games in the Preseason - yet they would finish with one of the best records in the NFC 11-5 (only trailing my beloved Falcons which choked after a 13-3 season, uggghhh!)
•2009 NFL revenue was a wopping $7.6 Billion dollars!
•2010 revenue has not been released yet, but are estimated to be over $8 Billion!
•Of the 32 NFL teams, the Dallas Cowboys are worth the most at $1.65 Billion
•I don’t know if you have heard, but they built a new $1.15 Billion dollar stadium last year.
•The bottom of the list is Oakland ($797 Million), Minnesota, and my beloved Atlanta Falcons. Probably because of their ties to the Georgia Dome.
•According to Reuters, the 2011 Super Bowl commercials will cost around $3 Million dollars for a 30 second spot
In Georgia, there is a staple every Fourth of July in Atlanta called the Peachtree Road Race. It’s a 10K race that has become the largest in the world even with a capped registration of 60,000. There are thousands more workers and spectators that also come each year. This is a huge economic boost for the city and brings in millions and millions of dollars in revenue. The race started in 1970 and its history over the years is very interesting. (Check it out here: http://www.peachtreeroadrace.org/press-center/history ) One of the things that captures the most attention each year is the official Peachtree Road Race T-Shirt. The main sponsor of the race is Atlanta Journal Constitution. Starting in 1995 they began to have a design contest for the shirt that was conducted through the newspaper. There is always a lot of intrigue with this. The design is revealed on raceday, when finishers of the race cross the line and recieve their goodie bags which includes the T Shirt. I have really only kept up with it for the past few years, but it is always interesting. They probably get hundreds of submissions, and then they narrow it down to a few. I know the past few years the AJC has put up a poll on their website to see which design is the most popular. Here is this years winning design - and a link to the 5 finalists: http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/sports/peachtree-road-race/2011-ajcpeachtree-shirts/
Anyway, now to the point of this blog post, hahah! I don’t know about you, but I love to read the comments on websites. There is no better place to find quality quips and one-liners than on these comment boards. For the past few years, it never fails that the days following the race there are tons of negative comments concerning the T Shirt design. I must admit, that I don’t really care for most of the design finalist, or the winning designs, but they are not terrible. Well, just a few days ago, I read a very good comment from someone that was obviously tired of the annual T shirt bashing. They suggested that all the “haters” are just jealous and instead of whining, they should send in their own designs. I thought that was a great idea, in fact I decided that I would work on a Peachtree T Shirt design myself. Below is a picture of what I came up with. It’s probably not “artsy” enough for the judges, but I tend to like things simple and sweet. What do you think? Maybe I will submit it next year. Who knows maybe I could be the one with 60,000 people hatin’ on my T shirt design. hahaha!
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