Gordon Dickinson / 79 posts / 7 comments / feed / comments feed

OK… Go!

If you’re one of the few people who haven’t seen it, check out the video for OK Go’s song “This Too Shall Pass” (actually, it’s a second video for the song.  The first video for This Too Shall Pass was also cool, but in a different way).  An incredible blend of creativity, art, science and obviously a pile of planning!

This page has the OK Go video as well as videos of other Rube Goldberg machines.

An article about the making of the OK Go video.


Anchor & Twist to communicate innovation

In a short 2-3 minute video Dan Heath describes a simple method communicate innovation: anchor & twist.  Anchor the idea with something familiar, then twist to convey what makes it unique.  For example, the first car was introduced as a horseless carriage… horseless (twist) + carriage (anchor).


Worship Lighting Colours

Here’s a clip from an interesting blog entry on lighting colours used in worship, from visualworship.com:

My take on worship lighting colors; and what mood they portray:

Red - Communion, death, blood, sacred, sadness.  Good Friday service.

Blue - calm, peace, serenity.  Typical for sky or night…

Amber/CTO - candle, warm, intimacy.  Lots of response songs.

Yellow - happy, joy, loud.   Easter service.

Purple/Magenta - royalty, majestic, color of Advent.  (Dark purple - Lent)

White - cleansed.  I like to pair red with pure white to communicate how we have been cleansed by the blood of Christ during certain worship elements.


I don’t use Green in worship.  To me, it comes across as weird, alien, money, and not fitting in worship songs necessarily.  If I’m doing green nature imagery, I go with amber lighting.


5 Creativity Equations

Here’s something interesting to ponder… Mark Batterson blogged about leading out of right-brained imagination:

  1. 1% Change = 99% Difference
  2. 1 God Idea > 1000 good ideas
  3. Change of pace + change of place = change of perspective
  4. More Mistakes = More Innovation
  5. 90% of Creativity = AM Hours

The Making of Hillsong Church News

This is an amazing behind-the-scenes look at the making of Hillsong’s “Church News”.  It’s quite instructional in nature, especially the second part.

I always love seeing how other people and organizations approach the production process.  It can be tempting to think incredible video results are only possible with the expensive equipment and top-notch gear, but I keep hearing again and again that it really is the basics that go a long way towards the goal:

  • Good, clear understanding of the story, message or intent is the foundation that money can’t buy, only build on.
  • Clean audio, no distortion and minimal or no background noise.  In these clips Nick Khoo even asserts that great audio is even more powerful than (and therefore more important than) good video.
  • Know where you need to spend the most time to get the most payoff
  • Clear and composed pictures, not under or overexposed
  • Patience and good organization throughout the process
  • Emphasize clear communication and good relationships with technical team members
  • Plan ahead, make the deadline

Those are things we all can do.

As is summed up in the last bit of part 3:

  • Creative vision
  • Good communication
  • Using the resources at your disposal
  • Being diligent with those resources
  • Working as a team, and valuing capacity and contribution of everyone on the team