To Save A Life Event Promo Video

This is the latest project I worked on along with my brother and others from our youth group. We had shown the movie "To Save A Life" in youth group and they all loved it so we wanted to host an event in the community where we could attract more people to see it. This is a promo video for the event at the High School.

Relevant Media

What do you think about when you hear the word "media?"

Media is TV and big screen movies right? And video games, music, news? How many times in one day do you encounter, meaning watch/listen/read, various pieces of media?

I know that my day is completely surrounded by and infused with media of all kinds. Even when I'm working I am connected to media with my smartphone, either indirectly with people sending me SMS or emails about things or directly on Facebook or anything else on the web, and when I'm off there is almost no time when I'm apart from it. Other than the Saturday night when I hang out with friends, which 80 percent of the time isn't an exception either, I am doing something that directly involves media.

So what is my point?

Anyone that was born within 10 years from me in either direction relates completely with that. Yes we have people more or less "obsessed" with it all but generally speaking this generation (and even more so the next!) is COMPLETELY engrossed with media. Hollywood knows that. The people who created Facebook knows that. Even tobacco companies knew that YEARS ago. When someone wants to reach the new generations with an idea, a mindset, a product, or a lifestyle, they portray it in a relevant way through various forms of media.

Much of what they portray to us is not exactly what we as christians want our teens to hear. I would even say that the power media has over influencing youth is dangerously scary. Regardless of what they are taught at home by their parents what they are taught through media is what they go to first. All of their friends are into it and all they are talking about is the newest thing. No kid is going to "play it safe" and listen to their parents when they are surrounded. This is obviously a problem and when media is used in the wrong way with the wrong hands it is a destructive machine.

Anything crafted in and by the world is, though, right?

Isn't that why as the Church and Body of Christ we have for so long tried to stand apart from the common culture and the ways of the media industries? We see something being used destructively and hate it so much that we run as far away from it as possible.

Even at a cost it seems.

As a 21 year old having only been saved since 17 I want to explain to you how this mindset, although meant for good, is something we as a Church in 2010 are doing very wrong.

I would go so far as to say that restricting our methods and mindsets of reaching youth as much as we have for so long now is as bad as when they accused Christ of doing wrong when we was hanging out with the tax collectors. They thought there must be a better way to reach them. Or at least, a way that would be less incriminating. If they hung out with tax collectors, never compromising God's will and glory in what they were doing, their image to everyone else would have been ruined. They would have been thrown out of their circles. I believe the way we restrict the media we use in our ministry is going along the same lines.

What did we say the teens were completely surrounded and infused with? That thing that shapes their worldviews and choices in life?

Why have we let ourselves think that cheesy christian films and the typical "youth group cookout night" are going to penetrate the walls of our teen's hearts and make them desire to know more about Christ?

DON'T get me wrong. I am in NO way saying that youth group events similar to that at which the gospel is clearly presented will not reach our teens. God's word does not return void and His Holy Spirit is the only one who will really change hearts. I was saved at a youth group "family time" meeting.

What I AM saying is that we have an extremely powerful tool called media to reach our teens with the best news of all and we have thrown it out the window because we don't want to look like the world. In our cheesy christian films everything happens the way we want it to and all the people come to know Christ in a very predictable way that makes it look like a joke to teens. When they watch a film that is so crafted not to come even close to worldly things we can tell instantly that it isn't realistic.

If something doesn't seem realistic in this world where a teen has the real truth about nearly anything at their fingertips on their smartphones they will immediately dismiss it. It won't even have a chance and the message it tries to convey will never come close to being heard or understood.

Have you ever watched a christian film and was so sucked into it that you couldn't even tell the difference between it and the latest Hollywood suspense film?

I didn't think so. Even people that aren't in this generation can tell. So why are we expecting it to reach our teens who RIGHT NOW are looking to the media they ingest to mold their lifestyles??

