“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive”—Howard Thurman
I think I have always know what makes me “come alive.” Why do I fail to see it until I step away from it.
So I have had this quote in rattling around my brain for a couple of months now.
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion”— Jack Kerouac
And as I do technical ministry I feel that it is speaking to me. I have been thinking of how we (the church) care about what everyone thinks and was that the “cool” worship set, or trendy thing that will bring MORE people in.
So it was just about 2 years ago when I thru my hat in to lighting side of production. I had done some stuff at the church I had worked at but it was mainly because I was only person who knew how so I it became part of my job. But I would never classify myself as a “lighting guy.” In fact I can quote myself saying “I don’t need to know about lighting…. I am an audio guy.” I still run audio and do video stuff…. I just found something creative in me that lighting satisfies.
Don’t get me wrong there is lots in the audio world that lents me feel creative. But mostly no one ever knows of cares. I only got the “ you are going to mic that with there… Or “why are you using that mic” and most of the time creativity is limited by the mic that you have. And video gives me many ways to be creative.
Lighting is different. Though I would love to have moving light for everything… That most of the time is not an option. So color scrollers and gel, and all kinds of things are used. I used coffee cans as par cans,
I made color scrollers into douser for projectors.
I have used a scoop as a back light.
It is mostly limited by what you are willing to try.
So here a list of things that I have learned.(in no particular order… well minus number 1)
- Light are hot.
- If it moves… It will break at the most inopportune time.
- Yes that is how expense that moving light is
- It always the last part you check that is the one that is bad
- I am only mildly scared of heights
- I am uterly average programmer… But I soak up knowledge from every show I see and every programer I talk to.
- Dimmer Racks are heavy! Even more so when they are made out of steel.
- First in and last out.
- If lighting was a Pie… I know about as much as 1/4 of a piece.
- I can pass on the knowledge I have learned. Just as Jeremy who I passed the lighting bug on to and the assistant to the lighting director Joey Farrington.
Todd Agnew Student Life Flip 2009
Kristian Standfill Student Life The Way 2008
Student Life The Way 2008
Arron Ivey at Student Life Flip 2009
Some of the lighting for FCOG Vero Beach Easter 2009
Some of the lighting for FCOG Vero Beach Easter 2009
Fall Look Vero Beach 2009
I just recently had my Hard Drive go on me. It did not have a mechanical failure but instead somehow the Master boot record was corrupted. So before I go any further this is not going to be the post about backing up you hard drive. I did lose some things but most was backed up. The real reason I am writing this is to go through some of the programs that I find helpful as I go through finding them and reinstalling.
Let us Begin…..
*Note these are all for the Mac OSX… some have windows versions… you milage may very….
Growl – Is usually the first thing I install on a mac that I use regularly. Growl does notifications. So say I am working in photoshop and I hear a new mail come in… Growl pops up a little window with the Senders name, subject and a couple of lines of the email. So I can determine weather or not I should stop what I am doing and respond or if I should continue on working.
TinkerTool – GUI access to some command line “hacks”. Do things like disable 3d glass effect on the dock, stop Time Machine from asking if you want to use attached drive for back up, change font system wide, even deactivate dashboard. Great way to customize your machine.
Onyx – Onxy is a smattering of different command line tools put into a gui interface. Has similar options to TinkerTool, but little more indepth with some maintenance tools included.
Dropbox – Is a 2 gig (free version) folder that is synced to multiple machines via the internet. Support for Mac, Windows, and Lynx. Has the ability to make thing public to make sharing documents easy. It has a web interface so you can get to you files from anywhere.
App cleaner – I try a lots of apps… this little guy help make sure that when I delete an app all the libraries and other files associated with the app goes with it.
Caffeine – small little app that sits in menu bar (coffee cup) with simple click can disable the power management settings and keep you computer from going to sleep of dimming the display.
Coconut Battery - (notebook only) Good way to keep track of you batteries health…
Audacity – Multitrack editing software. Download the Lame encoder and some other plugins. Since my big windows tower is in storage and i can’t get to Audition this does the trick.
VLC - plays any video file you might run across.
Mpeg Stream Clip – Is a utility knife for video. Allows you to convert many different video formats to various other ones.
Handbrake – Useful tool for pulling video off a DVD. It can cross convert and has some presets for you iPhone, iPod, Apple TV
Cyberduck – This free FTP app is a great alternative to the commercial transmit. Does everything you need from an ftp client.
Gimmesometunes – Fun app that fetches artwork and lyrics for you iTunes library… Though it does this as you play tracks… But has growl type notifications, iChat integration to do things like use artwork of what you are listening as your iChat picture. Also has last fm support for reporting what you are listening to back to www.last.fm.
Jing – So this allows you to capture screenshots and screencast of you screen. You can add titles and arrows. It is a very helpful tool to make graphic on say how to update you computer.
Neo Office – Though i have office and iwork installed for a brief time i uses neo office to write alot of doc. So i always install it just incase i need it…
All of the above programs are free.. though donate to support developers is always welcome… I usually find if I find a piece of software that is very useful and well designed… I usually donate to support the developers… Maybe they will make there programs even better.
So what are some of your favorite programs? Please leave me a comment telling me.
