undistract

7.5 Overdrive

2009-07-08T13:33:00.003-04:00

Another Overdrive post from Ben...

I hope all of you are enjoying your summer thus far! There is a lot going on around Covenant Life. We recently wrapped up Summer Celebration ‘09 and are gearing up for Worship God ‘09 early next month. This conference is for worship leaders, pastors, musicians, song writers, and tech teams, so you may be interested in checking it out.

This past Sunday was the first message (and an outstanding message at that) in our new series in Proverbs. The morning included:

Ken Boer leading worship
Jon Smith leading our baptisms
Mark Mitchell leading our announcements
Josh Harris preaching on Solomon’s Story out of 1 Samuel, 1 Kings, and Proverbs 1.

This post is more of an accumulation of updates and small administrative items that you should be aware of.

Sound

Special Thanks | Because July 4th fell on a Saturday this year, we did not have a Saturday night rehearsal and did our set up Friday late afternoon. Thanks again to Gavin, Karen, Christie, and Alex for coming in Friday late afternoon for the set up, and for coming in earlier than usual on Sunday morning. The morning went very well.
System Retune | As we speak, we are having the whole sound system retuned by Clark ProMedia, and you can expect to hear more clarity and balance throughout the auditorium starting this Sunday because of their work. They are replacing our Media Matrix System with a Biamp Audiaflex processor, which is newer and less involved system called. While there will be more details forthcoming once the retune is complete, the important thing for mixers and operators to know is that the computer monitor sitting next to the sound board in the front of house will still display the mute outputs for the speaker clusters, but via a different program.
Missing Monitor Channels | For the monitor operators, monitor board channels 18, 23, and 35 have been sent in for repair. The expected date of return we have been given is 2-3 weeks, though last time it took significantly longer.

Lighting

Loose Lighting Jacks | A couple weeks ago, Kolb Electric came in and replaced all of the broken and loose lighting jacks (36 of them) in the catwalks. Thanks to Dave Hoover for bringing that necessity to our attention.
Flashing House Lights | A group of wall lights on right of side of the auditorium were flashing on and off this past Sunday. This is a dimmer problem and can be solved by replacing the bad dimmer with a new one out of the spares. Please make sure to mark the bad one clearly and give to the tech director for the morning. Do not put it back with the spares.
The RFU | The remote focus unit for the lighting board has been malfunctioning and causing problems internally to the lighting system. Please do not use the remote unit until further notice.

Video

Whiteboard | Our white balancing white board has grown legs and run off from us! You will have a new one this Sunday.
Pre Meeting Prayer Slide | Because we’re only displaying a ‘Pre Meeting Prayer Slide’ now before each service, we should wait to display the slide until 15 min prior each service insted of starting the pre-meeting slide show as soon as the first service ends. This is indicated in the house director checklist.
CAM 5 | When using CAM 5 for baptisms, the patch bay behind the IMAG suite should have CAM 5 patched to output ‘V’ from the stage right video tie panel, and the CAM 4 Extron module under the desk should be switched to CAM 5. Both of these things need to be in place in order to receive signal.
Countdown | As a reminder, please be sure to note the ‘countdown’ item in your checklist. Its an item that is easily forgotten from time to time because it takes place before and in between services, but its an important one. The Lyrics Operators should start the countdown clock at 8:45 and 11:15, as precisely as possible. Also, Lyrics Ops and House Directors, please wait until you see the "00:00" before switching away from the countdown, but then switch immediately.
Shot Scripts | I am working on a ‘shot by shot sequence sheet’ for items like baptisms. The purpose of this is to attempt to maintain a consistency of the best shots we can find, and because baptisms happen frequently, we think its best to attempt to set a uniform and consistent sequence to avoid distraction and hopefully eliminate the potential last minute scurrying. (This is not to say baptisms have not been going well. It's simply a way on our end to hopefully serve you guys and ultimately the congregation.)

Sermon Media

Since we’ve made the changes in the sermon media room and have begun using checklists, you no longer need to fill out the 'Mini Disk Recording Sheet'. The red binder that contained the sheets is no longer in the sermon media room.

Thanks to everyone for seeking to do the best you can. A/V Production really is the backbone of anything that goes on here at Covenant Life, and you all play a huge part in that!

