Video production is one of my passions in life. It began with making goofy videos with a friend of mine in 8th grade which are forever lost, and then with slideshows in high school.
The Wanna-Peas Music Videos
Boom Boom Pow - Summer 2010
I'm a Believer - Summer 2011
Breakdown - Summer 2014
Boom Boom Pow - Summer 2010
I'm a Believer - Summer 2011
Breakdown - Summer 2014
One of my proudest accomplishments as a video producer is my trilogy of music videos with three of my friends from my church that I met when I was in the youth group going into my senior year of high school. From left to right in both of our band pictures, they are Taylor Graham, myself, Jayla Johnston, and Alex Fort. It was July 2009. I had a vision to make a lip-syncing video to the song "Boom Boom Pow" by renowned pop group the "Black Eyed Peas". I posted on facebook asking for recruits, and these three people answered the call.
Originally, we called ourselves the Black Eyed Wanna-Peas, as in "Wanna-be's". I changed our name to simply Wanna-Peas in 2013.
Our first music video was Boom Boom Pow. Filming began July 27, 2009. We ran out of time that summer, school started up, and we never had time to film. Thus, in July 2010, filming was completed and Boom Boom Pow went online, and when you watch this video, you are seeing shots from 2009 and shots from 2010. Try to tell which ones. Make a game out of it. This video is technologically awful and very off-the-wall, but I was young, and it was my first remotely large-scale production ever. It isn't great, but I'm proud of it.
Summer 2011, I was driving home with my PSP playing on shuffle, when Smashmouth's cover of I'm a Believer started playing, and I got divine inspiration for another music video featuring my (not so fictional) failed journeys in love. Thus, I'm a Believer by the Wanna-Peas was born, and went online July 26, 2011. Filming for this video only took two weeks. This video was a combination of lip-syncing with shots of a concert, shot in a story-telling format.
Events in my life took me away from my Wanna-Peas for 2 years, but we finally reunited in the summer of 2014. I was wanting to do a third video since summer 2012, but plans kept falling through.
February, 2014, I was listening through Relient K albums for inspiration when I got to "Breakdown", track 06 on the 2001 album The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek, and divine inspiration struck again. The video would feature a central event of us Wanna-Peas on a trip, and my car would break down, resulting in a gradual breakdown of our group, |
To see the Wanna-Peas music videos, click on the first picture above.
with all of this as an allegory of our real life breakdown thanks to me. Filming for Breakdown took a hectic 4 hours, as Taylor had to work at 2:30pm, and we began filming at 10:00am. It was the shortest and fastest shoot we had ever done, and it was by far the best quality production of ours. This one was totally story-based with no lip-syncing.
Ever since I was 12 years old, I wanted to make a music video to a Relient K song. This was, in more than one way, a dream come true. |
Solo Projects
Hate My Life - Summer 2016
End of the Summer - Summer 2017
Indian War Whoop - Fall 2021
July, 2016. In the summer of 2016, I made my first music video as a solo project. Among other friends of mine as well as my brother, it does feature my Wanna-Peas co-star and friend Jayla, but is is not a Wanna-Peas production. Ever since fall 2009 of my senior year, I envisioned making a music video to Theory of a Deadman's "Hate My Life." However, the true inspiration never struck. In late May 2016, that inspiration struck, and seven years later, my dream came true.
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To go to the page of my Solo Project music videos not associated with the Wanna-Peas, click on the picture above.
High School Videos
The Legend of Man Pig - Fall 2009
Mexico Outreach Video - Spring 2010
Senior Trip Video - Spring 2010
The Legend of Man Pig - Fall 2009
Mexico Outreach Video - Spring 2010
Senior Trip Video - Spring 2010
To go to the page for the videos I made while in high school, click on the picture above.
