Not That Rob Thomas

A Day in the Life of John Lasseter

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:02:21 -0500

I love this documentary. John Lasseter is one of those guys I really admire. It’s only 25 minutes but I could watch it a hundred times.

Click here to watch ‘A Day In The Life of John Lasseter’

Pictures from the doc:

Unleash Your Fingers is amazing!

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:50:01 -0500

Unleash Your Fingers is amazing!

Check out our 10-Pack promo video.

Thu, 12 May 2011 10:44:23 -0500

Check out our 10-Pack promo video.

This is our newest video… We are very excited to release...

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:45:00 -0500

This is our newest video… We are very excited to release this and hope churches all over can use this in their Easter services.

A couple interesting things about this video:

- The concept for this video was one we were thinking about before we released Social Network Christmas

- Since my wife and I had a baby last Thursday, I haven’t been in the office. That said, I’ve had to spend a lot of time on this video since then. Our solution? I used iChat video, DropBox, YouSendIt, iChat texting, and phone texting. It was amazing how much we could accomplish using these tools.

- For a video like this, I really want to ‘feel’ the impact after viewing it. After the first viewing of our final rough… I felt nothing. It took about 7-10 drafts after that before I really started feeling it.

- Steve V., Trent A., David W., and Jeff P. worked so hard on this video with me. I really have a great production team.

Enjoy the video… I’d love to hear what you think.

Saying Goodbye to WorshipHouse Media

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:40:00 -0500

Over on the Igniter Media blog, I talked about how we just sold WorshipHouse Media… It’s such a crazy thing that I’m still processing.

In our companies history, this is more than a new chapter… it’s a new act! Pray for us and read my thoughts below.

Saying Goodbye to WorshipHouse Media: Blogpost on Igniter Media

Conan’s final thoughts on the Tonight Show were amazing...

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:09:46 -0500

Conan’s final thoughts on the Tonight Show were amazing and this visual matches it.

5 seconds of #1 hits starting in the 80s… listening to...

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:37:49 -0600

5 seconds of #1 hits starting in the 80s… listening to this for 1 minute throws my memory and emotions into a tizzy.

Why I can't get onboard with 3D anything.

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:24:00 -0600

Okay, maybe I can get onboard with View Masters, but that’s it. I’ve been a skeptic of 3D for a while now and wanted to write about it a year ago or so… but I didn’t, because I needed to wait to see Avatar.

Avatar was shot fully in 3D. I saw it in 3D. My experience was mixed. It was visually interesting to watch it in 3D. No question about that. But while Avatar was visually interesting, here are my reasons I don’t ever want to go to a 3D movie again.

Even in Avatar, I was always aware that I was watching the movie in 3D. In other words, I’m brought back to reality (me sitting in a movie theater) way more then when I go see a 2D movie.
I always get a headache. Every time without fail. I saw Beowulf in 3D IMAX and I wanted to break my 17.5 year barf streak.
I hate wearing glasses.
It’s more expensive. That really gets me. Charge me more for an experience I like less? That doesn’t make sense.

I’m sorry to my friends who love 3D (and I have close friends who are on the opposite side of this argument). I hope 3D works out for you guys and you enjoy a fruitful life enjoying 3D movies. Just don’t invite me.

If you want an amazing article on 3D you must read what Roger Ebert has to say about it. (click here for the article)

These have been around several months now, but I absolutely love...

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:41:12 -0600

These have been around several months now, but I absolutely love them. Too bad I have no idea how to get prints of them.

My likes and dislikes of Apple (take 1)

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:56:44 -0600

My Likes:

The 27” LED Cinema Display that Apple makes is beautiful. I like it better than the older 30” Cinema Displays… mainly because it’s brighter, crisper, and has a built-in iChat camera
I love FaceTime. I set it up on the computer at home and now, for the first time ever, my kids can call me whenever they want. I always love it when they call (even if it’s 4 times a day) because their mom doesn’t even know they are doing it.
Can’t believe I’m saying this, but for my kids, I love PhotoBooth. On their own, my kids have made or taken 837 videos/pictures of themselves being silly. The videos are priceless and I never would have been able to capture them on my own.
I will always be fond of and thankful for GarageBand. I have recently started doing audio stuff in Logic, but for the past 5+ years, I have worn GarageBand out… I have taken it to it’s limits several times. I’ve created a ton of music or samples in it that are scattered throughout our Igniter videos as well as Johnny and Chachi music.
To that end, I now love Apple Logic Studio. So powerful, I’m still learning… but have already made several things in it.
I have an iPad and love it. I read iBooks, Kindle books, and FlipBoard from it… Those are some of my favorites. I can now connect it to…
The Apple TV. I love that we can rent movies and TV shows but the BEST feature is that we can watch Netflix HD stuff on it.
Goes without saying but the iPhone is the best device of the last decade. So that’s a strong ‘like’.

My Dislikes:

Their over-marketing for the addition of the Beatles in iTunes was dumb.
There are several features missing in iPhoto that really irks me. I can no longer ‘Reveal in Finder’ when right clicking an image. I used that a lot. I like the email templates but hate that I can’t simply attach a photo to an email like a normal person. And I think the feature rich iPhoto is too sloooooowww. My computer can’t handle it.
The new 15” MacBook Pros don’t have an Express Card slot… I kinda need that to connect to our server raid.
iMovie is just almost unusable. I’m so nervous that they think iMovie is brilliant and are going to mess up the new Final Cut Pro coming this April (best guess on when it’s coming).
They have discontinued the Xserve. We use that at our company and I don’t understand why they are letting it go. They are hurting their professional user market.
The new iTunes logo. It looks cheap.