Let us know if you have any additional thoughts/comments/suggestions.

5.31 Overdrive

2009-06-02T16:05:00.005-04:00

Thanks, Ben, for this overdrive post...

This past week we kicked off the first message in a 4-part series called "Love Your Neighbor." This past Sunday:

Bob Kauflin led our singing with the adult choir and kids choir featured on two songs.
Mark Mitchell gave our announcements.
Josh Harris preached out of Luke 10:25-37. Listen here.

Sound

In the middle of worship this week, we had students from Covenant Life’s Music Academy, including a small choir, brass band, and string section, come and sing a song written by Rebecca Maka, a former music academy student. The students spread across the length of the stage stairs. For the choir, we used two pairs of mics in X-Y pattern. This allowed us to aim the rejection area of the mic at the house speakers, thus widening the area of pick up without feedback.

Also, we recently replaced the metal drum rack with individual stands for the toms and cymbals. We thought this would be more efficient and, honestly, just save a lot of time for everyone - tech team and drummers. Dave and I will be posting a video about some important things to note regarding this switch later this week. If interested in the pieces ordered, check here.

Lights

Craig ran our lights this week and put in the extra effort to aim the lighting for the stage steps from the 3rd catwalk. He also readjusted our baptismal lighting back to its normal position from the youth drama Pilgrim. One helpful thing we did this week was pull the par lights (the ones on the back center rack directly above the IMAG screen) down during worship when Bob or someone else was on IMAG for an extended period of time. The par lights created a bit of a wash on the screen, and pulling them down lessened that effect.

IMAG

Because of the many people singing, we decided to allow them to have the lyrics on the confidence monitors while the congregation sang A Mighty Fortress by memory. Dave Alden invented a new way to do this effectively and cleanly. Here are his notes:

The week three, four, or five house directors may find this procedure helpful for executing "seamless" lyrics transitions when lyrics for the hymn of the month need to be shown on the confidence monitors but not on the main screen. We found that having the CPU1 background sourced from CPU2 or CPU3 often has slight color or position variations that become evident upon the transition from CPU1 to the wordless background image from an alternate source. The following house switcher procedure will avoid this.
Press button 1 (CPU1) putting the live CPU1 source on both the Preview and Main screens. The 1 button will blink between red and green.
When the CPU1 background goes wordless between stanzas or at the beginning of the hymn hit the "preview freeze" button.
When the tech director indicates a particular stanza should be without words on the center screen, cut or dissolve to put the frozen (and wordless) preview up on the main screen. The active CPU1 source (with lyrics) will become the new preview, and now the "main freeze" button will be lit red.
When lyrics are to be restored to to the main screen, hit the "cut" or "dissolve" buttons again to switch it back the other way (live CPU1 on main and the frozen/wordless CPU1 background on Preview). Steps 2 and 3 should be repeated each time a verse is to be sung by the congregation by memory.
Once the memory selections for the hymn-of-the-month are complete, the House Switcher can be restored to normal by choosing any source other than CPU1 in preview.

Side note: In case any one needs to set up camera 5 for baptisms in the future, all of the cables, connectors, and other items needed are on top of the bookshelf towards the back of the IMAG room. I’ve realized that setting up that camera has taken much longer than it should because all of the necessary pieces were in different places.

Leave your comments below!

5.17 Overdrive

2009-05-20T15:59:00.004-04:00

From Ben Neumann...

This past Sunday:

Bob Kauflin led our time of singing.
Josh Harris led our announcements.
We welcomed more than 140 new members to the church.
Braden Greer preached from Ephesians 6:10-17.

Overall, the Sunday went very smoothly, and there is little to follow up on. There are some video notes you may find helpful.

Each New Members Sunday, Josh invites all of the new members to stand on the steps of the stage. He does this so the congregation can welcome them, and so he can personally speak to them, expressing his gratefulness for them and encouraging them to embrace their calls as a members of the body of Christ.

When he does this, he has his back to the congregation, making for a unique set of camera shots. For the first service we tried switching and panning different shots of the new members. However we found that many of the shots became distracting for a couple of reasons:

Some people were chewing gum.
Some people didn’t look fully engaged.
There were only 30 people in the first service, so the shot sequence quickly became old.