High School is where my video career began. Well, technically, it began in 8th grade, but high school marks my first actual productions and the beginning of the Wanna-Peas. Summer 2005, my best friend Josh and I hung out at our church Colonial Hills Baptist Church almost every day, as his father worked there, and I lived 10 minutes walking distance away from it. I had a Scream mask from Halloween and a cheap, $100 Sony camera from Wal-Mart, and one day, Josh and I decided to put these to what we thought was good use by making a series of short, bizarre videos named "Squeal". Before these videos could make their way to the internet, for the benefit of mankind, my laptop at that time crashed, and the Squeal videos were forever lost.
July, 2009. Four years later, I returned to video production when divine inspiration struck one day as Josh and I were driving around town. We were listening to music via his iPod when I grabbed it and played the song "Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas, from their album The E.N.D. which came out that summer. This was the birth of my brainchild, the fake musical group the Wanna-Peas. However, as you read above, though we began filming for Boom Boom Pow at this time, it was not complete until one year later. Later that year was my first actual video production, a 10-minute monstrosity which can be called a demo at best.
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November, 2009. One night, I was at Josh's house, and as usual in those days, I had my camera with me. Josh happened to have a pig mask (which now belongs to me) from the "Saw" franchise. We put our brilliant 18-year-old minds together and made a video on the spur of the moment which probably still haunts the dreams of those unlucky enough to have seen it. It is aptly named The Legend of Man Pig, the most infamous production I have ever churned out. The only redeeming factors of LoMP are that it was almost totally improvised, and it was my first ever actual video production.
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March, 2010. During our spring break, my high school gave high schoolers grades 10-12 the opportunity to go on an outreach to Mexico. Seven hours south of Monterrey is a small desert village called El Coyote. In that village lives a missionary named Octavio. We spend a few days in Monterrey visiting a small church, sharing testimonies and hanging out with local friends, then we spend most of the week with Octavio including a shopping trip to San Luis Potosi, visiting locals and praying for them, visiting the school in El Coyote and teaching kids English, visiting Octavio's church in Nuñez, and manual labor in the community.
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May, 2010. In March, my graduating class and I took a trip to San Antonio and Austin, Texas for our senior trip. In San Antonio, we did the riverwalk, went on a river boat tour, and visited the mall, where we shopped 'till we dropped and watched an IMAX film about the Alamo. In Austin, we got a tour of The University of Texas at Austin as well the capitol building. Not only did we get to tour the capitol, but we met former governor Rick Perry. I made the video of our senior trip to show at a graduation banquet. (Yes, that is my entire graduating class. Myself and 12 people. I went to a small private school).
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Colonial Hills Youth Group Videos
Crave: Family | Awkward Alex - Summer/Fall 2010
SNL 2011 - Summer 2011
Crave: Family Reunion - Fall 2011
Crave 2012 TV parodies - Summer 2012
Crave: Family | Awkward Alex - Summer/Fall 2010
SNL 2011 - Summer 2011
Crave: Family Reunion - Fall 2011
Crave 2012 TV parodies - Summer 2012
To go to the page for my Colonial Hills videos and see the full back-story for each series, click on the picture above.
I was a leader in the youth ministry at my home church Colonial Hills Baptist Church from the summer of 2011 to the fall of 2014. During this time, the former youth pastor and I collaborated on many videos for the youth group, being mostly comedic videos with an underlying message, which he increasingly left under my direction and production. Other than my Wanna-Peas videos, these videos gave me the most experience I had thus far in directing, filming, and producing.
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Summer, 2010. I graduated from high school in May. Russell, along with my friends and Wanna-Peas co-stars Alex and Taylor, began making videos called Awkward Alex for the Disciple Now that year. Disciple Now is an annual weekend event done by many churches which usually consist of nightly games and worship followed by a Bible study session, a community outreach event, and other activities. Our Disciple Nows are also called Crave because that was the theme for a Disciple Now my 8th grade year, the name stuck ever since. These videos centered around the shenanigans of Taylor's awkward cousin Alex, and various problems and generally uncomfortable situations he caused.
