2015 Camp Logo I designed.

It's youth camp season again, and here's my yearly blog about ignite camp! Ignite is the Christian youth camp I help out with, and have helped out with now for 10+ years. I help create media for camp, often creating elements way before camp even happens.

This year (as with many years) I created several promotional videos, a rules video and two recap videos. I also created several graphics including the camp logo, game slides, worship slides, and the camp t-shirt.

This year's theme was "BEYOND". Quite often the camp theme just happens, and the speaker manages to fit the theme into their talk but the theme isn't always crystal clear for our students. This year Clint Ussher spoke and nailed the theme, everyone made the connection.

I've known Clint for 10+ years. He used to be the Youth Pastor at our church but has since moved on to even greater things. He currently pastors The Well church in Christchurch, NZ. When many of us heard he would be camp speaker this year we were very excited! A lot of the students don't even know who Clint is, because he came before they were even in youth group. But the leaders involved know how profound of an impact he had not only on our church's youth group but on getting ignite up and running all those years ago.

Clint Ussher (L - former Youth Pastor at Eagle), Rob Chagdes (middle - current Youth Pastor at Eagle), Ian Swyers (R - former Youth Pastor at Eagle).

Clint took this year's theme and really brought it home. He explained that we need to not just get pumped at camp, have a good time and leave, but we need to take what we experience at camp and in the Bible and insert that into our daily lives, BEYOND ignite... get it? It was great having Clint join us at camp this year and cool to see the different generations of Eagle Youth Pastors come together in one place... couldn't help but think of this being some sort of Doctor Who special... #nerdalert.

Aside from the awesome speaker and leaders, I'll get back to what I helped with. One of my favorite additions to camp this year was the Rules video. We do one of these every year, and doing something different each year can be a challenge. At this point, we tend to do a more complicated Rules video every other year and a more simplistic one on the alternate years... This year we were due for a more complicated video...

Screenshot from our Back to the Future Rules Video.

Being the huge sci-fi guy I am (in case you didn't notice), I opted for a Back to the Future themed Rules video... why? Because Marty and the Doc time travel to the year 2015 in Back to the Future II. So I thought this would be a perfect idea for a Rules video - what if there were no rules at camp, what would camp look like!? You'll find that video below. I had fun getting this video done. We had to nail down a script first. That was key to getting this thing done efficiently. Then we scheduled a day to film the key actors and all the extras. For special effects, I debated if I would build a life-sized DeLorean... I came THIS close to doing it, but in the end I decided to purchase a model of the DeLorean online and green screen it into scenes. Probably one of my better decisions... The video came together great, and was fun to watch!

In addition to the Rules video, I created our standard recap videos we show during camp. In the past I have done 4 recaps throughout the 5 day camp... that was painful to pull off! We scaled it down to 3 in past years, and last year we cut it down to 2. We did 2 primarily because I was getting married last year and wanted less work, but in reality having 2 is ideal. You can sum up what's gone down at camp half way through, then recap the whole camp at the end. No need to recap Monday or 3/4's of the week...

As the years go by, we find new ways to spice up the recap videos. A few years ago it was the waterproof GoPro and this year we had the addition of a drone! I mean, are you kidding me!? The drone produced some of the coolest footage this year. A student from our partner church brought his drone and graciously let us get some footage with it. Some of my favorite footage was of our meeting room. You can see some of this footage in the beginning of the "Camp Recap" video below. It really brings the videos to that next level. Maybe someday I'll get one of my own... but I'd have to convince my wife... so it'll be a while :)

So those were a few of the highlights from this year's camp. I hope you enjoyed hearing some of the "making of." As I write this we're already gearing up for ignite 2016! The theme will be "Legacy" and I'm excited to see what God does this year. 2015 was the last year of ignite at Camp Mack, we're headed to Grace Adventures in Michigan in 2016. I can't wait to see what awesome footage we'll get and what amazing things God will do at next year's camp!

Check out the recaps, Rules video and promotional pieces for ignite 2015 below:

-The Media Buff

ignite Camp 2015