Lots of folks are asking how they can help us launch JellyTelly, which is really awesome. (And if you're saying "What's JellyTelly?" right now, start here at the beginning. For the rest of you, continue reading.)
As I mentioned in the last post, JellyTelly is being designed from the ground up for "audience participation." So how can you help? Well, let's talk about a few things you can do. In honor of Dr. Seuss, I'll call them "Thing 1" and "Thing 2."
- Thing 1 – You can pray for us – for the people that are signing on as initial financial supporters, and for the people that are already creating content for our little mini-network. We're trying to do a lot with a little, and it is challenging, to say the least. (The fact that some of you are already organizing "prayer days" for JellyTelly is really overwhelmingly cool. Kinda made me teary-eyed, to be honest.)
- Thing 2 – This is a new thing, and it's something I love about the JellyTelly concept. Are you good with a video camera? Do you have kids – or know people who do? Are you – or do you know – missionaries or relief workers around the world? With video cameras? We want you to shoot stuff for us!
- If you know a missionary family with kids living in the field with them, ask if they can shoot an interview with their kids. We want to meet them – have their kids say, "Hi – my name is ____ and I live in ____ with my family because _____." We want to show kids in America what it's like to be a missionary kid living in Africa or Europe or South America – how cool it is to be "on mission" with God. Shoot as much footage as you want – show us your kids rooms, friends, lives, neighborhoods, and then send it to us. We'll edit your footage into 2-3 minute segments that we'll air on JellyTelly.
- Are you – or do you know – a relief worker working with kids either overseas or in the U.S.? Shoot some footage of them in action, talking about what they do and why they do it. We think Hollywood has given our kids enough role models that look like Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton. We want to show them some different kinds of role models – role models of Christian love in action. Send us the footage, and we'll take it from there.
- Are you going on a short-term missions trip this summer? With kids? Bring a camcorder and show us your trip. Have your kids talk about where they are and why they're there, and what they think of the whole experience. If your church is sending someone along with a good camcorder to shoot video for your church, have them interview a few kids while they're at it and send us the footage. We'll edit it ourselves, or if the church AV person wants to cut it themselves, they can watch some of our sample segments after we launch and then use those as a guide for their own editing.
- Are the kids in your church engaged in any service projects? Serving at a soup kitchen? Cleaning up the neighborhood? Working with disadvantaged kids in your area? Bring a camcorder! Shoot it! Interview your kids while they're working, and send us the footage! My daughter's 5th grade Sunday School class recently spent a Saturday making sack lunches and passing them out to some homeless folks in our community. I tagged along with a camcorder to record the event, and it will be one of the first segments we put up on JellyTelly to show people what we're looking for.
So why are we doing this? Simple. Kids need to see what God's love looks like in action. If they watch a lot of television, they see pop stars, sports stars and celebrities. They see kids driving around Hollywood in nice cars – recording albums and buying clothes. They don't see a whole lot of missionaries or Christian relief workers or, even more vital, kids just like them sacrificing their time to show God's love to others. So this sort of thing will be a major focus of JellyTelly.
This is one of the reasons I'm so excited about JellyTelly. We couldn't do this sort of thing with VeggieTales, because when someone spent $15 on a VeggieTales DVD, they didn't want to sit down and watch video of missionary kids showing us their neighborhoods. They wanted the tomato and cucumber to come out and put on a big show. But with JellyTelly, because it feels much more like Nickelodeon than like a Pixar movie, we can stuff little things like this in the "cracks" between the more entertaining mini-shows. We can educate in the cracks, and kids will ride right along to get to the next show.
Cool, huh? I'm really jazzed about this.
Of course, there is the minor legal issue that we can't show someone's face without having a signed release form, so we'll have to give you some pointers and we'll need to post a release form online that you can sign on behalf of your kids and have others sign who will be featured prominently on camera. (Or their parents, if they're kids.)
If someone in your church is already producing videos (and an amazing number of churches are now in the "video-production business"), this will be even easier. Heck, I was walking through a church a few months ago and noticed they had their own green screen studio! What a world we live in! (And I was all excited when my childhood church put in a new drinking fountain…)
Anyway, this is how we can start. Pray, and then start following your kids around with video cameras.
This is going to be fun…
Hi Phil, sounds great. A much better idea for content than simply entertaining. (And alot of the time, while your mind is being entertained, your heart is being tainted.)
By the way, I think The Wizard of Ha’s is one of the best veggie dvds that Big Idea Inc. has done. Up there with Minnesota Cuke!
The kids at my school having been doing a lot of service projects. RIght now we are collecting cereal boxes for a local mission for the needy. Early this year we skipped our Christmas gift exchange to give children in Mexico gifts instead. I could probably film some of these but I would have to find the right kids…the ones who do these mission projects with the right heart and not because of the personal praise they get. I also do an online service project with teen puppeteers but I don’t think thats what you’re looking for. Anyways you got me excited.
