Remember buying tapes?
Or what about recording your favorite songs on the radio onto a blank cassette?
The digitalization of music changed all of that. Now, with innovations from iTunes, the price of online videos is cheap, and the quality is high (relatively).
As I mentioned in my last post, the time that it takes for churches to catch up with technology is shrinking dramatically. More churches are downloading sermon illustrations from a number of different websites; for their youth group, their congregation, their church websites...you name it.
What brings people back to these sites?
First of all, it is much easier (and cheaper) to download a sermon illustration instead of trying to create your own. Finding someone that has the knowledge to shoot and edit a sermon illustration that will bring a good message to the congregation is hard to find.
Second, is the time and energy it take to produce one clip. It may take a few weeks to create that one good sermon illustration that will probably only be used once or twice.
Third, is the content within the sermon illustration. Does the message come across? Does the congregation get it? Was the audio good enough to understand the dialog?
So what's next?
Digital media is portable right? So why is church media confined to the church? The iPod gives you the ability to take your music, tv show or movie anywhere. You can even plug your iPod into a TV and watch a movie with your friends. The same goes with laptops. There is no reason that sermon illustrations shouldn't work in a small-group bible study.
There's only one problem: the price. As a small-group bible study leader, you're probably not given a budget. In-fact, you're probably not reimbursed for any purchases you make for a small group bible study.
The price of downloadable sermon illustrations is too high. The bible-study leader, the youth group teen and any other church member should be able to afford these sermon illustrations to use as tools in their own ministry.
Using the iTunes model, Bluefish TV has taken the initiative to start offering high-quality sermon illustrations that are downloadable for only $1.99. We hope this will bless every member of the church. It's no longer "church building" media, it's "global" church media.
11.16.2006
Video Sermon Illustrations: Why So Many People are Downloading Videos.
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9 comments:
Good job on setting up the blog.
-MM
hope you guys are going to keep up the blogging ... I just put a link to it on my site.
love your stuff
wayne gooden
Thanks for the blog. We will be launching our study of "Chasing Daylight" this month at Baptist Temple, the fellowship of Joy in Fresno.
Not sure about the response of others, but I hope you don't mind if I add my two cents worth.
I whole heartedly agree with everything except the 'cost' issue. I think sermon illustrations selling for $1.99 are way too cheap and undercut the very people producing them. Okay, how about I come clean and reveal that I am just such a person - a filmmaker who happens to follow Jesus.
Come on, let's dialog about this? Over the years I've produced many small video vignettes for sacred and commercial institutions. The bare minimum break even cost is about $3,000 to $5,000 for every 2-3 minute video. That basically covers my cost to produce the content for the client.
So, if I were to produce content for the church it comes out of my own pocket. I'm already offering my content for extremely low prices in the hopes that volume sales will allow me to recoop my costs, not to mention possibly cover the costs of producing further content. At $15 for the average sermon illustration that means I have to sell over 300 units just to break even.
When your organization sells similar material for $1.99 what does that do to the rest of us when a pastor asks why our material is so much more expensive?
I'm not trying to pick a fight here. My heart is to dialogue about this and consider the fact that the decisions we make for our own companies effects more that just the bottom line of our own balance sheets.
Responding to Brian T.
I understand your concern over the low cost, but that is exactly what attracted me to BluefishTV! Other sites sell 2 min clips at $20 bucks and my daughter said "Wow! you can buy an entire movie DVD for less than that". Plus, these video shorts only get used once or twice.
Thank you BluefishTV!
-- ER from Virginia
Greetings! I have been a customer of yours since I first heard of you a few years back. I'm a worship Pastor and a big fan. I also do video productions for my own church of testimonies, etc. I have been using Adobe Premiere for years now and export my video clips in .mpeg format to use wihtin PowerPoint. The tension is always between file size and quality. From the downloads that I've used of yours, you seem to have this wired. Would you mind telling me about your export settings, codecs, and such? I know that this is way beyond the call of duty, but I sure would appreciate it a ton. Thanks for all you hard work and for making it affordable and available to the rest of us. You've inspired many.
Jeremy Peyton Ellensburg CMA Church
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