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By Richard Hamilton, July 23, 2009 12:30 pm

There was a quick post at Outspoken Media yesterday called, “The Power of the Unexpected” … good stuff. Here are a few blurbs (and an awesome video clip) from it.

“That’s what happens when you do something people aren’t expecting. When you don’t allow yourself to get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of it all. When you finally stop taking yourself so seriously. When you embrace the moment, remember what life used to feel like and go for it.”

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By Richard Hamilton, July 18, 2009 8:25 pm

John Piper seems to have caused a little stir this week. On July 15, he posted his thoughts on drama and movie clips in church services. The “controversy” seems to center around his comment, “I think the use of video and drama largely is a token of unbelief in the power of preaching.”

Here is why John Piper is wrong (yes, I said it, wrong). He does not understand what preaching is. (Sorry John, it’s true. No offense.) Preaching is not somebody droning on about the Bible. Preaching is communicating good news. Spoken word does not hold exclusive rights to the communication of good news.

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By Richard Hamilton, June 8, 2009 12:36 pm

I present to you, BooneOakley.com. That’s right. Their site is a YouTube vid. Check it out.

Reasons why this concept rocks:
1-Its Low Overhead: There are no hosting costs. No content maintenance. YouTube is free. They are only paying for a domain registration and redirect. If you go to BooneOakley.com, it takes you to this YouTube video.
2-Its Versatility: The content is completely portable. I just embedded their entire web content onto my website.
3-Its Appropriately Creative: A lot of sites don’t match the product. Looking throughWatching their featured work, I realized this is not the first creative project BooneOakley has produced. Their stuff is different.

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By Richard Hamilton, May 21, 2009 12:18 am

I have a confession to make (actually a few overlapping confessions). I occasionally stay up too late of nights. Way too late. And occasionally, I find myself up late enough to watch Last Call with Carson Daly on NBC. (I am among the growing population of those who don’t have cable, and at that time of night it’s Carson or infomercials. I really only miss cable during a few sporting events and when I get a hankering to watch Food Network, but that’s a subject for another post.) To be honest, I have never been particularly enamored with Carson Daly. My first introduction to him was during his underwhelming MTV days. A few years later, I stumbled upon Last Call. The music drew me back. Occasionally. The Roots. Amos Lee. Citizen Cope. The show was still fairly typical late night fare. Recently however, the show has changed it’s format. Now apparently this this change happened over a month ago, but I didn’t notice until last week (see repetition of the word “occasionally” in the opening sentences).

I love the new format! The biggest change is that Carson has left the studio and ventured out into LA.

I don’t know if this format change will help Last Call. The audience potential is still pretty low. Their web presence is pretty weak too, which makes no sense to me. It seems the web would be the perfect second space for a show like Last Call. In fact, a show like Last Call would potentially have much more web traffic than TV viewership. Nevertheless, this format shift is significant.

Here are a few takeaways:

A format change can be good stewardship. I’m sure they would never advertise it, but Last Call’s new format is considerably cheaper. There’s no studio to maintain. No house band to pay. No light bills. I’m sure they would say the change was driven by creativity, but the bottom line benefited. So much of the modern church experience is a production. And that can be expensive. But what if there were no expectations. Could all of the resources (time, money, space, people) be used in more beneficial (dare I say, “efficient”) ways? What shape might church take?

A format change can shape identity. What are you all about? It’s a hard sell for churches to convince people they care about children if all their resources go toward seniors. In the same way, if you claim to care about the world around you, but burn through all of your resources taking care of “your” people, you probably don’t care that much about the world around you. A fresh format gives you a chance to shape what you do around who you are.

A format change will not change everything. Last Call still comes on really late and falls way short on internet distribution. Likewise, revamping church is also not a cure all.

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By Richard Hamilton, May 8, 2009 8:56 am

This past weekend, our teen ministry video team met for the first time. We wanted the students to get some hands on experience with digital video cameras and editing software. After lunch, a quick discussion of what we were hoping to do, and a crash course in videography, we let the student loose. Here is one of the videos that resulted.

Fun With Film: World’s Most X-Treme Baller from richard hamilton on Vimeo.

Obviously, this video was not intended to convey some deeply spiritual or religious message. We are hoping though, that our students will be given a new avenue to express themselves. Video is much more accessible today than it has been in the past. As a result, we find that many students are interested in it.

For us, this is only one piece of a much larger scheme. We want students to feel free to be creative and expressive. Some students will find their voice in the arts and media. Our student ministry hopes to cultivate creativity.

I’m interested in how other faith communities are equipping people to be creative and expressive. Please chime in and let me know; I want to hear from you.

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By Richard Hamilton, January 7, 2009 2:30 am

The incomparable Quincy Jones made an appearance on Last Call With Carson Daly tonight. In addition to discussions of Quincy’s amazing life and body of work, the subject of politics briefly came up. Carson suggested that Quincy would be an excellent candidate to be the US’s first Secretary of Culture. Quincy added that music from the US is found all over the world, yet we are one of the few countries without a Secretary of Culture, and we need one.

