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Multi-SIGHT

This past week I was part of a handful of people that had an opportunity to get a feel for what our multi-site experience is going to be like. Our new friends from National Cine Media took us to Kerasotes ShowPlace 16. We were able to hang-out in their big theater for awhile and we did our best to make the most of our time there.

Once we connected the computer and other hardware to their system we started watching a few of our services that we’ve captured over the last few months. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with both the look and the sound of the services. Going into it I felt pretty uneasy about what we were going to experience. The brightness of the projectors at this particular venue aren’t very impressive on paper; but it looked really good, not HD wow, but really good.

I was also concerned about the audio mix. We’re nowhere near where I hoped to be at this point in time. I was hoping that we would have a record mix team built up by now, but that process is going slow and finding volunteers that aren’t already committed to other ministry areas has been challenging. With that said, the bulk of our content is a FOH feed going through an old Crown USM810 that mixes in two ambient house microphone and limits levels (this mix is used primarily for our hallways and atrium areas) to avoid clipping.

I started playing a New Community service from April for a few reasons. First, because there was a unique camera pan that I wanted to see on that screen, I was concerned that it might make us vomit (it didn’t). Second, because the band was very tight and the mix really worked for the room and the capture was excellent for a FOH mix. All was good. We saw a lot of worship and teaching and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked and sounded. That got us to a song special from one our services a few weeks ago. It was one of those songs that created a moment in the service. I remember thinking “if we can get this song to feel like THIS in theaters we might be able to make this multisite thing work.” It was a BIG song, very dynamic, and had a chill factor that was off the chart. At the time I was very skeptical that a song like that could still have the same impact… But it worked, chills and all.

I’m very excited to see what the future holds. There are still many details to work out, but this has the potential to be something big. God seems to be breathing more and more life into this daily.

Game Night

This past Friday we had GAME NIGHT. It rocked. We had a great turn out and a lot of fresh faces. 

We had a different game console on each of the three screens, 6 flat panel displays on the stage, another system on our screen on the south side of the auditorium, and the six-system student ministry cart. 

While Away

A few weeks ago our tech staff went to Indy to attend the WFX Conference and Expo. We went with three goals:

·      Spend some time together outside of the church

·      Support our Pastor

·      See some technology that people are using

Mission accomplished. We were able to do all three and had a good time that Wednesday. “But Adam, what about the more than 400 middle school students that meet in the auditorium and their tech needs that day?”

 

Thanks to Jonathan and Doc our team of volunteer students were able to do everything that needed to get done and more.  Phil covered FOH responsibilities and Stephanie covered the console for monitors.  Matt handled Spyder and the media and Austin covered lighting while playing bass. The average age of the volunteers that can operate all equipment for IMAG, Audio, Lighting, Spyder, and Media was probably 16 years old.

 

I know it wouldn’t be a popular decision for most churches or schools to put teenagers in charge of equipment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars without adult supervision.  In most situations I would probably advise against it. 

But in our case, these technicians get it. They use this equipment every week. They know that all the equipment is valuable and is needed for all of the other services  (there are no expendable pieces of gear in our system). Most of all they know that it’s a privilege that they get to use the equipment and that their ministry benefits from the proper use of it.

 

I have huge passion for students and the gifts that God has placed in them. They deserve the best that we can provide for them, not the scraps or leftovers. Perhaps the best part of our trip was coming back while the students where meeting, ministry was happening, people were in their zones and we weren’t missed.  My friend DC gave me one of the best complements: “Your team did great—didn’t miss a beat”. Couldn’t ask for more. 

One Prayer--Take One

Our church is participating in the ONE PRAYER experience coming up this June. Today we captured the message that will be available to many other churches to share. Mark did an awesome job communicating our collective prayer for the church to have courage. God was there and we’ll be praying for lives to change now and in the future.

Beeson at WFX Expo

This past Wednesday my pastor, Mark Beeson, spoke at the WFX Expo and delivered a message that explained the WHO, WHAT, and WHY of Granger Community Church and how we leverage everything to reach people for Jesus.

