Is your church looking to expand into a video ministry? You realize that everyone watches television and the power of the medium, but how can a small church match up to the slick productions? Think again! - We can come quite close, and the power is right on your desktop computer.

If you are new to the world of analog and digital video, you may want to read up on Don Brook’s column, "Non-Linear Editing Explained," from the May/June 2001 edition of Church Production Magazine. If you have a digital video camera capable of Firewire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link,) then you're already halfway there!
Video production is a daunting technical task if you are just getting your feet wet. There are hundreds of cameras and even more accessories to choose from. The acquisition of one piece of equipment can ultimately affect all future purchases, as everything must work together. And I’m not even talking about the world of live video production, either!

Bundled with all recent Macintosh computers, is a piece of software called "iMovie 2." iMovie is a consumer oriented video editing package that was designed from the ground up to be an easy to use but powerful non-linear editor (NLE). Any G3 or better Macintosh with Firewire (including Firewire card upgrades) can run iMovie with the same quality as higher-end Macintoshes.

Because of the tight integration with hardware, software and the operating system, the Macintosh computer is a winner at no-brainer installation and operation. Since Firewire is built into every recent Macintosh, video editing comes naturally to the computer. There are no concerns for major upgrades or incompatibility between components or drivers in the system. As well, the Macintosh does not have the 2-Gigabyte file limit barrier in Windows, which you may have heard of when talking to video editors using Windows computers. This means that you can capture unbroken video clips until your hard disk runs out of space!

One common misconception is that the quality of video produced with iMovie is inferior to other video editing software, which is totally false. In fact, the movies produced with iMovie are identical in quality to any Firewire video editor, including Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. In fact, there are times when editing a project in iMovie proves to be faster and more efficient than with other more expensive, professional editing programs.

iMovie is not in any way, "crippled" software. It has a full suite of transitions such as dissolves and wipes, titling, video effects including sepia tone, black & white, and basic audio functions for background music, voiceovers and sound effects. All these functions are frame-accurate, which means you get precise control of every element in your project.

Another benefit of iMovie 2 over other "easy to use video programs," is the ability to separate the audio from the video, which is required when you want to do a cutaway during an interview, for example, so that you’re not stuck on a talking head the whole time.

So you've shot your video. Now what? Lets start at the very beginning. You don't need to turn your computer off to plug in the camera. One Firewire cable does it all - it transfers, digitally, near-broadcast quality video in and out and better than CD audio in and out of the camera as well! If you bought a Firewire Mac, you'll find the Firewire cable as an included accessory. Otherwise, you'll need to purchase a 6-pin to 4-pin cable for about $50.

When you capture in iMovie, you can select a feature that automatically splits each clip for you. Instead of pressing Import, Stop, Import, Stop to separate your captured clips, iMovie can separate each clip automatically, which is a great time saver. It may seem little at first, but those seconds you spend on each clip really add up!

Once you're finished capturing, anything you need to do is a drag and drop process. To fine-tune the clips that you’ve captured, so that you have exactly the video you want, you can split clips, or crop the unwanted portions of the raw clip, again with single frame accuracy. The monitor window is constantly updated to show you exactly what you are cropping. Although it's simple to use, advanced users are able to have frame-accurate control over the duration of the transitions and titling! You can even download more transitions, effects and sound effects from the iMovie website.

You’ll have lots of fun with the transitions, effects and titling during those late night edit sessions! However, this is where computer horsepower really comes into play. The more powerful your computer, the faster the effects will "render." Rendering is simply the process of your computer manipulating the video to apply the effect that you have selected. Rendering occurs when you apply an effect onto the iMovie timeline. A red "render bar" appears, although you can still work on other things while the computer renders, the response is a little sluggish.

Non-linear video editing, while it does require considerably more computing speed and power than a system for word processing, the power is not unaffordable. A used iMac with Firewire capabilities and iMovie can be found for less than $700. Of course, if you have extra cash on hand, or can save a couple more pennies, a G4 Macintosh will speed up the rendering considerably. With the hard disk, it is best to purchase the biggest hard drive you can afford. Take into consideration the amount of disk space DV requires – 3.6 Megabytes for every second, which turns into roughly 9 1/2 minutes for 2 Gigabytes. Some people may advise you that a "SCSI (pronounced "scuzzy,") hard drive is required for video editing. While that is true with older computer video editing, DV editing only requires an inexpensive IDE hard drive, which is built into every Macintosh and PC in the last several years.

Although using iMovie may seem rudimentary, even restrictive at first, especially when everybody else uses "Adobe Premiere" or "Final Cut Pro," my advice is always to learn to walk before you run. Concentrate on telling the story on video effectively. In fact, it’s not how well a piece is technically produced that separates the professionals from the amateurs – it’s how well the story is told. So, rather spend more time working with the story to tell it more effectively than reading the manual on how to apply keyframes in the audio track so that you have a logarithmic audio fade, and that is precisely what iMovie allows you to do.

If you need even more reason to start a video ministry, consider this – for just $2500, you can make DVDs right from your desktop! The new Apple G4 computers contain the "SuperDrive," which is a DVD and CD writer. Just like iMovie with video editing, you can make menus and author a DVD with iDVD by dragging and dropping! There is full integration between iMovie and iDVD, so you don’t even need to know about MPEG-2 VBR/CBR compression, IBP frames and all that technojargon to make your own DVDs! A DVD-R blank disc costs $10 each, and the iDVD program is also free.

Digital video is affordable for just about every church, and since iMovie works in DV, you can build a near broadcast quality video production ministry for less than $1500!