Besides the obvious items like a Bible and a first aid kit, here are some key pieces of equipment that will definitely get a lot of use this summer.

1. Video Camera. I have the Canon VIXIA HF100, which is great because it records in full 1080p HD quality, has outstanding image reproduction, records to SD cards and is about the size of a soda can. It was relatively cheap when I bought it, but now it costs almost twice as much. Not sure why, especially when the newer Canon VIXIA HF200 is a better camera for a cheaper price. Weird. But anyway, we all love capturing our favorite moments together on video and putting it on Facebook for all to share. Some youth workers swear by the mini Flip HD cameras that’s approximately the size of a deck of cards. For $129, it’s hard to go wrong.

2. iMovie. What good would the video camera be without a very simple, intuitive, user-friendly video editing program to make some quick modifications to make a professional-looking video? Although I have the higher-end Final Cut Express software, I hardly use it because iMovie does pretty much everything I need and more.

3. Digital camera. Video is cool and all, but still images have their place, too. Gotta have a digital camera around to snap quick poses, twisted facial expressions, and capture those unrepeatable moments. Plus, a photo you can hang up around your youth room or put on a bulletin board at church. Can’t quite do that with videos.

4. Swimming suit. Since a lot of people in our community live on lakes, it goes without saying that we’ll need bathing suits. In fact, we often get together to go water skiing, tubing, wake boarding, and more. We do it officially as a youth group one Sunday each month, but it definitely happens more than that on a more spontaneous level.

5. Xbox. For those rainy days when we’re all hanging out and stuck inside, the Xbox comes in handy. I don’t think I’ve met a teenager who wasn’t up for some Halo or Guitar Hero. When we hop on Xbox Live and compete against others, it’s like instant teamwork and comradery.

What equipment is essential for your ministry this summer? I asked this question on Twitter and Facebook and got a bunch of answers from some of you.

• Jeff Greathouse: “air conditioning”
• Tony Myles: “A car trunk full of athletic balls and cones.”
• Sarah Webber: “spaghetti dinners”
• Joshua Treece: “Orange game cones”
• Summer Hamilton Brown: “water balloons”
• Dale Wayman: “patience and tolerance”
• Pastor Robbie: “diet mt dews, macbook, the message bible, megaphone, & college leaders to help hype up the youth”
• Chris Kidd: “water pistol, vit C tablets, team of leaders, BBQ & burgers, minibus keys, sleeping bag, credit card to buy the things you forget”
• Josh Christian: “Sunscreen, deodorant, water balloons, super soakers, and air conditioning. Not really “equipment” but essential!”
• Brit Windel: “Gas in the van, tons of disc golfs, Bible, camcorder, paint…”

How about you? What essential summer equipment do you use for youth ministry during the summer?

In case you missed it, see Part 1 here about benefits of using video for youth group announcements and how to utilize it to it’s full potential.

Here are my two latest youth group video episodes to serve as finished examples of what I’m about to explain.

• AlexandriaYouth.com News for October 16, 2008.
• AlexandriaYouth.com News for October 22, 2008.

This post is not intended to teach you how to use whatever video editing software is available to you, but rather to give you resources and directions for how I created my youth group video episodes in case it’s helpful for your ministry’s communication.

How much time will it take to create videos?

The first one took me about 8 hours to put together just because I had to search for video clips, figure out what transitions I liked, choose fonts, and everything else. Now that the basic framework is put together for each episode, every consecutive video takes about 1 to 2 hours. It’s just a matter of shooting a new video of myself, L.T., and inserting different video clips from YouTube and such.

Video editing software

I used iMovie for pretty much everything except for one or two scenarios, which are indicated below. Fortunately, iMovie comes free on every Mac computer.

If you’re on a PC, the Microsoft’s free Windows Movie Maker may be sufficient for your needs as you begin to experiment with video editing.