It’s difficult for me to express all the thoughts and emotions I was experiencing during Mark’s presentation. I obviously wanted him to do well and prayed for God to show up in the hearts of those attending. But I also wanted people to “get” Granger. And not just the Granger that a guest might notice coming in to a service for the first time. But also the Granger that that makes you wonder how it works. You know, to have an understanding that even though it may look like we have a few things figured we’re still running hard towards the next right thing. And that we trip, we get dirty, and arriving is only slightly more likely than quitting, because there’s an urgency about the work that needs to be done, about the door that needs to be shown to our friends, about the Savior who lived and died for us, and about a relationship that is longed for, not just by every person, but by Jesus himself, if only we had eyes to see it.

God showed up and hearts were touched. It’s hard to know how God will use the seed that was planted in the those that heard from Him. For me I found new motivation. I was reminded that the blood, sweat and tears are worth it. That there are people out there that need to be reached. That we have something worth sharing. I was very proud of my senior pastor. He was open, honest, transparent, and vulnerable. At one point Mark mentioned that “…when we are preaching, people can either be impressed with us or with God, never by both…” there was a collective moan in the room. I’m so happy that Mark has chosen to impress people with God.

Lighting Control

I already mentioned how great our lighting team is at creating an awesome show that delivers time and time again. But the gear they use is pretty awesome as well. Let me tell you a little bit about the control side of it. We use High End Systems’ Flying Pig’s Wholehog PC3 software. We’ve been using some form of this software for just about 5 years now.

For a few years we used a NSI/Leviton Innovator Series console before Hog. While it’s nice to have a fader for most of your dimmers, and it’s a relatively flawless console for fixed lighting, it has it’s hang-ups as soon as you start with almost anything automated. Take scrollers, for example. Changing colors on your scrollers took about 2 or 3 minutes, and you might as well block out the afternoon if you wanted to edit that effect.

With Hog you can do relatively complex effects or looks with just a few keystrokes and it doesn’t take more than a few seconds to edit or change your look. At the time of the switch the most difficult thing was our urge to make things more complicated than they needed to be. There was an inherited habit from the old console to add more steps than were needed and really over complicate the most simple of tasks. This was only with the people who knew the old system well and transitioned to the Hog system. The people that came in fresh to Hog picked it up fast and were on their way programming in no time.

One of the cool things about Hog PC is it’s scale-ability factor. We essentially ran Hog PC on a laptop next to our Innovator console for a month. We bought a used widget (yes, that’s really what it’s called) on the internet for under $1k and ran them side by side to see if we liked it and if it was worth the change. After the first 15 minutes of using Hog we knew it was worth it and then some. Once we switched over to Hog it became very obvious that we were going to need the programming and playback wings that are made for it. Up until this time we were using the software GUI to program and playback lighting cues. While there is a keyboard shortcut for most of the common commands, having real buttons to push is almost always preferred. But probably the biggest reason for the playback wing is the ability to move or control multiple faders at the same time. For the most part all of our programming during a weekend service is played back with one button, though there are times when using the actual sliders is necessary. For example, we have a fader that is only used to control the flow of haze and we have another fader used to bring up the front floor lights should our speakers choose to venture down to floor level. To do all that with only the GUI is extremely difficult because you are relying on your mousing ability to perform that task smoothly but it’s not impossible. It is impossible, however, to cross-fade two sliders at the same time with one mouse.

I mentioned that Hog is scale-able. Over the 5 year period of time since we started using Hog we’ve gone from a Dell Inspirion laptop with one DMX widget to a fairly complex set-up including 4 DMX widgets, two desktop computers, and 4 touch screen monitors.

Our current configuration is:
• Dell Optiplex GX270 with Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.60GHz with 1.00 GB of RAM, running XP Pro Version 2002 Service Pack2
• 2 Matrox Millennium G450 DualHead DVI PCI cards

• 4 15” ELO Dual Input touch Screens

• 2 USB DMX Widgets

• 1 USB Programming Wing

• 1 USB Playback Wing

• 1 USB LTC Wing

We also use a second computer with identical specifications attached to 2 more DMX widgets for redundancy. We use the second input of the monitors for that computer should we need it. We’ve installed this switch to help in that process.

STUDER Lovin'

It’s been a great week for the tech team at Granger. Our good friend Tibor Tamas, from STUDER, came back this week to complete the final phase of console training. It was great to see our recovered friend. No limp, no crutches, no cane, no bumps, and no bruises. Just Tibor.

