I’m entirely misquoting Muhammad Ali (‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’) but today is going to be a busy one, so ‘dance like a bee’ is the phrase that came to mind.

Yesterday I managed to finish off compiling the carols I needed for this Sunday’s online carol service. That involves taking my supporting tracks, merging in all the contributions I’ve received from volunteers in my church and adding a bit of spice where required before bouncing down final mixes of each one. I had made a bit of a headstart but, having set the deadline as yesterday, I had a few contributions left to mix in.

Today, the first task will be turning each of those into a standalone video. In that format, they can easily be slotted into services and also reused for other purposes. I’m still using HitFilm Express as my video editing tool of choice. Firstly, I’ll load up the music files and put the words over the top of each one – quite a painstaking task as I need to be accurate with the lyrics and precise with the timing of when they appear and transition between verses. Next, I’ll try to find some imagery to go behind each one. On this, I can make some compromises so I could end up with a similar backing for each one and I can always drop in different pictures if I want to redo them.

Then, after all that has compiled to a series of videos, I need to drop them into the carol service along with the text of the readings and a few other elements, get that uploaded (so the link can begin to get shared round) and then polish off the Sunday morning service too. No lazing around for me today: I’ve got bee dancing to do.