Videos of Life In Mexico

Videoblogging Week 2009 finished up last week. I tried to participate as much as I could, and like Steve Garfield says, many videos end up in different places. They don’t all make it to the videoblog because they don’t all fit the Mexico Movies theme.

Some are family videos, and some don’t have anything to do with life in Mexico. Some get posted to Qik and others get posted to Facebook or Vimeo.

videobloggingweek2009

For what it’s worth, here are the videos I made for videoblogging week 2009:

Day 1 – Tequila in Mexico (Mexico Movies)
Day 2 – Los Voladores (Mexico Movies)
Day 3 – Tacos al Pastor (Mexico Movies)
Day 4 – Bus Ride in Mexico City (Mexico Movies)
Day 5 – Dancing (via qik)
Day 6 – Nathan’s first time Bowling (Vimeo and Facebook)
Day 7 – Iztapalapa Passion Play (via qik)

Video: Round and Round

In case you didn’t know, this month is Videoblogging Month (VloMo). I’m making a video everyday for a month and posting them to the internet. This one is one of my favorites that I made yesterday.

My personal challenge is to take the videos with my iPhone using the Cycorder program available in Cydia. I get them onto my computer with a program called DiskAid and then upload them straight to Vimeo and Blip and also to our vlog (Mexico Movies).

You can watch everyone’s VloMo videos at MeFeedia. There’s a lot of great stuff being produced, so check it out.

I’ve embedded the video here for those who subscribe to the feed (usually, vids and pics don’t show up in my feed).


Round and round from Dennis on Vimeo.

Generation YouTube

Generation Youtube free ebookA while ago, I published a free ebook about how to use online video for ministry, especially youth ministry. I never really announced it much, but I wanted to post it here on the site so it could be useful for others.

It’s got ideas on how to put video on the web and how to use web video in youth ministry. My favorite part, and I think the part that is the most useful, is the part on ways to use online video for youth ministry.

You can download it here: Generation Youtube

Videoblogging Week 2008

Videoblogging Week 2008

Just so you know, tomorrow starts Videoblogging Week for this year. Over on Mexico Movies, our videoblog, we’ll be posting one video every day for the week.

I might, if I can find the time, post a video a day over on my youth ministry site, too. I might post a video there every day talking about various issues in youth ministry. We’ll see how much time I’ve got this week.

Anyway, keep an eye out for lots of videos this week, and if you want, grab a camera and upload a video to the web everyday this week.

Long Portraits in Youth Ministry

Long Portraits in Youth Ministry

With the addition of flickr video, there’s a new idea floating around called “long portraits. I posted about it on my twitter account yesterday, and since then I’ve been thinking about it and what we could do with it in youth ministry.

A long portrait is basically a video snapshot that lasts less than a minute (or around 30 seconds) where you capture a single moment of a person in that time and place. It’s like a photo that can talk, where the person answers a simple question (click here for some great sample questions.) Photojojo has a great post on what it is and how to do it.

Here are some suggestions I have for using long portraits in youth ministry:

  • High School Seniors – Could talk about their last year in the youth ministry and what they learned, etc.
  • Small groups/classes – Could use long portraits to capture a key idea from the series (or year, or however long the small groups meet). Students could also talk about the one thing they remembered the most about the group.
  • Commitments or memories from camps/mission trips – Record students talking about their commitments. Have them send themselves a message to be watched again in 1 year or more. Have them tell stories about the impact the camp or trip had on their life.
  • Recruitment of volunteers – Use this idea to record students talking about how their small group leader or other volunteer in your ministry has had an impact on their life. Then show it to appreciate volunteers or recruit new volunteers.