Consequently, we made some changes for the second service. During the second service, we kept camera 2 on Josh the whole time, even though the angle wasn’t ideal. Then we periodically dissolved in and out of shots of different members on the steps who looked engaged. This allowed the congregation to see people affected by Josh’s words but without the distractions. Well done camera crew!

That's it for my thoughts. But maybe you have some??

5.10 Overdrive

2009-05-13T16:13:00.004-04:00

From Ben Neumann...

Greetings! This past Sunday, Mother's Day, we were edified as the body gathered together again.

Leading the morning was:

Bob Kauflin led us in our time of singing with Reilly. Reilly is a band from one of sister churches, Covenant Fellowship, in PA.
Josh Harris gave our announcements, and appropriately honored all the moms present, as it was Mother's Day.
Eric Simmons preached from Ephesians 6:10-12 in the first of three messages on the topic of spiritual warfare. You can listen here if you missed it on Sunday.

Sound

Thank you to everyone who stayed late Saturday night and arrived early Sunday morning. Your help was greatly appreciated!!

Because of the 10:31 meeting this past Saturday, and a late start Sunday morning, the band had very little rehearsal time. Fortunately Bob and the band were familiar and experienced enough with the songs and arrangements that it wasn't a problem. One thing to note is that when a guest band comes in to play, its good to have an idea of what they're used to, mix preferences, stage set up, etc. The mix may need to change in order to accommodate and serve the congregation, but still good to have an idea in mind. Anybody have any thoughts on what to do in a ‘have to prepare a mix really fast’ situation?

Lights

Thank you also to Isaac for staying late and arriving early as well. One thing we realized is that we had some distracting shadow during the baptism times on the face of those being baptized. I think we simply had too much light coming from one angle. Generally its good to hit the baptismal with lights from opposite angles.

Video

The camera crew did an excellent job transitioning in and out of baptisms. Very smooth and understated. One note: Our video producer, Chris, reminded me that in order to use Camera 5, you have to manually go under the desk in the IMAG room and push VID on the Extron converter. Thanks, Chris, for getting us a solid Cam 5 shot.

Give us any of your feedback...

5.3 Reverb

2009-05-06T15:34:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday at Covenant Life:

Ken Boer led us in singing to the Lord.
We began of another month of hymn memorization, this time A Mighty Fortress.
Braden Greer exhorted us to trust in the sufficiency of Scripture.
Joshua Harris shared with us pastoral priorities for the week.
Greg Somerville recommend adding a new version of Pilgrim's Progress to one's library.
Mark Mitchell shared an excellent message on Characteristics of Christ-Centered Workers. If you haven't heard it yet, listen and apply.

It was a busy morning.

General Comments

First, I want to honor the auditorium sound team for this last week. They arrived at the church at 5:45am on Sunday morning to set up from scratch. The early morning made me most grateful for Saturday evening setup times.

Second, to one team member (who knows who she is): Yes, I do read the checklists and see who checked off what. And, yes, there was a lot of tweeting going on Sunday. If any of you want to jump on the twitter production com on Sundays, you can join twitter and then follow me.

OK, now on to the more specific details, in reverse order from the usual. (I know, that's risky!)

Sermon Media

Thanks, sermon media team, for quickly adapting to the new editing policies. I think they are more logical and should be more effective in the long run. Please don't hesitate to ask if you have questions about what to edit as we go along.

One quick note that will be adjusted on the checklist: We need to make two Archive Audio DVD+R discs each Sunday. One of them goes in the black case of secondary masters. The other should go into the Sunday Archive Audio DVD+R binder in the cabinets. If you have questions as to where to find that binder, check with Ben or me.

Video

The video team did a fine job again this week. I have only one big note, and that is for myself. I need to spend more time familiarizing myself with what the preaching pastor is planning to have on the screen and then communicating the details to the SundayPlus operators clearly. I didn't give it enough time this Sunday, which makes me so grateful for Bethany who joyfully worked extra hard during the singing time to overcome my lack of preparation.

