Pete Bishop

On people and movies and connecting and such...

Haven't blogged in a while because... there is a lot of noise out there and I haven't felt like adding to it. And twitter has been a much easier way to communicate and connect. This might be helpful to someone though.

I am not a "people" person. It is very difficult for me to get to know people and be around people in general. Once I do get to know them I'm fine but prior to that it makes me very uncomfortable to be around them.... like panic attack uncomfortable. So building community for me has never been easy. It's one of the reason I like the web. I can communicate when and how I want and stand at a distance and watch.

A couple weeks ago at a team leader meeting we were challenged to  continued to build community.. which again I think can be an "oxymoron" for tech folks...but.....

Here are the steps that I am currently taking to build community in the context of our technology teams at Crossroads.

More presence on web: I think I'm going to ramp back up my blogging. If nothing else it will be good for me to work out all the banging in my head. I'm going to begin to encourage the team to connect through Twitter and facebook. Training will begin in the fall. If your on the Amplify team and not on twitter or facebook go sign up now :)

Monthly team newsletter: I'm going to start back up a monthly team newsletter. One Page. Short. Info and training links. ( I did this a couple years ago, but didn't have good infrastructure in place to keep it going, now I do)( This Months is Attached to this post) Download august_monthly.pdf

Couple big get togethers a year: August 31 will be our first one. All Team Party blow outs. 1-2X a year.

Monthly Movie nights: We are lucky/blessed enough to have a guy on our team who has  a full blown movie theater in his basement. He has agreed to open it up to the team once a month to just hang out in a small group atmosphere and watch a movie. Starts in September

Song Writing Nights: Once a month the arts team (which is connected to our tech team) is going to be doing songwriting nights, to create community, to build our original songwriting repertoire and to be used as training for recording and producing.

Field Trips.  Field trips used to be a big thing on our team a couple years ago. There coming back. In the past we have gone to concerts, museums, stores, other churches, etc.

What ideas do you have to build community or what works for you?

Iphone Update and apps

So I updated my Iphone to 2.0. Currently My favorite apps in no particular order.

YouVersion - (free) LifeTV's online bible rocks.

Omnifocus.-  ($19.99) Iphone version of my desktop GTD. Syncs over mobile. In-Cred-a-bull!! This is actually the biggest reason I was excited about 2.0. I have tried almost all the GTD's and Omnifocus is by far my favorite.

Pandora - (free) internet radio with music I can actually listen to..( because I choose it) over the edge network.. wow...

Twitterific -  (free) Makes twitter better than it is.

Evernote - (free) Again Iphone version of the online. really well done.

Remote - (free) Controls my itunes and mac from my iphone.

Boo Yaa

So I'm walking down the hall today at church today and there is a super rock star looking couple in front of me. ( maybe about 20 years old or so)

Rock Star Guys Phone Rings.

Hello

Hey yea.... no we're at Church....

pause.... yea I said Church....

pause.... no I'm not kidding... I said Church...

Yea....  I know I've never been to church...... pause.....we'll we are going  because I found one we can sit though and we fit here..

Pause.... Its called Crossroads or something.....

That rocks!!!!

Gerry

This is Gerry. For the last year he has been interning for me, learning the art of audio production and how to work in a recording studio. 2nd semester he recorded a demo project for these guys. It came out well.  Gerry has natural skills in audio and could do well pursuing a career if he chooses to. He has been a blast to hang out with because everything is exciting to him, he's not afraid to try anything and he is brutally honest. If it sucks he tells you and if its great he says so to. Thanks G, for a great year.

Sweetwater Gear Fest

Last Saturday I took a bunch of our Audio Guys to Sweetwaters Gear Fest. It was really cool time. Back in the day the studio I used to be a partner in was  one of Chuck Surracks first clients, so I got the opportunity to know him and some of his staff really well. This was back when Sweetwater was in Chucks living room. It was sweet to see what they have built.

Got to see and say hi to Chet Chambers, Sweetwaters in house production guru. I got to work on a couple projects with him back in the 90's. Chet is the man if your looking for a producer.

Ran into church consultant and good buddy Anthony Coppedge. (that was a treat!).

My Salesman Dave Hess is always the gracious host!  

Free 2 Play

What a whirl wind-world tour week for the video crew. Yesterday was Free 2 Play. An initiave to change the way kids look at themselves, their athleticism and the way they give back to others. 1200 plus local school kids gathered at Adrian College's football field to to demonstrate what they have learned about their bodies and physical function and to learn how to give back. It was really cool. Our video crew  was asked to come and be one of the crew's to capture the day. There was 3 local crews their. All kinds of crazy stuff happened.

• Kyle took his first plane ride
• Jay got to fly the plane
• We all got to shoot in HD (1080i) on JVC cameras
• We shot 5 hours of footage and well over 500 stills

The footage will be used for local and national marketing of Free 2 Play.

The best part of the day was at the end when a man who runs an organization that frees kids in Thailand from sexual slavery came in and told the kids how the money they had raised had freed a little girl yesterday from slavery and because of that she was free 2 play like they were.
ABC news just picked up the Free 2 Play story.

Chi Town

So The Final Cut Tour was cool. The best part. It was FREE! ( outside of  time, gas and parking). We learned a lot. I feel like Jay and I are pretty knowledgeable when it comes to FCP,( and Scott and Zach are no slouches) and we spent 5 hours looking at work flows that the pros (in the film studio world) use going... " We need to be doing that"...." I didn't know you could do that." If you get a chance go. Now I need to figure out how and when we can incorporate the new Final Cut Server. It looks very interesting in terms of what it does with asset management and work flow. Especially with so many off site editors and producers.

Final Cut World Tour

Off to the windy city today with Jay, Scott Champion and Zach G to attend the Final Cut World Tour. Should be fun for all.

Standing On Your Leaders

This is Annette. She leads our stage design team. Her Husband Matt is our head lighting designer. They Rock. It's been really sweet watching their artistry grow  and their team gel over the last few years as they navigate the realities of portable church production.They always do a great job but since Christmas of this past year , Annette's team, along with Matt have been knocking it out of the park. We have a couple interesting limitations at Crossroads in the time we are in right now that make stage design interesting.

• Due to the economy right now our budget dollars are limited ( as our everyones) which translates to if you can do it for free do it.
• We have very little time to setup. (Saturday nights we get anywhere from 3-6 hours)
• Everything has to be portable.
• We have no real storage to speak of.

The cool thing is no one ever complains. They just figure out how to create an atmosphere and they go for it. It takes Annette's team apx 30 hours on design and build/production weeks to pull off a stage and about half that on maintenance week.

For this series they used a combination of gobo breakups/projections and small trees with hand drawn generational signs.

Next time you se Annette, someone on her team or Matt say thanks. 

Why Interns Die Yount Pt 2

Pt one here. Yup thats right. 1/4 burger with double bacon, cheese and chili fries. Poor Kyle is never going to see 30!