3 November, 2011
When you look at the breadth of diversity of men portrayed in the Bible, you realize how misrepresented and stereotyped we are as men. In Biblical times [as is true today] some men were warriors, some were kings yet others like Daniel, were thinkers, Joseph was a dreamer. The common perception that exists around men today is that they are all muscle, force and brute strength, and although that may be true of some men - it certainly isn't true of ALL men.
This is the central idea that sparked the creative process around the Men's Conference 2012 video.
Paul Nevison and I sat over a meeting or two hashing out some ideas around how we could represent a broader spectrum of men and 'redefine' what it means to be a man around a Biblical understanding of Son-ship. It was decided that we would tell 3 different stories, of 3 uniquely different characters. A surfer - a man of physical strength, A Researcher - a man of intellectual 'strength' and a Teen realizing the consequences of his actions - a man with a strength of character.
The promo was initially going to be 60 seconds long but after a quick edit to a 60 second version of the score we realized that we needed more time to develop/resolve the stories - We decided to give enough time to the ad to tell the 'stories' - however long that needed to be [under 2 minutes though]
The promo was shot over a few mornings - for the surfer sequence, then during an hour or two one afternoon for the teenagers' sequence and finally we shot the researcher sequence late one night at my home.
I wanted to shoot some surfer sequences in the water for the final resolve but my friend Ben who played the role injured his hand in a football match and could not shoot the final sequence, so I used an abstract shot of another friend of mine, for the final resolve.
We used the artwork to help with wardrobe and art direction, there was actually a fair bit of collaboration between the TV and Communications departments to make sure that all avenues of communication 'told the story'.
See included artwork.
TECHNICALS:
Cameras: Shot on Canon 7D, and Canon 60D - Predominantly the 60D
Lenses: Sigma 30mm f1.4, Sigma 20mm f1.8, Canon 70-200mm f2.8 - 90% of it shot on the Sigma 30mm f1.4
Support: Glidecam HD1000, Upside down-use of the tripod for stabilization.
EDIT:
Final Cut Pro
COLOR:
Graded in After Effects using magic bullet and After Effects standard tools such as Hue/Saturation/Luminance controls, Exposure and Curves.
SCORE:
Ryan Taubert created the score in Cubase, I added some sound effects in Pro Tools.
The idea was to create a 120s concept version and a 60s Speaker-promo version - both serving their purpose in specific contexts. The 120s - at the end of Men's Conference 2011 and on the web and then 60s version in church news.
Salomon Ligthelm
(Hillsong TV Team)
Here are a few frame screen grabs from and the video:
For more information and to register for Men's Conference, please visit mensconference.com
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