That’s good for now… What about you? What do you ‘like’ or ‘dislike’?

What our semi-viral video did.

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:38:00 -0600

We had a very fun and historic December at Igniter Media and a lot of it was because of A Social Network Christmas (click here if you haven’t seen it).

First of all, we had a record month in visits to our website. In the past, we’ve topped out at around 10,000 visits… that’s an amazing day for us. We usually average well below that. However in December, we hit 36,000 visits. We were over 20,000 visits a day for about a week… it was crazy.

We were the #1 trending shared video on YouTube for a couple days.

We gained a lot of traction on Facebook… we had over 52,000 people share the video.

We also had around 3,000 churches use the video.

We are completely floored and humbled by the response to our video. We create many mini movies a year… our hope with each of them is that we speak Truth to those who don’t know Christ, are far from Him, or just need a creative reminder of their love for Him. When it appears that God might actually be using something we’ve created, we’re humbled and reminded of this:

It’s all about Him. Always has been, always will be.

We are thankful when He uses us and it makes us want to be even more available for Him.

Our hope is that we are extremely usable in 2011 for the Lord.

In case you missed it, check out our newest video. Steve...

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 13:02:55 -0600

In case you missed it, check out our newest video. Steve Vanderheide took lead on the post-production and did such a great job. So thankful for him.

David Womack, Trent Armstrong, Christian Dunn, and Jeff Parker all made major contributions to the video as well. Our hope is always that our videos can help teach the amazing story of Christ.

Boys playing Teenage Ninja Turtle before bed.

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:07:18 -0600

Boys playing Teenage Ninja Turtle before bed.

How do I motivate my team? By karate chopping Jeff’s old...

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:29:23 -0600

How do I motivate my team? By karate chopping Jeff’s old coffee table…in half!

Okay, maybe not in half.

No one can deny that I gave it my all!! (from this past Spring)

Our latest video for Igniter Media highlights three couples. ...

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:15:00 -0600

Our latest video for Igniter Media highlights three couples. These couples are able to look at their current struggles and still show thankfulness. My church, Watermark Community, showed this video on Sunday and it was great. I hope you are encouraged by their stories.

Design Fail: Billboard I pass this billboard 3-4 times a week...

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 08:23:00 -0600

Design Fail: Billboard

I pass this billboard 3-4 times a week and I always think this girl has her arm cut off. Using a blue ‘swoop’ on top of blue water will do that.

Photo courtesy of Haley while I frantically passed her my phone to take it.

Two reasons to post this. 1. I’m testing out the new...

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:18:00 -0500

Two reasons to post this.

1. I’m testing out the new functionality on Igniter Media to embed videos.. with a link back to the original.

2. It’s almost November and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This is still my favorite ‘Darrell’ video and I love seeing our kids.

We decided to use Johnny & Chachi for our Igniter Website...

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 22:36:00 -0500

We decided to use Johnny & Chachi for our Igniter Website Promo video after I couldn’t figure out how to write a ‘sincere’ script. I take that back. I wrote an ‘Apple-like’ script to promote all the features on the new Igniter Media. But I think it would have been boring and I’m not sure I can pull off ‘sincere’ on camera… as me (Maybe in the right video I could).

For the video, we ended up with a J&C parody of a sincere promo video. I hope you like it.

My thoughts on the end of COLLIDE

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:21:00 -0500

As Scott announced today on the COLLIDE Blog, we have decided to cease printing our magazine, COLLIDE. Our 20th and final issue comes out in November.

I’m sad because a chapter of our company is coming to a close. COLLIDE has been a part of our lives for about 5 years. We started planning for it long before the first issue arrived in September 2007. It was always so exciting to get a fresh new issue delivered. Since my dad is in the magazine business, it was fun to be publishing magazines side by side (we still share office space).

We feel tremendous peace and excitement with this announcement. The closing of the print magazine is the opening of several new things. With Collide and the Echo Conference, we had basically two divisions reaching the same crowd with the same resources/message… one was a magazine/website and the other an event. Originally, we wanted our conference to be the COLLIDE Conference, but we weren’t able to use that name. So we created another brand…. The Echo Conference. We now hope to consolidate the two and expand the Echo brand to this. More details on The Echo Hub coming soon.

I just want to say that I am and will always be proud of COLLIDE the magazine. Scott McClellan did a fantastic job as the editor… he had his fingerprints on just about every page and wrote a ton of each magazine. He’s one gifted guy.

Ryan Jarrell did an exceptional job as the designer of the magazine. He didn’t have any magazine experience but I don’t think you could tell. I don’t know many that know layout better than Ryan.

Ashley Phillips developed amazing relationships with our advertisers. We have a special bond with many of these organizations. Thanks Ashley!

The rest of the team put in lots of hours as well. Jeff Parker was a great writer and proofer. [UPDATE: Somehow I left off a vital and key player… Daniel Darnell. He was a tremendous help when it came to writing, updating the Upfront, the Collide podcast, and a lot more.] Dan VanMilligan handled a ton of the site/blog development issues, as well as Clint Miller and Zuriel Barron. Ashton Lloyd contributed quite a bit in the design of ads, etc. Other contributors are Jenni Wright, David Womack, Trent Armstrong, Dale Carter, Luke Miller, Mo Lawson, and Steve Vanderheide. I’m also thankful for Barton Damer, Beth Church, Kami Stroope, Kent McKeaigg, Marc Matthews, and Ben Jordan… people who have worked here and who have contributed.

Read With Discernment… Especially Donald Miller

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:14:15 -0500

Read With Discernment… Especially Donald Miller