UM Army - Port Arthur
I had never done a camp video before. And I was excited about doing this one, because while I assumed I would be good at making one, I'd simply never tried. But I was, oddly enough, a little nervous. Camp videos are put together at a frenetic pace. Often there are all-night editing sessions coming up to the last day. You really need a specific type of footage that edits together into really fast cuts, and for that you need to shoot a lot of footage. I felt that maybe I would screw the whole process up, and then there'd be no video to show at the end of the week. These are the things I worry about.
I needn't have worried. It turned out that I love doing camp videos. After all, I love videos, and I love camp, so what could go wrong? Making these videos are fun - you hang out with people, you film them doing wacky stuff, you edit it together. Done and done.
Though UM Army is a little different than most camp - especially this UM Army. We'd traveled to Port Arthur to give relief to people who had suffered damage during Hurricane Rita - even though Rita was three years before. In communities like Port Arthur and Nederland, it takes a long time to recover from something like that. Some people never do.
I tried to make this video have the balance of both of those things. And, not to get all braggy, but this video was hailed as "the greatest camp video of all time." Of course, it was called that by the youth pastor in charge of the trip, so you better take that with a grain of salt or two.
More importantly, a full year later I traveled with the church to another UM Army, and met people there who told me that seeing this video had made them sign up to come out and serve. I honestly can't think of a bigger reward than that.