Here is what they misunderstand about culture (and more specifically, the arts): it is precisely because we do not have a Secretary of Culture, that our music dominates the world scene. The arts are not a top-down endeavor. American political imperialism is fading, yet American culture still thrives. Now I would agree that this is unfortunately often to the detriment of native arts. Somehow, the arts are one of the few facets of life we have managed to keep relatively pure. (I obviously don’t have cookie-cutter, ex-Disney types in mind. I’m actually talking about culture and art) And when the government (and our neighbors) shackle real culture, those fully invested find a way to free it. When meddlesome cooperates kill a medium, artist create a new one. When it no longer works this way, culture dies.

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By Richard Hamilton, September 30, 2008 5:10 pm

I know this has been out for a while and this is the first time I have mentioned it, but I guess I missed it. It seems a lot of people did. About a year ago, Amazon.com released the Kindle, an electronic book reader. This seems to be their response to the IPod. You buy the gear from them and they get return business from downloads. Unfortunately for Amazon, the Kindle didn’t seem to get much traction.

Let me offer some suggestions as to why.

First, the target market is small. I read. A lot. Recently, I saw a cracked.com video joking the Amazon Kindle (more specifically, those who would find it useful) because few people struggle with how handle all the books they are currently reading. Sure, this device can store 200 books/newspapers/blogs, but who is carrying around that much reading material? Personally, I would love to cut back on the amount of books I am toting around, but not many people suffer my affliction.

Second, the price point is too high. Amazon recently dropped the price to $359. What a steal. The 32 gig iTouch is only $399. Did I mention that the Kindle is an electronic book and not a multi-media device? Plus, you’re paying $10+ a pop for the books.

Third, most people would rather listen than read. We seem to be post-literate in many ways. (Maybe I should cut back on the words myself…oh well). Why download a readable version when I can grab it from iTunes and listen to it?

So, does the Kindle have a place in the market? I don’t know. I haven’t taken one out for a spin yet. I could see how this would be useful to me, but I’m not ready to drop that much just yet. Maybe the second release will be a little sleeker and be a little more affordable. One thing the Kindle does have working in its favor, you don’t need to subscribe to a service to use the Wi-Fi.

If anyone out there has any hands on experience with the Kindle, I’d love to hear from you.

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By Richard Hamilton,

I’ve never worked in a traditional office setting, but I assume this is pretty accurate.

The Great Office War from Runawaybox on Vimeo.

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By Richard Hamilton, September 29, 2008 7:18 pm

Another one of my childhood TV staples has been resurrected. Despite the absence of the Hoff, Mr. Feenie’s voice and the Trans Am. In spite of the terrible two-hour made for TV movie. Against all odds, I managed to be excited about the return of Knight Rider as a series. I know that puts me in the vast minority or TV viewers, but I was truly excited.

Let’s dispense with the bad news first. The dialogue was cheesy, the plot was thin, and most of the characters were forgettable. No one should be surprised by this; I know I wasn’t. The same criticisms could be launched against the original show, (along with 99% of shows form the 80’s for that matter). Face it. Options were limited. Americans were bored. The car was cool. We still watched. Today, however, this is a much graver crime.

I also thought some of the effects were thin in this new Knight Rider. KITT jumps?? Not well. And the napalm-like bomb…what was that all about?

And I’m not sold on the new storyline either. Michael Knight’s “estranged” son, Mike Traceur, played by former soap star Justin Bruening, lost part of his memory in Iraq. (Apparently not the how to kick butt part.) His past comes back to haunt him in the middle of a mission and his FBI watchdog fakes his death. Of course, he now takes on his dad’s name (that seems like a good cover) and returns to the covert business of international hardcore-ness.

Now, I’m not a prude, but the sexuality of this episode seemed a little forced and unnecessary. Okay, a lot forced and not at all necessary to move the story along. I guess they thought that would attract a few more views.

With all of that out of the way, the good stuff. KITT looked good. The Cobra was tough. The transformations were great (even the truck…it was all very slick). I’m looking into getting an attack-mode kit for the Volvo.

I haven’t given up hope; you can’t judge a series by its premiere (we can collectively agree to ignore the two-hour “special,” can’t we? and pretend this was the very first we had seen of this new Knight Rider). Honestly though, NBC needs to kick Knight Rider up a notch. Today’s audience won’t tolerate shallow characters, cheesy dialogue, and meandering plots…at least not for long. Just ask disenchanted Lost fans. Let’s be open-minded and give it a few episodes and see where Knight Rider takes us.

I wonder how Germans feel about Justin?

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By Richard Hamilton, July 9, 2008 3:12 pm

Of all the big movies out in theaters right now, you may be asking why I am reviewing a Disney flick that is out on DVD. Well. Mainly because I haven’t seen Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones, or Get Smart. These are all on my list, but between my 4 month old, the job search and doing a week of camp, I haven’t been to the theater in a long time. I have been watching a lot of rented movies since we don’t have cable anymore (long story).

So, back to National Treasure 2.

If I were to say I was disappointed, that would imply I had high expectations. I should probably lead with the fact that I don’t like Nicholas Cage. Somehow, he seems to land great roles in great films, but I’m not a fan. The writing was flat. The plot was predictable. The story was weird.

That being said. If you liked National Treasure, you probably like National Treasure 2. It was a fun way to waste 124 minutes.