Production Changes, Crew Meeting

Our productions on Sunday morning are generally full screen graphics during worship, then cameras for musical specials and sermon support, along with Chroma-keyed lyric and sermon support. Our recorded dvd’s, webcasts, podcasts, etc, are simply a by-product of our i-mag and full screen graphics for worship. We’re considering moving toward shooting video for worship, with lower third lyrics. So last night we had a meeting at our worship leader’s house with our directors and lighting operators. After a nice dinner we watched a couple of concert videos, along with last year’s Christmas show. Here are some of the benefits we experienced from our meeting:

1. We critiqued camera shots and direction.

2. We LEARNED from watching camera shots and direction.

3. We analyzed the stage sets and lighting effects.

4. We talked about what would work for us, what we could do on our budget, what we saw that we would NOT want to do.

5. We took the opportunity to talk about some specific ways we all need to be on the same page in order to have consistency between directors and lighting operators.

6. We experienced the fun of just hanging out and getting to know each other better.

Now I’m looking to do the same thing with camera and graphics operators. We try to do something at least once a year, like a party for the volunteers. But I think something like this, maybe quarterly, would go a long way toward bonding the team and honing our skills and sense of service.

Lastly, a comment was made by one of our directors – “To be Devil’s advocate, when are we just putting on a show, rather than facilitating worship?” I though about it for a while, and it occurred to me that as long as our directors are actually asking that question, then we should stay in pretty good shape. It’s kind of like someone telling you that they’re worried that they’re insensitive. Well, the truth is that if they were insensitive, then they wouldn’t be worried about it.