Rick is a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.

But he runs.

Kudos…

…to a son’s determination to not being “normal”.
…to a father’s and mother’s love (his dad is 73 and they’re still running?!).
…to Dick’s Sporting Goods for sending a film team to capture the moment (although I’ll admit that their motives weren’t completely altruistic).

Want More?

…then try on Jordan for size.

Team Hoyt – Runners

Want More?

Then rejoice that Christ won’t sit in the tomb. Sunday’s comin’.

Since last September I’ve had the privilege of consulting with Kate Bridges and her family as they create an instructional DVD for children. The thesis of the project is helping children memorize Bible passages using hand-motions, a method that appears to be quite effective (and perhaps something I should try myself?).

It’s been fascinating to watch this burden that God has placed on their hearts come to fruition and I never cease to be amazed by what they tackle. What I originally thought would be a cut-and-dry “talking-head-with-smiling-kids” DVD has blossomed into a much bigger project involving 50 children and a host of supporting crew, parents, instructors, and volunteers.

They’re Ready

This is now the 7th month of pre-production and principal photography will occur next month in early-mid April. I’ve seen the kids practicing, met many of the instructors and volunteers, referred the film crew (Light Studios of course), and I can personally vouch that this puppy is ready to launch!

There’s only one thing holding it back.

Money.

As usual.

Do Something About It

There’s much more that I could share about their project, but I’ll let the below video do the talking. So stop reading and click the “play” button 2 inches below your mouse.

So for all you moms out there (’cause moms, I know you all read my blog), click this link and go help out with the Kickstarter project. It’s for a good cause, kids will learn the Bible, and your family will get a complimentary DVD copy if you pledge $50 or more.

For all of you non-moms… help out with the project anyways! After all, we could all do with some extra assistance in memorizing the Bible. If helping financially is beyond your means then no worries, you can still join their prayer team and share the link on your social media outlets.

So… go finish this puppy.

Kudos…

…to Mykola Leontovych for composing the original “Carol of the Bells” melody in 1904 and to Peter J. Wilhousky for writing the lyrics in 1936 that we all know today.
…to the a capella group Pentatonix for recording this performance. See their official site and their Wikipedia entry. (note, this isn’t an endorsement of their other music)

Want More?

Then try “The Prayer“, a beautiful a capella arrangement by a husband and wife team.

Oftentimes things will happen around me that I really want to blog about but I simply don’t have the time to write down all my thoughts. So more often than not I end up blogging short little blips about interesting videos or images since I still want to say something but don’t feel that I can properly dedicate the appropriate amount of time to certain topics to do them justice.

Anyone else know what I’m talking about?

Anyways, for the sake of posterity, my faulty memory, and anyone remotely interested here’s a quick glimpse into my life at the moment.

Texas Home School Coalition

A.k.a. “THSC“, a.k.a “my all-consuming life”. For those not in the know I’m leading an incredible team of 5 young men who have dedicated 140+ days of this Spring to working for the Texas Home School Coalition.

All 5 are home school graduates and range in age from 19-21. Together, we call ourselves the “Texas Watchmen“.

Our team has been commissioned by THSC to track, analyze, amend, and write legislation filed in the Texas Legislature related to home schooling and parental rights. We also meet with State Senators and Representatives, debate with their staffers, testify before committee hearings, and more. Our team has analyzed over 1700 bills that have been filed thus far, 21 of which affect the home school community. Today marks our 30-day anniversary into our 140+ day journey.

Texas Watchmen

Pictured above from left to right, top to bottom are: Paul Hastings (no, duh), Trent Williams, Ben Snodgrass, Nathan Exley, Jeremy Newman, and David Huber.

Based on previous experience it’s very possible that we’ll be working 60-hour work weeks by the end of the Legislative Session (Monday, May 27th). So please, pray for us. We need it. Especially wisdom, insight, courage, energy, and humility.

Thinkers Incorporated

I landed a pretty sweet consulting gig a couple of months ago when a couple of emerging bloggers had the crazy idea of joining forces and launching a website dedicated to thought. Behold their brain-child that launched 8 days ago, Thinkers Incorporated.

Thinkers Incorporated

These authors don’t hesitate from taking a critical look at philosophy, religion, politics, economics, and society as a whole. In fact, yesterday’s blog post took on the 5th most powerful figure in the world, the Roman Catholic Pope (and yeah, for all my Catholic friends out there in cyberspace, just read it).

And before you forget, open up the Thinkers Incorporated Facebook page in another tab and like it.

Third Prestige

Have I told you about my genius software consultant friend Nathaniel Jones? No? Then it’s about time. This dude has worked with the likes of Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and most recently, Ebay. On a scale of 1-10 this guy is definitely an 11. Oh, and did I mentioned he’s a home school graduate?