One small note for camera 4 operators: When you are setting up for a ministry mic moment, please make sure to pull out to a head-and-shoulders shot. A 15-foot-tall head-only shot is quite uncomfortable. Pop in to focus, and then pop back out to head-and-shoulders before you go live.

And one followup for the SundayPlus operators: Yes, we still do the countdown clock each Sunday. We now have a 15-minute countdown DVD that you can select on Input 3 on the lyric station switcher.

Lighting

Lighting was simple and perfect this week. No notes whatsoever. Huge thanks to Craig, who ran the board, and to Alex, who stayed very late after the Pilgrim production to focus and program.

Sound

Thanks again to the sound crew for waking up so early to serve the band.

Karen mentioned that there is a problem with the drum headphone output (Aux 3-4 to Stereo 2). I think we tracked this down already, but I can't remember exactly what in the signal chain was failing. Does anyone remember, so that we can get it fixed as soon as possible?

Brian shared a great idea a couple weeks ago that I failed to include in the Reverb post at the time. He has noticed that the color labels on the handheld wireless mics are much easier for the vocalists to remember than the numerical labels on the WIE units. He actually took the time to put color labels on the WIE packs to match the vocalists handheld color. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who wants to do it! Note, though, that they need to be removed at the end of the weekend, since the combinations of mic/WIE can change from week to week.

I think that's all I have. What did you notice this Sunday?

4.26 Reverb

2009-04-28T12:02:00.005-04:00

April wrapped up with another wonderful Sunday at Covenant Life Church.

Judah Groveman and Zelos led the congregation in singing to the Lord.
Seven young men and women were baptized.
Josh Harris shared some pastoral priorities for this week.
Kenneth Maresco taught from Ephesians 6:4 on Biblical Parenting.

Gratefulness

This was quite the weekend. Pilgrim opened on Friday, and the second performance on Saturday night made Sunday setup quite the late-night adventure. Huge congratulations to the show crew for their fantastic efforts, and thanks to the Sunday crew for staying late on Saturday only to arrive early on Sunday. There are three more performances of Pilgrim this weekend, and you can still buy tickets.

Extra thanks go to Andrew, Caleb, and Kokko who were involved in both the musical and the Sunday tech crews. I hope you've gotten some sleep by now.

Finally, I want to give credit to Mark who figured out why our Events Center lights failed occasionally. The dimmers were overheating due to a nasty-dirty filter, which he subsequently cleaned, solving the problem. Thanks, Mark.

Sound

Begin with a late-night setup; add to that an ever-changing input and output list; add to that an early morning on little sleep, and one might expect some mistakes. Nevertheless, the sound team handled their responsibilities essentially error-free. No missed mics. The band sounded great. There was one little podium snafu, but it was easily remedied and not repeated.

Lighting

Lighting was largely uneventful due to Pilgrim. For the sanity of our performance lighting crew, we opted to not change the focus of any lights for Sunday, so Phil only had to program a few cues. Everything was smooth.

One small note to lighting operators: channel 192 is not a house light channel. Channel 192 controls the dimmer for the aisle lights. Please do not program this into the house light cues. Running the aisle lights when not necessary, or at non-full intensities, will shorten the lifespan of the bulbs. Please only control the aisle lights via the wall panel control, and only use them when we are going to blackout in the service.

Video

The video team did a fine job this weekend. I was especially happy with what they did with the baptisms.

Typically, our baptism video looks like this:

Camera shot of worship leader asking people to sit, listen, watch, and rejoice as people are baptized.
Close up shot of pastor in the baptistry explaining the purpose of baptism.
Close up shot of first baptism candidate sharing his testimony (via cam 1).
"Baptism" shot from the end of the pool just before the dunk (via cam 5).
Wide shot of the whole baptistry as the person comes up (via cam 2).
Blank the screen while the person exits and the next enters. Begin again at item 3.

The wide shot in item 5 is largely for modesty purposes, which is appropriate and wise. However, it also pulls away right at the moment of greatest excitement, as the person is rejoicing in his or her own baptism. The hope is, as possible, to hold the cam 5 shot longer while still maintaining the priority of modesty.

The video team accomplished this well in two ways: first, for the guys being baptized, they stayed on cam 5 longer and sometimes didn't even cut away to the wide shot on cam 2. For the girls, they cut away to camera 2 right away for modesty reasons, but then, as appropriate, cut back in closer to the camera 1 shot when the girl was hugging her dad.

