ok so i need to make a 30sec. comercial for my church. I would really like it to be fun to watch but im kinde of coming up short on ideas.

I have 2 dvx100b's, a glide cam, 2 senhiser wireless mics. and adobe production premium cs3 suit. so you guys have any ideas.

it just needs to advertise our church in general.

i was thinking that 24 style shooting and editing would be awsome i just need to figure out how to tie it in to advertising out churth.

What I would do is first ask the Pastor what he invisions the commercial looking like. Or what the purpose of the commercial is. From there draw up a storyboard and the imagination can start flowing fairly quickly. What are somethings he or the committee would like to see?

3 questions to ask of the person in charge of this project.

1) what's the message

2) who's the audience

3) what's the delivery method (I.E....TV, cable TV, mailouts etc)

Once you know this then you can think about ideas for the job and how to produce them.

I ask these questions of every client (other than weddings of course) andit really helps get me going in the right direction for them.

Don

Hey Ryan, here is a commercial of sorts albeit for internal use to advertise to the general congregation, but it may spark an idea for you.

I agree with Don though too, those are key questions to ask yourself an others for every project you do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QszDOr8G0k4

ok so my dads the pastor and its a church that runs about 200. il really be incharge of the project. dad really dosnt care what we do with it as long as its creative and stands out. we are not a big fan of the tipical church comercials.

the target audiance is: people who dont atend a church. were not trying to get people from other churches.

it will air on cable tv

the mesage is anything that could make people more intrested in checking out our church. its not about a special event or anything.

here is an idea i came up with and would like your input.

we make a 30 second teaser edited, and shot very "24" stlye. we come up with a story line like the pastor cant find his disk that he saved his sermon on to print out before service. all the acting would be 24ish. at the end of the comercial you tell them to check out your website for the full episode.

once there at the website it plays a full 3-5min episode with a more traditional comercial added on to the end with the pastor welcoming you to come to church and the service times. hopefully once there at the website they will look around and see what our church is all about.

do you think i should do a 30sec. trailer for the comercial or show a 30sec. opening sceen that will set the story up.

thanks for all the replys.

I just delivered one for a small church that's just introducing itself to our regional cable audience:

www.renaissancevideo.com/webvid/centercommercial2007.htm

They wanted to show that they have unique services, and are looking to attract a larger base. 30 seconds goes by pretty quickly...

For reaching the un-churched, you should to consider the current tone of the church. In otherwords, if a few rough looking guys showed up in biking leathers, would that cause a stir (with only 200 people, most likely yes).

Is the church "kid friendly" with day care during the service for harried parents? Does the church span many age groups? etc etc

Once you answer these questions, then put some one from each group that represents our church into the video doing something. May be have the people say the words associated with their demographic.... ie

[narrator / pastor] Our church welcomes...
[cut]
[parents sitting on couch with kids on knees]: Families with little kids
[cut]
[high school kids playing frisbee / sitting around socializing]: Highschool
[cut]
etc
etc

If there area bunch of guys that like cars there, then show them talking about something (anything) while standing next to a car hood up.

Show people being "authentic" as opposed to being "churchy"

you get the point. I hope that helps get some creative juices flowing. I'd love to help toss ideas back & forth, so fee free to message / email me.

its funny you said biker because im a biker myself. we are verry open to anybody and every body. when my dad took the church there were only like 40 members and the extra 160 are people that havnt grown up in church. so we are fortunate that not a hole lot of our congrigation thinks they know what church should be like. we are verry laid back and open to any one. any one that walke through our doors gets respect and kindness.

im really wanting to reach people that are not really even looking for a church because they have that theory that they will be looked down apon or shuned because they are not a christinan. thats why we really dont want a traditional marketing campaign because we believe that as a whole traditional church is failing to reach people.

I get very uncomfortable with the whole concept of trying to market religious ideas as if they were soapflakes.

... we believe that as a whole traditional church is failing to reach people.

I'm not sure the 'non-traditional church is doing any better.

Most churches - of all sorts - at least in NZ - seem to me to be in a ghetto without walls, with their own culture and lingo...and dumb down/gut the message hoping to appeal to those outside the ghetto...

