jonnybaker

a letter from god to man

i was reminded of scroobius pip and dan le sac's letter from god to man yesterday. joel posted the text to it on the lent blog after we saw them. anyway it was featured in home's nine celebration this year and matt sent me a link to the youtube video of it... and you can listen to it on their myspace page

i have decided to add this as worship trick 22 in the third series...

advent movies from jacobs well - worship trick 21

i picked up this link via steve taylor's blog...

andy michael made three movies for advent last year for jacob's well community in kansas and they are really good quality (the kind of thing we could easily put on proost) and free to download. i think the first is my favourite. i am currently reading tim keel's book intuitive leadership. i've met tim a few times on visits to the US so. he is also at that community so that was a neat connection. i'll blog about the book when i finish it or when i get time!

on the subject of movies, bob carlton sent me a link to this quirky wonderful video vittorio cosma - passo - dopo passo . the blog that this is from no fat clips looks jam packed with stuff if movies is your thing. if you find any good ones if you have time to trawl through let me know in the comments.

[note: all these movies are fairly large]

nywc video loops free - worship trick 20

i noticed via marko that youth specialties have made available the videos they used at the nywc for free download. it includes a family tree from adam to jesus that may come in handy for advent, a 360 panoramic loop of london in the day shot from the top of st pauls cathedral i assume, and some amusing church signs... i am adding them as a worship trick as i am sure they'll be useful in worship at some point!...

animoto movie maker

josh lyon sent me a link to animoto, which will take photos and music and create a neat movie for you. however the free movies are just 30sec long. here's one i made earler! if i were to use this and pay for it which is conceivable here's what i'd want...

a) variety in the transitions etc in the movies so they don't look too routinised too quickly.
b) the ability to download my movie in a decent resolution so that i could show it in a presentation (i.e. at least 640x480). it looks like this feature may be coming.

a neat idea with lots of potential...

cms in free fall

at the official opening of cms house today i was asked to lead an audio visual meditation on the hinge point in the service between looking back and celebrating cms past and looking forward to the future and the changes ahead. a few people have asked where the video etc was from so i am posting it here so i can point people to it...

the video was dayvan cowboy by boards of canada which i did make a worship trick a while back. you can download it from warprecords free or get the dvd free with the EP that you can order from the same page. the text of the piece was as follows. i read it such that the line about looking into the future is before the parachutist comes through the clouds, and the baptised line fitted with him falling into the ocean...

god crossed a border, a boundary
left his world to go on a journey into ours

the word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood
dwelt among us

we stand in a long line of ancestors
of pioneers
of risk takers
of improvisers
of those who dared to take the adventure
of following christ
to leave their known world
step off its edge
free falling with god
crossing borders
into unknown futures
and new worlds
to share the story of christ
and plant the seed of the gospel

as the father sent me so i am sending you

the story has been passed to us because of those
who dared,
who risked,
who dreamed
who followed,
who improvised

now we stand looking out into the future

will you dare?
will you dream?
will you risk?
will you follow?
will you leave your known world?
will you freefall with god?
will you join christ in the adventure?
will you be baptised into god's mission?
will you rise to surf with god into the future?
will you trust the spirit?

far we have come far must we go
here we are send us

amusing video clips

at ReSource at the weekend simon hall showed a few very funny video clips to keep us amused during his teaching session...

my favourite was one in which hank in king of the hill was disillusioned with his church and looking for a new one.

hill$ong was also pretty amusing

toilet humour

ok i'm not normally one for youtube videos on my blog - i think i've said before that i think they look a mess... but this is rather ridiculous - japanese toilet humour

proost relaunch this saturday

burn my shadow

what would you do if you had 3 minutes to live?

burn my shadow video by UNKLE - download (qt - 33mb) or youtube (ht darren wright)

and these look pretty (ht adam)

user generated news

mark waddington starts a new job directing yorkshire itv and posts about news 2.0 - seems like the values of web 2.0 are set to influence the making of news - user generated content, self publishing, architecture of participation and all that... if you are in yorkshire and want to make films contact mark.

on the subject of all things 2.0, nic reflects on visual engineering in graphic design...

web 2.0 youtube video

dave sent me a link to a neat youtube video on web 2.0 - sounds dull i agree but it has proved very popular...

on the subject of videos vodpod seems a rather neat way of keeping track of videos you discover and want to remember where they are. it also puts a pretty neat sidebar widget on your web site/blog. i first spotted this in the sidebar of new blogger john watson.

new onedotzero dvd

there's a new onedotzero dvd out - (ht jem)

if you are on the lookout for motion graphics, animation, creative music videos onedotzero seems to collect a great combination. i always find something that i end up using at grace in some way - such as the incredible we have decided not to die. this is the fifth in the series

i also followed this link from jem and came across a very quirky animation grand content

[update: mine has now arrived and whilst there are a couple of good pieces, there are also a couple of pretty unsavoury pieces too and nothing useable for grace so a bit disappointing...]

the Irack

the Irack [ht dave]

flea circus

i have used the playstation flea circus advert many times as a parable for church and change. a few people have been asking where they can get it. i found it on youtube here -

flea circus

jon's drawing below reminded me of it...

freewheel

freewheel music video by duke special is beautiful - put together by sparks

revver

revver looks like a pretty neat new video sharing company. the neat thing being that they split revenue from advertising 50/50 with you. could be good - thanks andrew for the tip.

one bank

bob carlton links to the scariest video i have watched in some time. two employees of the bank of america performing a rewrite of U2's one with immortal lines such as 'we'll make lots of money... one bank'...

bill viola new exhibition

bill viola is back in london with love/death: the tristan project. it runs across two gallery spaces - haunch of venison and st olaves college. i have been to the half at haunch of venison - hoping to visit the other half soon. bill viola is one of my favourite artists. his work is in video and is always very thought provoking and often has spiritual themes - angels of the new millenium, triptych, the messenger, passions and so on.

the current work is ten new pieces.

two pieces in particular really grabbed me. one was passage into night which is a slowed down video that lasts about 50 minutes of a person walking towards the camera. the figure gradually gets closer filling the screen until all that remains on the screen is the black robes with small movements. an increibly simple idea but stunning.

the other is purification. on two large screens a woman and man go through seven stages of ritual purification. again this lasts about 50 minutes. it's very slow but utterly compelling. harry and i couldn't move on - we ended up watching the whole sequence. the sequences of cleansing and washing are very moving. i found myself praying and asking for cleansing myself. it also made me wonder if we should have more ritual related to confession in our worship. it's hard to describe just how powerful it was to sit and watch this video piece. you simply must go and visit if you are in london. it's free and running until september 2. i took a few pictures of these two pieces and have added them to flickr.

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bill viola has an exhibition in london this summer

well sptted ian - bill viola has a new exhibition in london this summer

Technorati Tags: bill viola

bbc comedy bungle!

fantastic bbc comedy blunder