It isn’t everyday that someone asks you….

“Hey, what is it going to take to get you to come out to Iraq this summer?”

But that’s exactly what Jeremy Courtney asked me back in December.

Prayer. Thoughts. Discussions. Deciding not to participate in dear friends’ wedding (love you Greg and Keely!). Ten minutes of awkward silence after bringing it up with my mom.
And now…

I’m going to Iraq this summer because thousands of kids are dying of congenital heart disease.

The Preemptive Love Coalition (a link you should MOST DEFINITELY click on and explore) is a non-profit organization in Iraq seeking to remedy the problem. I could try my own explanation, but this does it much better than I ever could:

I’ll be an intern with PLC, living in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq for two and a half months this summer.
My primary role will be shooting and editing video alongside working on the website.

[Click the maps to enlarge]

So let me back up and explain what has happened since the conversation with Jeremy, which hopefully will give you a better understanding of why I’m going.

I called my dad, told him about the opportunity and his response was something along the lines of, “Son, I’ve been praying for something like this since before you were born.” In another words: “Here, let me hand you confirmation number one.” He advised me (wisely I might add) to not bring it up with my mom before I was a little further down the road with the PLC. I met with Jeremy again in Waco on the morning after my last final in December, and then drove home five hours to Piedmont, Oklahoma with a lot to pray through and think about. The next day, I went to lunch with my parents and brought it up with my mom. Now before I go any further, let me defend my mother’s response with a simple phrase: “She’s my MOM.” So after I explained to her what was going on, she was awfully quiet for a few minutes. And rightfully so. Her words finally were, “I want you where God wants you.” And that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I was able to tell Jeremy that I was definitely up for applying two days after Christmas and he asked that I fill out all of the internship paperwork so they could make sure this was a good deal for them. And now, by the grace of God, I am going to be headed to Iraq this summer with the Preemptive Love Coalition!

There’s obviously a lot more to this story than I gave you in this summation, and there is tons more waiting to happen as I prepare to head to Iraq.

I would like to ask that you A) Pray pray and pray, B) Sign up below to receive emails from me and C) Follow this blog (bookmark, google reader, etc.).

You can sign up below to get emails, or you can email me saying you would like to be added (ted@tedvid.com) and you can even comment below, tweet me, facebook me.. etc. I’ll make sure you get on the list!

Finally, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read through this and thank you for your support. I’m so thankful to have an awesome supportive family behind me (Mom, Dad, Caleb, Tori – that’s you guys), and it’s also nice to know there is an even bigger community than that supporting me in numerous ways.

To donate please go to preemptivelove.org/Ted

To God be the glory, great things he hath done;
So loved He the world that He gave us His son;
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin;
And opened the life gate that all may go in.

“…for the subversion of terrorism by love,”

Ted

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Above is a video I put together for our Prayer Awakening weekend at FWCM. The theme was “Psalms of Ascent” which is a name given to Psalms 120-134. I also did the artwork for it as well which you can check out below.

I actually started work on a very different style of video and after getting about halfway through decided to scrap it and start over. I much prefer what resulted….

The video needed to be subdued so that people could absorb and meditate on it (the scripture in the video, not the video itself obviously) as it was being watched. It also needed to capture in some manner what is happening in the scripture. I made use of the repeated “LORD” and built the mountains around it to play with the figure-ground relationship. Also, it’s just a voice over in the clip, but there was some synth over the top of it live. Both have unique feels. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Let me know what you think of our new intro.

Ted

Skip to the third paragraph if typography bores you

Now for the life-type connection

Ted

It has mainly been motion graphics work so far, but there is some other video-related stuff that I’ve been working on for them as well. Hopefully this summer we will begin doing some really cool stuff merging Vlogs, Tutorials, and Community Building. They’re based out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and so since I’m in Waco, Texas it’s hard to help with any of their in-house videos and live shows for now, but it’s a great company that you should definitely take a look at! Anyway, I’m happy to be able to work with them and here are two of the promotional videos I have created so far for their Builder Theme (This is the Theme I have for my site) and Flexx Theme.

No. Don’t read this yet. Watch the video above first.