Three months ago we began a conversation that’s resulted in the creation of a new start-up, Third Prestige.

Third Prestige

In the simplest possible terms, Third Prestige brings conservative political organizations into the modern world of technology. We’ve seen way too many conservative organizations and campaigns that simply don’t understand the power of technology, that fail to utilize it correctly, or that settle for the 4th-best option.

Case-in-point, look at the last Presidential election. President Obama may not understand technology, but he knows that he needed to hire the guys that did. Romney didn’t. Enough said.

We’ve been working on some sweet software for the last month that I won’t hesitate from calling “game-changing”. God-willing, we’ll be going live pretty soon.

Film

This weekend THSC will be competing at the SAICFF with 2 films in the promotional media category. I’ve blogged about one of our clips, “Legacy of Freedom” and the other will be released online soon.

I had the unique privilege of working with Alex Lerma and his amazing team at Light Studios on these advertisements and I’m proud of their work. There’s no telling how our clips will perform in San Antonio but we’re optimistic. Regardless of how they do at the Festival I’m glad that audiences will be exposed to the truth about home schooling in Texas.

In the works…

You really think I would spill the beans? C’mon.

But I suppose I can share some teasers from 5 more projects in the pipeline.

• Kickstarter
• Rayguns
• Roses
• Website
• Makeover

Until we meet again…

During the course of the many seminars and talks Alex and I compiled a list of video that we could make for the Texas home school community. One of those was released publicly a couple of weeks ago and is shown below. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a 4-minute history of modern-day home schooling in Texas.

Legacy of Freedom

Interesting Facts

During the course of creating this video we learned a lot of facts including:

1. American parent-taught driver education as we know it today wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for Texas home schoolers.
2. Some entities (especially government agencies) just never learn.

Feedback?

As always, I’m always looking for feedback and critiques. So if anything hits you as a problem then let loose. I’ll start off with a couple of critiques myself.

1. Our narration was ok, but not stellar. There are a couple of spots where there just isn’t enough enunciation. Good examples are at 0:55 – 1:05. The guy just doesn’t pronounce the “f” in “of home schooling”.
2. “home school” vs. “homeschool”. While not grammatically an error it is somewhat annoying. At the time this clip was made our company policy was to spell variations of “home school” as 1 word when used as a verb (e.g. “Do you like being homeschool?”) and 2 words when used as a noun (e.g. “Home schoolers are smart”). While this is grammatically correct on screen it just looks like a typo. Since this clip was finished our company has changed its policy and now embraces the 2 word version of “home school” in all instances.

Kudos…

…to Alex Lerma and his team at Light Studios. His guys were crunched to finish this all in time but they got the job done.

Want More?

Then check out another home school-related video we created for THSC earlier this year, Freedom Isn’t Free.

Legacy of Freedom

Thoughts

If you’ve ever tried stop-motion animation then you can appreciate the incredible amount of time that was placed into this video.

• 0:18 – 0:21, We see camera zooms and pans. Right away we can tell that this is a serious production.
• 0:26, Animated lips. Confirmation.
• 0:41, There are at least 4 moving parts going on at the same time: lead singer, drummer, lights in the background… and then the animator racks focus with the lens! Crazy good.
• 1:11 – 1:13, Camera movement is stellar.
• 1:43 – 1:45, The camera stays focused on the singer so the animator could have chosen to compose the shot without the drummer in the background to keep things simpler. Instead he embraces the challenge and fully animates the drummer’s motions.
• 1:53 – 2:03, When I first watched this I was sure that the animator only animated 1 trumpet figure and then digitally replicated the other 3. When you watch the behind-the-scenes video below you’ll see how wrong I was. This guy is legit.
• 2:11, 9 figurines! 9!

Behind the scenes

I reached out to the creator and he was gracious enough to send some behind-the-scenes photos of his operation.

How to make Legos fly

The set

3-point lighting

The rig

Monitors are so much nicer than looking through a camera’s viewfinder

Finally, here’s a VFX video that shows how it was all put together.

Kudos

By this point, if you’ve watched both videos and looked at the pictures then you’re probably wondering who in the world put this all together. You’re looking for the corporate Lego sponsorship symbol, right? Or maybe the band’s record company, right?

Wrong. When I found out the details I was blown away.

Dylan Woodley was never paid and truly made this a labor of love. He’s 17 years old and he’s still in high school.

Dude.

So check out Dylan’s write-up about his experience with the project and send him some Facebook love. This kid is going places.

Want More?

Then check out this Fellowship of the Ring musical remix.