Sermon Media

As most of you have heard by now, the pastors have requested that we change the way we edit sermons. In the past, we have cut a lot of items out of the sermons in order to shorten the sermon and save both server storage and bandwidth. However, as web pipelines get bigger and memory gets cheaper, these priorities are not as important. With that in mind, we are going to include more in our messages.

Here are some new guidelines...

Regarding where to start a sermon:

If the pastor begins by reading Scripture, please include the scripture reading and everything after that.
If the pastor begins with an illustration or something else included in his manuscript, please begin there and include everything after that.
If the pastor begins with unrelated information that is not included in his manuscript, please cut that and begin where the manuscript begins or with the Scripture reading.
If the pastor begins with prayer, please cut the prayer and begin after that.

Regarding where to end a sermon:

If the preaching pastor prays at the end of the sermon, you can include the closing prayer.
If another pastor comes up to close in prayer, you can cut the closing the prayer.

If you have any specific questions, please don't hesitate to check with me or Ben.

Leave your thoughts, comments, and questions, too.

4.12 Overdrive

2009-04-16T11:45:00.003-04:00

From Ben...

This past Sunday was our Easter service, and serving us was:

Bob Kauflin leading worship
Mark Mitchell introducing our guests and leading our announcements
Josh Harris preaching from John 11 on the story of Lazarus

Overall

Overall both services went very smooth. On the technical end there were very few things to be aware of, which means many people heard God's word with no, or almost no, distraction.

Sound

First of all I'm grateful for the Cowan family this week who offered their time to help on a week they were not scheduled to serve. Sacrifices like this are tangible representations of the gospel and clearly model the body of Christ working together. Thank you!

We had our normal rhythm section band with a 14 piece orchestra, 30 person choir, and Bob on the grand piano. Thankfully, our setup Saturday night was nearly flawless. Its amazing that when things like setup are approached in a systematic and organized way... with a joyful team working together...a near flawless setup is actually possible, and a large setup doesn't seem so daunting as it sometimes can. I have helped set up small five-person bands that had many more technical difficulties than we had this past week. Thanks, everyone, for your example and hard work.

Lights

Our lighting op Dave Hoover served us once again and did an excellent job of detailing all the elements on stage. Dave consistently works hard and asks questions/gives suggestions about details both small and large, and those things make a difference.

We did have a little light show a couple times during worship and the sermon. The section of ceiling lights on the front right side of the auditorium flashed on and off a few different times, and thankfully no more. Turns out there were a couple bad dimmers in the amp room. One thing I'm learning...always check the dimmers in situations like this one that seem to come from no where.

Video

In each service this week the choir did a special song with powerful lyrics to encourage the congregation. In the first service, we had the cameras shoot the choir live on the IMAG screen, and it looked great. Thank you Ryan for putting in the extra work to ensure that happened. We determined, however, that because there are only a few angles to shoot from and only a small group of people to shoot that the live cameras were potentially too repetitive, and thus distracting. Rule of thumb...just because we CAN do it doesn't mean we should. The question to ask is what is going to best serve the congregation. The second service we simply put the words to their song on the center screen instead of the camera shots of the choir.

Please give your feedback!

Pseudo Reverb With a Very Long Delay

2009-04-14T15:08:00.004-04:00

I have definitely waited too long to put together a Sunday-in-Review post. Three Sundays have flown by, one being Easter, and only now am I getting around to a more in-depth evaluation of the effectiveness of the production elements.

Meanwhile, we are in the big push for our annual youth drama. This year we are putting on an original show based on the best-selling book, Pilgrim's Progress. As a result, I am going to abbreviate my review once again this week, and simply share some very random bullets on what has been swirling in my mind.

