Church Marketing Sucks

For their Glow: Carols by Glowstick event, St. Paul’s created this absolutely endearing Christmas video:

Never the ones to let a great idea go unexamined, we talked more with James Bowman, one of the minds behind the event, and thus, the video.

Glow is an event for Aucklanders to come together and sing Christmas carols by glowstick. It might not sound awesome, but take a minute to check out the timelapse video from 2009’s event.

So what about the video?

You’ll be surprised to find out they only spent $500 out of pocket on the video, and everything else was supplied by the individuals, families and businesses of St. Paul’s. That goes for the talent, the creative process and the production costs.

As far as the creation of the film, James says it went about like this:

• Get a group of St. Paul’s kids together and ask them about Christmas and various parts of the Christmas story.
• Cut those together into a single story.
• Create and source the wardrobe & props to be timeless Middle East desert meets Mad Max meets Burning Man. (Editor’s note: this is my favorite part.)
• Shoot in a single day at the mom of a crew member’s beach property.
• Edit, compose, feedback, tighten, release.

All-in-all, James gives the impression that it was a creative idea, executed well. And the vision and execution went a long way to reducing costs and releasing something that’d bring holiday joy to all who watched it.

More Christmas Ideas:

• Check out God Rest Ye Stressed Communicators: Planning Christmas for Your Church for help with Christmas.
• For more Christmas help, the church marketing elves have been making a list (and checking it twice) of Christmas ideas and resources.