Church Visit

Today I was able to visit a friend’s church. I went to Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, where my friend Greg Atkinson is the Creative Parts Director (Yes, it’s a typo - see comments). It’s so good for me to step out of what we do every week and get some fresh perspective from others. My goal is to do this quarterly. I saw some fresh backgrounds that I’ll definitely be purchasing this week. Here’s a few links . . .

http://www.sermonvideos.com/FileCloseup.html?&ID=26170

http://www.sermonvideos.com/FileCloseup.html?&ID=25974

http://www.sermonvideos.com/FileCloseup.html?&ID=26144

http://www.sermonvideos.com/FileCloseup.html?&ID=26147

http://www.sermonvideos.com/FileCloseup.html?&ID=26045

http://www.sermonvideos.com/FileCloseup.html?&ID=25874

Getting Ready for Mexico

In a week and a half I will be going to Mexico to install some multimedia gear in a church. We’re putting in a motorized screen, data projector, and a laptop with Easy Worship. Then we’re putting in an indoor/outdoor paging system for an orphanage that the church supports.

This will be basically a “missional” vacation. It’s an English speaking congregation, and they’re flying us down there, and paying for the equipment. So we’ll be there to install and train, then also hang out when we’re not busy with the church and orphanage. My wife is going with me, and we’re joining two other couples - we’re really looking forward to it.

Here’s a list of what we’re taking . . .

Da-lite slimline motorized screen

Sharp 3,000 lumen data projector

Cat 5 VGA baluns (kramer pico series)

Laptop with Easy Worship pre-installed.

Outdoor paging horns, paging mic, speaker cable, TOA paging amplifier

Back from Germany and Back in the Saddle

I returned from Germany yesterday and am at church today.  We had a great trip.  My oldest son went with me and we spent time with to new churches in Muenster and Munich.  I shot and edited a couple of pieces for the churches to use on their websites.  I’ll post those videos later.

While I was gone I missed two services (which I had planned on) and also a memorial service for a staff member who passed away the day before we left.  One of our team members worked particularly close with that staff member and stayed in Dallas.

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to my crew.  I love being gone and knowing things are taken care of.

Thanks, guys.

Brian

Hang Up Your Cape

A while back I was visiting with the vice president of a very successful audio/video/lighting design/build firm. He was telling me how they had their employees working at levels that were simply not sustainable. They were getting a lot of work done, but when something came up requiring more than they were already producing, they could not meet the challenge. Or maybe they could meet the challenge, but at a great personal cost. I’m talking about personal margin, or emotional and physical capital.

When they realized what they were doing to their employees, they made some changes. Now they have a saying - “No one gets to were a cape around here”. Now they have employees who enjoy their work more and do a better job. As my friend explained to me, “Now when we really need for someone to put the cape on, we let them, but we make sure it goes right back into the closet”.

My friend told me that now they actually turn down work if they don’t think they can do it without totally stressing out their staff.

This story is especially poignant for us in the worship technology field. usually there is on-one around to tell us to go home. Couple that with the fact that most of us really love what we do, and you have the makings of a superhero mentality - Here we are to save the day! But we need to hang up our capes. Recently I was at a gathering of technical directors, and some brought up the question -”What do you do when you’re being overworked and no-one sees it? How do you make it know if they’re not hearing you?”. For me it has been a matter of letting people live with disappointment. Obviously, I have to carefully weigh who I’m disappointing and how often, but the fact is I can’t do everything. I wasn’t designed by God to do everything. I have had to prioritize my job, and do my core job first, then when I can I get around to to some of the other projects that aren’t mission critical.

I also have to recognize that a lot of my dilemma has been self inflicted. Most of the time I stay late, it’s not because I have to. it’s usually because I’m not at a stopping point, and I don’t want to leave something unfinished. As I get older, I have to look at this as a matter of maturity, and be willing to walk away, and come back to it the next day or the next week.

Hanging up the cape is not easy. But if you do I really think you’ll like your job more, be more productive, less stressed, and happier. I know your family will be.

A Personal Appeal for Prayer

Yesterday, within a span of 30 minutes I learned that an aunt on my mother’s side passed away and also that my wife’s mother has been diagnosed with brain tumors. Our family has been going through a lot recently (3 teenagers in the house), and this is just more on top of what we’ve already been dealing with. So please pray for my family. My wife and I are really feeling overwhelmed. My mother-in-law’s name is Beth Ford. My wife’s name is Julie.