This is SO COOL! I am so totally jazzed about this myself! We have many friends who serve on the mission field, or know others on the mission field, with LOTS of kids, so I will be contacting them as quickly as I can! Of course, getting in touch with some of them may take some time, and I don’t know which ones have video cameras.
My in-laws run a soup kitchen in their town, and they always have youth groups coming in to host on Saturday nights. Would teenagers still be considered “kids” for this venture? Or are you wanting to stay below a certain age level?
Will Buck host any of this? I sure hope so…
Already passed along this link to all of my missionary friends…
This is sooo awesome! I hope to be able to submit some video. I have a friend who is moving to Turkey with her family, so that might be an opportunity. I will be praying…
I’m a foreign missionary…check!
I have kids…check!
I have a video camera…check!
Wooo hooooooo!
Wow… I just stumbled upon your blog. This is fantastic! I’m gonna to have to check back often!
I’ll definitely keep your new ministry in my prayers, and I’ll see about telling my cousins in Fiji about this. I’m not sure if they have a video camera, but we’ll see. I sure hope you get this idea flying. It looks like you’ve already got a lot of support!
Hi Phil
we are heading off to the Ukraine so we will shoot some stuff for JT
Bless you
Rob
That sounds wonderful. I think it will be just incredible to show kids that other kids are taking a stand for Christ. We just had a service project completed in our church. The high school youth enlisted other churches in our area and raised over $100,000 for the area food pantry. It inspired to many kids as well as adults. This sounds so inspirational as well and I can’t wait to see JellyTelly!
Blessings,
Kim
Ok this is out of subject, but have you heard about the new movie coming out in June called Wall-E? I just saw the trailer, I was wondering what you people thought of it? I read it’s suppose to be a love story, but the strange thing I thought was that they called the girl robot Eve. what do you think?
Mr. Vischer, I’m 9 years old and I’ll try to tape as mutch as I can. I am doing a play based off of American Idol at my church. It is 30-45 min. I am the role of Ryan Seacrest. Could you post it on jelly telly? Oh, and it`s called Amerian Ideal. Your fan, Graham. P.S. If you need anything e-mail me. I’m a great actor and I can do neat voices.(you should here my Larry the cucumber voice). My dream is to work for either you or Stephen Spielberg.
Sounds great. I was actually flipping through the channels moaning about the lack of any enjoyable or even uplifting (not to mention morally correct) shows available. I’ll pass a link onto my mother who is a Youth Pastor. Break a leg!
Hey Phil, I just wanna say I hope you do make your tv thing and I hope you become bigger than Jim Henson, Nickeloan, PIXAR, and Dinesy will ever be! By God’s will of course… I left my art teacher’s and the seniors are paniting on the walls, well I drew something like a bunch of little fish grouped together into a Jesus Fish w/the cross and the shark being afraid of the fish w/a verse saying “Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline” Proverbs 1:7, but he said he doesn’t want that on his wall, he only wants the good things from God, but not the consinquices, like what happends if you don’t follow God. Oh no, he doesn’t want that! but he’ll have betty boob, and all these other prositutes on his walls! Sorry… I’m yelling inside, 🙁 what do think I should do?
I’m going to be helping at a christian camp this year. Mind if I submit some stuff from that?
Talking Veggies – Great!
Losing Company – Finding Self in God’s purpose – Greater!
Allowing children to show Christ’s love to the least of these – Now that’s a Big Idea!!!!
I’ll pray for God’s will to be done with this project. It really sounds powerful!
My 6 year old son has started his own service project selling cards with his drawings so he can buy art supplies for kids at the children’s hospital and homeless shelter. Why is he doing it? Because he was inspired by Junior Achievement and because he loves to help other people. He’s just a super helpful kid.
Even though he is not doing it with his sunday school class, is it something you would be interested in? I was planning to film him purchasing the supplies and delivering them to the hospital.
WOW, how exciting is this, kids actually learning (about Gods family – even better), while having fun! I am a video producer at our church for the last 5 years, (20 years in the industry prior to that). Just reading your “thoughts”, have given me a million ideas of how to involve our church projects. You can count me in, (Daily on “Thing 1”).
spoontv.com.auLove the whole JellyTelly adventure.
I’ve got a website http://www.spoontv.com.au it has about 3hrs of programming for kids.
I co-wrote the scripts, filmed, directed, edited, oversaw design and all post production. Its fully funded privately and the video content is available for kids to download at no charge.
There are no copyright restrictions on it and we would love to support the JellyTelly dream with our material. We have release forms on file also. Obviously the goal would to one day make money from the project and fund more, but in the meanwhile, we are going about God’s business making funny programming for kids. We don’t do curriculum we just want to do what we can to give kids a fighting chance to fall in love with God.