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Summer, 2011. After my first two semesters of college, my friend and our former youth pastor Russell invited me back one Wednesday night in June to participate in a youth group activity, and at that point made me a leader in the youth group. That May, under Russell's direction, I had already begun assisting him with summer videos which we called "SNL," which stood for "Summer Night Live." These videos were an attempt to draw kids and their friends to youth group over the summer. These short videos feature myself and my friends doing some bizarre and usually harmful activity. There is no dialogue throughout whatsoever, and the videos end with the tagline, "What else are you gonna do this summer?"
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Summer and fall, 2011. Russell and I had the idea to extend Taylor's family into other bizarre characters like Alex. The video series featured a study on dysfunctional families by an unseen character known as The Announcer, with a family reunion planned by Taylor uniting them in the conclusion. These characters are Downer Dan, Short-Tempered Tom, Condescending Chris, and Emotional Eric. The videos begin with Russell playing The Interviewer, asking Taylor about each family member. Each interview is followed by an introductory video for the respective family member. The Interviewer then interviews each family member as part of the study, where they are presented with Taylor's invitation to the family reunion dinner, the central event of the series.
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Summer, 2012. The summer of 2012 saw the retirement of the Awkward Alex character. This video series went a different direction, instead doing spoofs of popular TV shows, featuring Hoarders, in which I star as a semi-fictionalized version of myself, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, The Big Bang Theory, and TMZ. The series begins with a dramatic return of Alex, followed by Alex immediately getting brutally injured, making his return tragically anti-climactic in a way fitting for Alex. Alex is then nursed by Rainey all weekend as he watches TV on the couch.
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42-Second Sermons
To go to the page for all of my 42-Second Sermon videos and see the full back-story, click on the picture above.
During the summer of 2012, while we were filming the Crave 2012 videos, I was working at a movie theater and in a relationship, both of which left me with a hectic schedule and very little free time. I was barely able to find the time to participate in the Disciple Now weekend. This took me away from participation in the youth group and my church en masse for over a year and I generally lost focus in life and I was headed nowhere fast.
October, 2013. In July 2013, my relationship ended, and I felt like blinders had been removed from my eyes. My life was my own again for the first time in over a year, and I finally began getting back to what was important; schoolwork, family, friends, and church family. The Disciple Now that year was October 4-6. I participated as a leader with the high school guys. During this weekend, I had one encounter in particular with one of the kids in my group that opened my eyes like they had never been before. It made me realize that with all of the experiences I've had and the mistakes I've made, such as the aforementioned relationship, I could use my life to be a testimony to these kids and anyone else willing to listen.
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A week or so after Disciple Now, I met with Russell one day at a Schlotzky's and told him about my newly turned over leaf, the experience I had with the kid in my group, and that I would like to officially be involved as a youth leader once again. I also told him about an idea that I had. Since I was not one of the designated youth leaders who spoke to the kids on Sunday mornings, I told him I would like to make videos of lessons from my life experience and observations to post online for the kids to see. Originally I said they wouldn't be more than 2 or 3 minutes. Russell said that attention spans what they are these days, particularly with the "Vine" phenomenon, they must be under a minute, or the kids will not pay attention.
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Russell said it should be a random, oddball number to be catchy, such as 30. Thus, I thought "42", and "42-Second Sermons" was born. My sermons are not sermons, per se. They are essentially myself using my past mistakes, life experience, and observations to cram into a 42-second spiel of solid life advice. Every 10 videos are divided into one volume, and as a bonus, I make blooper videos for each volume.
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The volumes are merely a way to make categorizing easier for these videos. Each volume does not have a particular theme. I firmly believe that everyone is a mission, and everyone has a purpose. Our lives are a story, and our testimonies can change lives. I learned first-hand in October 2013 that you can have a huge impact on someone's life just by being yourself, without even trying, and not even realize it. Make good decisions.
Thank you for visiting my page and taking the time to read this. Enjoy my videos. I hope they make you laugh, if anything.