Thank you,

Brian

True Downstream Alpha Keying from ProPresenter

For some time now I have been looking for an affordable solution to keying lower third graphics. We’re tried the luma key on our Ross Synergy 100, but without the drop shadow option on the switcher, it makes drop shadows difficult, or for us, really impossible. We are currently using a chroma key on our sermon support slides, but also have difficulty with nice, clean edges, or the feathered edges we’d like to use.

While at NAB I was talking with Brad Weston, of Renewed Vision, about Propresenter and he told me some very exciting news. A handful of churches are now testing ProPresenter with the Black Magic Video card for achieving true alpha channel keying. Many worship presentation software apps will do alpha keying, but only by running video from a switcher THROUGH their software. My problem with this is that is takes director functions, (or TD functions) out of the hand s of the director and places it into the hands of the graphics operator. By using the black magic card we’ll be able to use ProPresenter as a downstream key source, and have all the beauty that method of keying affords.

What Reniewed Vision has done is to effectively make ProPresenter not just a worship presentation application, but also an easy to use character generator. They’ll be making some tweaks for a couple of months, but expect to see this new feature soon.

I asked Brad and he said they’ll be selling the Black Magic cards, along with the Macintosh computers to support their software.

Securing Our Video Cameras

A while back I wrote about the theft of one of our video cameras. I thought today I’d show you how we secured our cameras. We are using 3/16″ coated steel cable, run through the legs of the tripod, then through a steel bar on the side of the camera, and finally through an eye-bolt securely mounted into the concrete floor. We secured the cable with a short-shank padlock. I realize this won’t stop a determined thief from making off with a camera, but it will certainly add a lot of time to the process and make things much more difficult. We think this is a reasonable effort.We also covered the cameras. Mostly for dust protection and simply to make the camera less visible. One of our facility maintenance guys knew I was looking for a cover and showed up with just the thing. His solution: Small outboard boat motor covers.

Video Announcement Fun

On September 16, 2007, we started a new congregation at our church. It started out being called “Chapel @11″. It was a video venue with live worship and the sermon on video. In January, we made it a completely different service, with live worship and a teaching pastor. The name of the new service (and new congregation) is “Fellowship Metro”. It’s a great service geared to an even younger crowd than we have in our main services. The worship is currently being led by The Jeff Johnson Band.

From the beginning we have had sound leakage problems from the chapel, which is located next door to our worship center. Our facility used to be a movie theater, so the leakage was primarily the same low end leakage you might experience during a movie. We finally made the decision to move Fellowship Metro to allow more growth. They’ll be in our Worship Center each Sunday evening.

We wanted to acknowledge to our body that we know the sound leakage has been a problem, and we came up with this video announcement to promote the change of time and location. It’s right after the announcement about our Easter services.

Man on the Street Video Example

Here’s a sample of one we did recently at our church. This kicked off a sermon series called “Waiting for the World to Change”. Our pastor launched into his message, and pitched to the video pretty fast by saying something like “So what’s wrong with the world? Recently was asked some people that very question” . . . (throw to video)

A couple of thoughts:

1. At our church we tend to be pretty straight forward in our editing approach.

2. One thing I try to avoid is going back to someone with a cut of funny or stupid answer over, and over, and over again. Seeing someone’s cute or stupid answer once is usually enough for me.

Your thoughts?

Creative Synergy Episode 6 is Online

This episode features Greg and Anthony talking about creative team planning and rehearsals.  We also have an interview with Craig Lillard, of SermonVideos.com.  Check it out here.

Presentation Software Poll

My friend Greg Atkinson over at Churchvideoideas.com is conducting a poll. Which presentation software does your church use?

Participate in the poll here.

For those who don’t know Greg, he is a co-host of the Creative Synergy Podcast, creative pastor at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, TX. He is more knowledgeable about the creative use of media than anyone I know. If you don’t read his blog regularly, you’re missing out.

Audio Resources from Shure

I want to tell you about a resource from Shure, called Shurenotes, and Shurenotes for Houses of Worship. Just a few of the topics covered include podcasting, choir miking, vocal miking, wirless mics, monitoring, and hearing conservation.

One issue is called “Podcasting 101“. Be ready for some plugs for Shure equipment, but don’t let that keep you from considering this a valuable resource.

My Photography

One of the things I like to do when I unplug is to play with my camera. It’s nothing fancy, and I’d like to upgrade later to something nicer. But I have fun and thought I’d share my photos with you.

Here are some of my photos.