1. Intro video

It looks cool, but I’m not that good. I actually purchased it royalty-free from the video section at iStockPhoto.com for about $20 (15 credits on their site). It came without a sound track, so I purchased a royalty-free audio track to go along with it from TheMusicCase.com , which cost me almost $38 (€30.00 EUR).

NOTE: Royalty-free means you are free to publish and use the material over and over again without paying royalties to the creator. ["Royalty Free" on Wikipedia.]

In iMovie, I simply laid the audio track over the video, made the final frame of the video last for about 10 seconds longer (called a “still frame”), and threw the “AlexandriaYouth.com News” text on top.

2. Recording myself

This is probably the easiest part of making the video: I just record myself talking to my Mac’s built-in iSight camera using iMovie’s “Import from camera” option. When I click “Done” it automatically imports the video to the iMovie project where it’s ready to click and drag to the video timeline.

Again, if you don’t have a Mac, almost any webcam will do. Although a webcam’s video quality isn’t as high as using an actual video camera, it certainly is a lot easier and a lot fewer steps to get the video to your computer. And, as you can see from my videos linked above (and every youth ministry training video on this site), my Mac’s iSight camera is completely sufficient.

3. Adding lower-thirds

Lower-thirds are the little text banners that display at the bottom of the screen while L.T. or myself talk. I’m just using one of the default lower-thirds available in iMovie. Click and drag it to wherever you want it in the video, type in your text, and drag the ends of the text section in the timeline for whatever duration you want the lower-third to appear.

4. The short transition clips

Again, it’s just a still-frame from the end of the intro movie I purchased. I put some text over it and used a quick static audio clip from iMovie’s extensive sound effect library.

5. Using L.T.

This is actually just as simple as recording yourself in the step above, although it requires some extra software. Fortunately, L.T. works on Windows, Mac or Linux and best of all, he’s FREE! Download him from the free section of CrowdControlGames.com.

Read my tutorial from last year about how to make fun video announcements in 3 easy steps with L.T. (Check the comments there for a link to free Windows software to use in place of the Mac program I recommend.)

Green screen option with L.T.
In the first AlexandriaYouth.com video epsidoe I actually put myself on the screen with L.T. and talked with him through the announcements (although, I obviously messed up my script a bit in the beginning lol). This is thanks to the green screen background that comes with L.T.. Unfortunately, you’ll need a more advanced video editing program to filter out the green screen so the background video/image can show through. I used Final Cut Express and learned how to do it by following this tutorial on YouTube.

6. YouthBytes devo (jr. high preview)

You can get the 1 minute versions for free from YouthByte’s YouTube channel. Or, if you purchase their DVD series, you can rip the high quality versions straight from the disk. (Don’t worry, I’ve talked with Chad Daniel from YouthBytes about it and he thinks it’s a great idea.)

DVD ripping software for Mac
On Mac, I look at the DVD’s file contents in Finder, find the VOB file of the video I want, copy it to my computer and use ffmpegX (free) to convert it to MOV file for iMovie. Another (and easier) option for Mac is to use Handbrake (also free) to scan the DVD, find the video you want, and export it to the format of your choosing.

DVD ripping software for Windows
For Windows, you can also browse to the DVD’s contents through My Computer, find the VOB video you want and use a program like SUPER (free) to convert it to WMV or whatever video format your video editing software wants. (If you have a better recommendation for Windows, please post it in the comments below — I’m not as familiar with Windows as I used to be.)

7. YouTube video of the week

There are a lot of different services available for downloading videos from YouTube and other video sites. Two easy web-based tool are MediaConverter.org and KeepVid.com. Just copy and paste the YouTube URL to it and click through the steps.

Personally, I use a free program called TubeTV (Mac only) just because it’s fast and seems to encode the video at a higher quality than web-based services. Another good Mac program is called VideoBox, free to try for 5 days (thereafter, $15 to buy).

Once your clip is ripped from a DVD or downloaded from YouTube, import it into your iMovie project and place it wherever you want in the video’s timeline.

Let the questions commence! Post them in the comments below.