It’s difficult to summarize everything that we went over. We spent some time catching up and a lot of time training. Tibor is a great trainer. He has an awesome way of asking questions and getting you to answer them, and then making you prove it by showing him and the rest of the group how it’s done.

There were a few maintenance items that need to be addressed too. The FOH console has been having an issue where the redundant computer would turn off without reason. This wasn’t a huge ordeal for us because an indicator light would turn off
when it happened, plus the primary computer is very stable. But you have a redundant computer for a reason and we wanted it to perform properly. Tibor diagnosed that it was probably a contact issue and most likely a loose connection. And it was.

There was also a software update for the consoles that we performed on all three of the consoles. The update will give us a couple of cool options and take care of a couple of bugs.
I know there are a lot of pictures of the console being opened up; it’s not because we did a lot of work to them - it’s because the design of them is incredible. It’s truly a work of art in both design and function. And pictures of us behind the console with Tibor training aren’t near as exciting.

We spent some serious time going over snapshots, cues, and masking...especially once TJ showed up later Tuesday night. There are some incredible “trim” features for editing off-sets in snapshots, not to mention the normal isolation option to isolate channels or a specific parameter of a channel from being effected in upcoming cues or snapshots.

Another cool thing that we worked on today was connecting the FOH console to the effect units. I know that virtually every console out there over $200 has a MIDI port on it now, but the Vista8 has a sweet interface in the Cue List that makes it very simple to send a command when you want. I’ll have to post more about that once I use it live and have some experience.

The last two days have been awesome. I’ve been able to spend time with my team, Tibor, and with a console that I get more and more excited for me and the other operators to use.

I’m discovering that the older I get, I mean, the more experience I gain, the more I appreciate good relationships and helpful partnerships. When I think of STUDER I don’t just think of a great company that makes a console second to none. I think of Tibor, Jamie, and Shane; the people that aren’t irritated when we call, but encourage it should we have a question or an issue. They are people that actually care that we are satisfied and haven’t settled for just a functional system. It’s a relationship that says we care about the person as much as, if not more than, the product. I’m very thankful for the relationship that we have developed with STUDER and the few people that we’ve worked with.

I’m of the mindset that people make equipment work. I trust that our team can overcome virtually any situation thrown at it. People make the difference. I feel the same way about the team at STUDER. A component might fail and software might glitch but that team won’t let us down, and I don’t have to worry about fighting through a problem alone...and that’s a huge value to me.

Lighting Team

People ask about our lighting package all the time. They want to know about the different fixtures we use and what we use to control them. There’s also a curiosity of the progress of our lighting team. And there are questions about how we execute what we do day in and day out.

Originally I was going to write a post about my whole experience with our lighting program but it started to turn into a book and I had yet to address the questions being asked. Instead I’m going to do a few smaller posts that will hopefully make more sense.

I want to talk to you about our lighting team. Everything we do around Granger has to do with team and the lighting program is no different. You can’t have incredible light programming without a system that supports function, flexibility, change, and multiple instruments. People still need to be willing to touch fixtures and aim them when needed. You can have the greatest intelligent light in the world and unless someone knows or is willing to learn how to use it, it’s worthless.

I’m very impressed with the way our lighting team works. It is one team working toward the common goal of making the service the best it can be. Because of that team dynamic, a lot of the time our best programmers are out hanging instruments or changing lamps even though normally their greatest contribution to our team is programming the weekend service. It all needs to get done and we rely on the team to carry it out.

You can’t talk about the lighting at Granger very long with out talking about Mike Schafer. Mike is the patriarch of the Granger lighting program.
He has been there from the beginning – in the movie theater. He showed me the ropes almost 12 years ago. He was vital to the design of every lighting system we’ve ever had. He knows our system inside and out. He’s certified by High End Systems to repair intelligent lights. And in his spare time he’s been a phenomenal mentor to dozens of young men. He is our go-to-guy for special effects, including but not limited to haze, fog, exploding chickens, snow, confetti, balloon dropping, UV, pyro, and lasers. Mike helps ensure that our system is functioning from dimmer to fixture. And he’s a great friend.