I want to talk to you about RELEVANT MEDIA in the ministry. You have no idea how excited I have been and how big the passion in me has grown about bringing our youth media that is realistic, believable, and good enough that it doesn't stand in the bottom of the barrel next to Hollywood films. Oh, and big events that are fun for the teens, very low to no cost, that will be a huge medium to present this media to them.

Over the next couple weeks I am going to post ideas, dreams, and practical steps I want to start on. I would LOVE to hear your input. Just Facebook me or email me!

Nrlevasseur@gmail.com

Road Trip!!

Here is a teaser trailer from our road trip through the Great Smokey/Blue Ridge mountains. Go to Vimeo.com to watch in HD! Let me know what you think on facebook!!

Check out my cousin's blog to see some photos he shot as well!


Untitled from nicolas levasseur on Vimeo.

Day 4!

It is the end of day 4 of our trip! Jean-Claude and I have been having a great time shooting pictures and video for the past couple days! We spent a day in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and a day going to different places along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Today was our longest day yet as we got to Blue Ridge for sunrise and ended somewhere down the parkway for sunset! We also had a very interesting night yesterday.

It ended up being a much longer night than we were planning. Through a few different circumstances I decided I was climbing to the top of a mountain near my grandparents house that overlooks the valley and town of Black Mountain. The plan was to shoot the view as the sun set and climb back down in the dark. We brought flashlights for the walk back. The trail to get there was non-existant because I'm the one who made it 3 or 4 years ago. Most of the trail markers I left back then were gone and I only found 4 of them on the way up. Anyway I finally made it to the top (leaving the flashlight with JC because we lost it for a few minutes) and shot the sunset. The journey started as I walked down. In the dark I found myself getting stuck every few feet in bushes and prickers everywhere. After 20 mins at least of struggling through JC found me and helped me out of a pit of prickers I fell into. Then we started walking the rest of the way down with the flashlights in hand. By the way, we both had a ton of heavy camera gear and our hands were more than full. We found ourselves completely lost in the dark in some area we never saw before stuck in some of the thickest brush I've ever been in. Eventually we downloaded a GPS app on our phones and found a road close by. Close by meaning .2 miles. Those .2 miles took forever to get through. We finally got out though! About 2 - 2 1/2 hours later than we were hoping :)

Sorry for the long story but it was an ordeal! I am still planning to keep to my promise and upload a teaser video right after I get home on Saturday/Sunday so be sure to look for it and check it out!!

Great Smokey Mountains

The calm before the storm. Actually, it was raining all day today. BUT I'm done packing and leaving my house at 4am tomorrow to fly to Kansas City! I'm gonna get picked up by my cousin JC at 930am KC time and we're going to drive half way to my grandparents house in North Carolina. Sunday we'll drive the rest of the way, spend some time with them in their house up in the mountains, and spend the whole week going to different places in the Great Smokeys filming and doing photography. With everything we own and are renting I'm positive that our camera gear will cost 10 times the cost of his car.. but we'll be far away from the city so we should be ok! Anyway I'm telling you all this because I'm very excited. My cousin and I started doing photography together a few years ago and we've both done a lot since we've started! I moved more into video and he has been interning with a professional photographer learning a ton. I am VERY excited to see what we will get on this trip! I come back next Saturday and plan to have a short promo video of what we did on the trip uploaded within those first couple days. Check back in a week and see what we got!

The Mission!

This is our new video! My brother and his friends came over and we basically just went in the woods and started shooting. Definitely no planning involved haha. Sometimes our weekend videos will be well planned and obviously higher quality production, sometimes they will just be fun. Check this video out and be sure to play it in HD! Let me know what you think about it!

The Mission from nicolas levasseur on Vimeo.

SermonSpice.com

Our Gossip video is official up to view and purchase on SermonSpice.com! Spread word around about it as much as you can! The video can be streamed at this link but it is not full quality unless you purchase a copy. If you like it enough or know someone that can use it please purchase it or recommend it to help support us as we move to our next project! Thanks!!


http://www.sermonspice.com/product/35396