Chuck Smith
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Lights
Freakonomics talks about Christmas Lights
Freakonomics ‘The Economics of Everyday Things’ did an episode on Christmas lights. About 15 minutes in you get to hear a little from Chuck Smith at PlanetChristmas. Listen to the podcast at the Freakonomics website, or look for episode 119 on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. For the audio-challenged, here’s the transcript pulled from the Freakonomics website: * * * ‘Twas a day in the winter of 1991. Dean Lyons was working construction, and it was no fun. LYONS: I’m framing houses. I was probably making seven, eight bucks an hour maybe. A guy walked across the street,…
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Santa
So Many Santas!
One guy, a camera, computer and too much time. John Wernega plays his music arrangement of “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.” This video shows some of the fun, crazy things that Santa likes to do throughout the year when he is not delivering presents. Videography, choreography, costume design, and video editing by John Wernega The multitrack audio was recorded in Garageband, the videos were recorded with a Sony A7sii mirrorless DSLR camera, and the videos and audio were edited together in Final Cut Pro. There were lots of green screens used for these recordings, hung on the wall behind, the floor…
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Outdoor Decorating
Where are Christmas Lights Made?
Ever wonder where all the Christmas lights come from in the 21st century? My first thought was Walmart… Thanks to our friends at Christmas Designers, we can gain insight into how, where, and why they’re made. Watch the video and be just a little bit smarter.
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Lights
Time to fix that Christmas Light string
The best time to fix troublesome Christmas light strings is during the off-season. Here’s a pretty good video for attacking those cheap incandescent light strings:
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Outdoor Decorating
We’ve made it too complicated!
Remember chaser strings from long ago? Wrap one of those around your Christmas tree and suddenly it had personality. The string had a controller at the end about the size of a matchbox. Press a button to pick a pattern and you were done programming the computer. Drive around now and some of the over-the-top Christmas displays with thousands of pixels and dozens of color changing props make the old chaser strings look like they were from the stone age. Lots of WOW but at what cost? Today’s flashy Christmas displays require you to be a computer nerd with a…
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Outdoor Decorating
PlanetChristmas way back in 2023!
Here’s a short video (just over a minute) that shows the highlights of PlanetChristmas 2023. The last major light display at the PlanetChristmas world headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee was back in 2003. LEDs and digital pixels were science fiction. Watching the electric meter spin like a top when all the outside Christmas lights were on was normal. When the lights were the brightest outside the house the lights were dimming inside, My how times have changed. Watch the full length video below. The PlanetChristmas synchronized light display is finally back home. Chuck Smith is using it as a testing ground…
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