The other critical component of our team that makes our service lighting so incredible is our programmers. These guys have huge responsibility for the look of our services and what our audience experiences. They create a visual timeline for our service that accommodates everything from a lone light in a drama to rockin’ it out during a song special. They have to walk the fine line of making it look great for the audience and yet have ample light for our live video. They can have the task of making our stage look like a concert, a Broadway production, and a 75ft wide TV studio.

Our programmers do have their niche, however. They really sore with song specials! Weekend after weekend they deliver one of the most impressive lighting shows anyone could experience in a big city concert, let alone a “small town church.” They have professional level skill with extraordinary servant hearts.

Thanks for letting me brag on the most important and valuable part of our lighting program for a while. We’ll get to the gear next.

One Team One Sound

I mentioned in an earlier post that our FOH team adopted a “One Team One Sound” mindset. I’ve had a couple great questions asked regarding how that gets carried out. This is my attempt to go a little deeper into that.

It’s been my experience that being a member of a FOH team can be a little odd. Sometimes you’re asked to make a mix sound exactly the same as the person before you and other times you’re asked to make it sound completely different, if you’re even asked to make it sound a certain way at all. Mixing FOH is very subjective. People will give you all sorts of great critique and an overwhelming amount of opinion; all without asking.

There is HUGE potential for this team to be made up of people who don’t like what the other person on the team does with the mix or a certain instrument, which can easily turn into an “I don’t like you” attitude. I don’t like that.

One day it dawned on me that our FOH team could be like our teaching team. I honestly believe that we have one of, if not THE best teaching teams, period. So why not have one of the best FOH teams? I think that anyone could come at any time to one of our services and hear a tremendous message. You can feel confident and comfortable about asking a friend to “just show up” and they will hear a relevant message that will ultimately help them get closer to God. That probably didn’t happen over-night but it does take consistency and intentionality to pull it off.

Why not be able to say the same about our FOH team?

Why not have a team that is known for consistently delivering a great mix day in and day out?

How do you do that?

In the same way that a sports team is only as good as the last game they played, the same could be said of the teaching team, the band, the FOH team, and virtually every other team that people come in contact with on the weekend. The difference, however, is that we can only lose to ourselves. Our “One Team One Sound” works for us because we value what the team can accomplish more than what the individual can pull off. The focus changes from “I don’t want to fail” to “I don’t want to let my team down”, and I think there’s an overall camaraderie that comes out of that. When the team appreciates and sees the value in one another you can’t help but befriend one another.

Once a relationship that is based on mutual respect and appreciation is built, it makes it that much easier to be honest with one another – honest about what you hear or don’t and about what is clear or what is lost. It’s also easier to ask for help when it’s needed. “Hey I can’t get this drum to sound right” needs to be just as honest as “that didn’t sound right”.

I love consistency. I like knowing that when I push “this” button then “this” happens; first time every time. I get warm-fuzzies when everything goes as planned. Strangely enough, I didn’t set out to make the FOH team more consistent. It was the natural bi-product of a team that loved and served each other well and a desire to serve the church the best it could.

Swimming Up Stream

People ask what the process is for our streaming our services. The process involves more than me and our department but I will speak to what we are responsible for.

We use a MacPro with an AJA Kona 3 capture card with Final Cut Pro to capture our services in HD. That feed is a split from our Vista Spyder, the left screen to be exact. So in other words the HD-SDI signal that we send to our side screen is also sent to the computer to be captured. We do this for all the services that happen in the auditorium that involve Imag: Weekend, New Community, Lifeline, and Oasis.

We capture using the the AJA Kona3 720p DVCPro HD setting.

Once the services are captured we open up the service file that is deemed the “master” in QuickTime Pro.
We set our “in” and “out” points (hopefully we started capture a minute or two before the service starts and after it ends) and then save the file.

From there we use On2’s Flix Pro. It’s pretty simple and quick.

We open up ON2 and open the file that has our settings stored in it.

Then we choose to where that file should be written. We have a folder on our network called SWAP that most of our teams can access, including Daryl and his team. Once the file is converted then it’s up to Daryl and his team to make sure it shows up where it should on the web. It usually takes 3 to 4 hour of processing to get that done for us.

There are the settings we use in On2 incase you are interested.

If you have any questions for Daryl and how he delivers the stream, you should checkout his blog.