What do you do to stimulate your creativity as a video director or producer in your worship video projects? If you’re like me, there’s often not enough time in the day to get the regular work completed on time let alone take time to stimulate our creativity. As a result, the work we produce can tend to get boring and repetitive. We use the same type of shots, graphics (if you’re an editor), camera angles, etc., and we get the picture. So, how do we overcome this? How do we keep the videos we produce, including IMAG, keep from getting stale over time?
Here are some of the things I’ve done (and need to do again) to keep the worship videos and live IMAG production interesting, exciting and less boring. Most of these you can do in your down times, so here goes:
1. Watch concerts on TV. If you direct or produce your service video production or IMAG, watching live concerts on TV can give you great ideas for camera placement, camera movement, editing/switching, composition, and shot selection. Warning: they will also make you wish you had new expensive gear like camera jibs, and flying cameras on cable rigs.
2. Read industry magazines. This goes without saying, but taking the time each week to read up on current trends can help stimulate creative ideas. There are a ton of them out there, too many to mention here. Email me for a list that I read.
3. Learn from the big boys! Rent DVDs and watch the behind the scenes footage and the director’s comments. These have proven to be invaluable to me in generating ideas. I love renting movies from a favorite director and only watching the behind the scenes or director’s comments.
4. Read Fast Company Magazine. Ok, it’s not a video production magazine, but its full of creative copy and design, plus they interview some of the best and most creative people on the planet! Reading a publication outside of your primary industry can and will stimulate creative ideas. Disclaimer: Fast Company is NOT a “Christian” magazine, and will occasionally have language that’s rated R.
5. Produce something just for fun. Earlier this year I traveled to Arizona on a video shoot for a client. While I was there, I decided to produce a music video with my brother using only my HD Flip camera. We had so much fun shooting video all over Phoenix and creating something completely original. This experience really got me out of the box and helped to refresh my desire to be more creative in my day to day work. It won’t win any awards, but we had fun! And that was the point. If you want to see our finished product, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmYynxuwSK4
Staying creative is a must for everyone in worship ministry video production. Taking time to stimulate our creative juices will result in better, more creative projects and will help take the “work” out of work.
Cheers,
Conrad
