Boring Announcements

Hey everyone. Haven't much to say tonight. It's been a week since I've posted. Been busy again with life. Lot's of things have happened that I'd just bore you with, so I'll spare you...

Naaa... I'll bore you with an idea I implemented in youth group. I went to a Youth Leader's Conference last weekend and we were discussing how to creatively and effectively do announcements. Everyone seems to have the same issues as the next guy with students not really paying attention and flyers being left on the floor to be trashed. So, this guy throws out this thing he's done with video and shows us an example.

You take a clip from a movie that has lots of dialogue and interesting characters. You rip it and then bring it into a program that can edit video and sound. Then, you cut out voices and replace them with your own recorded one's telling about your events and activities in a funny or creative way. The results are hilarious and kids definitely pay attention while your announcement is being embedded into their brain.

I decided to put it to the test myself and so I used AoA DVD Ripper to get a clip from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's the scene when the White Witch shows up in her sled with the dwarf and meets Edmund. I imported it into Adobe Premier and separated the video from the sound so that I could export the sound clip into a program called Goldwave. In Goldwave I took the sound clip and pressed a button that reduced all vocals. It worked like a charm. The program only left one actual word but cut out the rest leaving me with the original sound effects and music score. I saved it as an mp3 and continued.

Then, I watched the clip over and over again, scripting every word so that I could come up with a new script that was similar in word formation and length, but talked about my announcement, which was about Youth Convention.

After I finalized the script, I recorded each line on my C01U - USB Studio Condenser Microphone in Goldwave separately and saved them as mp3's. Then, I imported them into Adobe Premier and matched the recordings with the visual dialogue of the characters. When I finished editing, I applied some fades and additional slides before and after the clip along with music.

I showed the announcement in Youth Group and the students laughed and were paying attention. It must have gotten through because I collected almost every single registration yesterday... on the due date. Amazing.

Have you done anything creative lately?