I've got into video in the last 18 months not for it to be used for in-house ghetto use within 'church' or to sell 'church', but to argue the Biblical worldview against all comers in the market place of ideas...content is everything, but I want it packaged well...

Wedding videoing has been providing me projects which allowing me to 'learn the trade' so this can be done...hopefully.

I would not put us in the same catagorie that your taliking about. we never back dow or dumb down what we believe and we dont speak our own lingo. i believe that any one that comes in our church would feel right at home. i can say this because two years ago our building burnt down. so we built another one. for two years we have had tons of difrent consturction crews come in and quite a few of them have came to church because they said this place just feels frindley. so like i said i dont just want to put another church comercial. i want to catch peoples eye and have them just come and check out our website and see what we are all about.

Whatever you end up doing, Ryan, just make sure you don't have any copyright issues respecting music.

There is nothing worse than a church not walking the talk.

Curt

its funny you said biker because im a biker myself.

I also mention that because my dad is a CMA Biker (http://www.cmausa.org/) and he teaches Sunday School in his leathers and occasionally gets odd looks (also because he is a skinny software developer and doesn't look like a biker).

In any case, my main point is to consider using the members of the church to talk about the church.

Baring that, I do like your creative idea of using a "24-esque" approach. You need some problematic situation, a bunch of people involved to do the PiP thing with. And you flip back and forth until the pastor bursts in and solves the problem. Make the problem something plausible so it doesn't get too cheesy.

3 questions to ask of the person in charge of this project.

1) what's the message

2) who's the audience

3) what's the delivery method (I.E....TV, cable TV, mailouts etc)

Once you know this then you can think about ideas for the job and how to produce them.

I ask these questions of every client (other than weddings of course) andit really helps get me going in the right direction for them.

Don

In addition to Don's points, another very important question is PURPOSE. After watching the 30 sec. commercial, what do you want the viewer to do? Join the church? Contribute money? Have a better understanding of the tenents of the church? Stop discriminating against members of the church?

You get the idea.

Hi Ryan and friends,

Yes, I'll second the motion of Mike and Don (those who don't set targets seldom hit them). And along the same lines of some other posters, I agree with the notion of having a clear "value proposition" for the constinuency. You've identified a generic target audience (the easy part), so now it's time to identify some typical personas, as:

- Sam, the sketpic
- Connie, the community server
- Sally, the socialite
- Tina, the teenager
(- Billy Bob, the biker?)

You mentioned wanting to draw in the "lookie-loo's" ("anything that could make people more interested in checking out our church"). That's a great start, but have you considered what happens next? Are you happy enough just to have PIPs (People In the Pews)? Or is your real agenda/model:

- tops/down institutional (centered on growing tidings/revenues, etc)
- external focus (community action/involvement)
- internal focus (spiritual growth/scriputual studies)
- etc...

And have you considered your "competition"? Is it other churches? Agnostics? Those driven away from religious zealots versus building community, fellowship/fun/love, forgiveness? Those less fortunate looking for comfort for someone to help them? Youth who don't see church as very "hip"? An inspirational/charismatic leader? Certainly each church in your community has a different focus/priority/perception in these and other important areas.

We could all come up with tons of cool ideas, yet you'll best serve dad, your parishioners, and your community by first focusing on the big picture. Once you clearly identified your value proposition, business model, competition, and broken out your target audience, you/we can deliver a well focused ideas, outline, script, etc.

FYI - a few weeks ago in the dvinfo "Taking Care of Business" forum, Jacob Walker provided an excellent video (supportive graphics, music, lightning, set, etc) of pastor/author E.J.Scott discussing Hurricane Katrina and how he was drawn to help those less fortunate by starting a church in the area. Here's the thread and video link:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=104230
http://www.winepressgroup.com/uploads/29/video/keep/E_J_Scott.wmv

His message was excellent and I'm sure his flock grew dramatically after folks saw the commercial. Based on all the above, it was clear his church was outward focused, he was compassionate/warm-sincere/great presence, and practiced "brotherly love" (and the talking-head video was excellent). Hundreds of equally compelling commercials (err, community service messages) could be delivered based on what their church was all about. In the end, the last thing you want is churn (lookie loo's dropping by and turned off by misconceptions).

Anybody still here? (sorry about all my marketing ramblings...)

Good luck, Michael