Alright now that you’ve gotten that out of the way:

I mentioned on Twitter the other day that I’ve noticed a recent trend in video/film in the emphasis of ordinary sounds – taking normal, minute sounds and making them the most audible parts of the clip.  Now I may be wrong, but I honestly think this is partly due to the way we currently like to participate in media. We expect response when we engage and so when we see visuals of earthy things, we expect an overly earthy response (such as the beginning of the video above) and we are able to attain this if the sound matches the engagement.

The film I noticed it in most recently was Shutter Island, which I saw over the weekend. Martin Scorsese used a very intricate interaction between imagery and sound in the direction of this film. Robert Richardson also did an absolutely incredible job with the cinematography as his images made the emphasized sound relative.

Anyway, I’m interested in trying this in the next short I make. What I’m going to make – don’t ask me yet.

Believe it or not, Youtube’s search engine is much easier to “play” than the super complex Google algorithm. Here is my ordered top five list for the most important parts of your video in optimizing for youtube search:

1) Title – Your video’s title is incredibly important. Not only does a title often score (or lose) you a view, but it also is the biggest factor in determining keywords for the youtube search engine to pick up on. Be very keyword heavy and don’t feel as if a lengthy or awkward title name is always bad. Something like “How to throw a football – The Process Step by Step” may be long, but it is dang effective in encompassing key words.

2) Inbound Links – Have you embedded your video on your personal site or blog? Have you shared it on social networks? Are others sharing it as well? This is important to the algorithm because it is a huge factor in determining if the video has good and worthwhile content.

3) Description – Your description should be thorough. Should it be line for line what was said in the video? No. But! It should be a very good keyword based summary of what happens in the video. There is no point in being misleading either.

4) Views – Yes, unfortunately for those who are just starting, not only does the number of views on the video you have uploaded matter, but also the number of views your channel and other videos you have uploaded have. This is sort of the community impact factor of the search. It helps answer Youtube’s question, “are you actively involved in the Youtube community?” This really makes a lot of sense – especially for Youtube (well Google since they own it) – including this as a factor encourages us Youtubers to frequent the site.

5) Tags – The tags are third on the list of text based Youtube SEO (ranking behind the title and description) because these are what I like to all “catch all” key words. Most often this is where I include my name, my website’s name, the city I shot it in, and/or some other random things people might search if they can’t remember what the video was called.

There are other factors and all of the above can be further explored, but this is a general list to get you started.

Never forget that if your video has good content, it will get found and viewed, but you could do yourself a huge favor if you just do a little consideration of the above!

- Ted

As I’ve watched clip after clip of his comedy remaining relevant to this day, and after being frequently amazed by his ability to set up comedy, I’ve begun to really appreciate what Chaplin contributed to film development. I’ve also begun to appreciate the liberties he took within the creative process. He was producing movies in a time when people were still acclimating to shot sequences with multiple edits rather than just one shot takes, but managed to create complex humor based off of complex editing that controls what the audience is viewing and understanding. It’s incredible to me that his ingenuity and creative ability propelled him into his now American icon status (even though he is British). Charlie Chaplin new that moving pictures moved people.

Maybe not quite on the same scale as Chaplin (haha), but hopefully I can do the same at one point or another.

Here is a Desktop Wallpaper that I created, feel free to download it if you would like: click here to download (1680×1050)

The more I find myself browsing through the increasingly infinite web, the less I feel I can come up with something unique.

Or, I should say I thought this.

I was wrong. This beautifully done video turned that idea on it’s head and then some. Is the video entirely original? No. Is the animation the best there is? No. The world has already been created (everything from ideas and thoughts to trees and oceans) so creativity is rarely (if ever) in developing an entirely new concept, but rather in finding a way to contrive something new out of the old. Those who can make what already exists relevant are the people who are going to find success. The one who spends his/her time trying to be outside of the self will only find frustration and disappointment.

This whole post may not be a new concept, or something you have never heard, but you have never seen it presented this exact way. You have never been presented with this combination of video, words, and minimalistic blog design that I hope is an invitation to go create something. Seriously, go do it.

Don’t get stuck 91 centimeters away from creating something.