People don't make church happen. They are the church. I've said this before, but the Sovereign Grace Pastor's Conference always brings it back to the forefront. And I often need the reminder.
Covenant Life Church is made up of my favorite people on the planet. Our volunteer teams, as the church, strive effortfully to create contexts for gospel opportunities. They are joyfully supporting all our normal activities, even with a conference and a major production in the same month as Easter.
I no longer believe in the 3-to-1 micing rule. OK, I do believe in it. But I've decided it's a rule I'm willing to break. Sometimes, down-to-earth gain before feedback is much more important than pie-in-the-sky "phase coherence." Overmicing seems to ever-increasingly be my style, and I haven't found the problem in it yet. (Purists may rant here.)
Lyrics lead. Like it or not, where the song lyrics go, there goes the congregation. In our case, there goes the worship team as well, since our vocalists are following the lyrics on confidence monitors instead of song sheets. The importance of this role can hardly be overstated.
If I ask for feedback, I must be ready to listen carefully and respond quickly. I have learned a lot from our team members these last few weeks. They has sent me some truly excellent, excellence-forming ideas. Hopefully, I've done all I can to implement their suggestions.
When in doubt, make a phone call. Often, emails stink. Especially when I write them. Enough said.

What are you learning about ministry and technology these days?

3.22 Overdrive

2009-03-25T10:42:00.004-04:00

Another entry from Ben...

This past Sunday:

Bob Kauflin led our singing.
Josh Harris gave our announcements.
Chris Silard preached from Philippians 2:1-9.

It was great to have Chris Silard back from the Sovereign Grace Church of Frederick and to hear all that God is doing there. We also had first time of prayer before each service, which seemed to generate a positive response from the members. It is great to see the body of Christ seek the Lord together. Lastly, Josh announced the 2010 Uganda Trip which is open to married couples and singles. This trip will be the third trip to Uganda where the Lord has allowed us to serve and partner with the community there for the sake of the gospel.

Sound

This week we had a very large band: 3 piece brass section, choir, percussion, drums, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, synth, and Bob on the grand. Needless to say, this presented some mixing challenges. We physically positioned the percussion and drums far stage left in order minimize them bleeding into the choir mics. Thanks to the tech team this week for the hard work and great attitudes in working with a set up larger than normal...especially with NCAA March Madness going on.

Video

Our video crew did a great job last week. We had a crew member arrive a little late, so thanks to Pat our video producer for filling in his spot at the start of the first service. I also received word that both the video room flat screen and the nursing mom’s flat screen were not getting signal on channel two. If the television is on channel 2 and its fuzzy, it is most likely because the Events Center/Auditorium switch box has not been set back to Auditorium from the previous week. The switcher is mounted on the side of the television in the closet two doors down from the video room.

There is also a Sunday Plus note worth mentioning. We had trouble loading the cue list on the second computer, and the reason is a cue list cannot be open on both computers at the same time. The way around it is this: The CPU2 operator needs to copy the cue list from the S: Drive on to the desktop, and then open it.

Thanks for reading...your thoughts are welcome!

Overdue 3.15 Overdrive

2009-03-24T09:00:00.004-04:00

Woops. Ben sent me his overdrive post from last week, and I completely forgot to put it online. Better late than never, I suppose. Here it is...

This past Sunday:

Ken Boer led our singing
Josh Harris led our announcements
Brian Chesemore preached on 'The Glory of Christ in Marriage'

Sound

This week we had 10 people on stage, the largest band we've had up there in a while. We were down a man on the audio team this week, and we can certainly tell a difference when one of the parts is not there. Fortunately, though, Bram was able to step in and fill his spot Sunday morning, so it wasn't an issue.

One small note for all stage managers is to make sure the band gets rolling by 6:30pm on Saturday night. It is very easy to let the band take their time, which in turn means they're starting rehearsal around 6:45pm or so. But really it serves them if we move things along promptly because ultimately we're respecting their time. Don't hesitate to get with the worship leader right at 6:30 and get things going.

Lighting

Lighting went very smoothly last Sunday. There have not been many notes here recently primarily due to the absence of a backdrop on stage. We will be sure to post helpful insights as they come up.

Video

We had an instance this past Sunday where we went from lyrics on center screen and confidence monitors to IMAG center screen with lyrics on side screens and confidence monitors. Sounds simple right? Turns out it had to be a fast three step process in the IMAG room in order to orchestrate this, and the team did a fine job with it on the fly.

To make things simpler, however, there is now a preset on the matrix switcher for this situation. Whenever we have to show lyrics on the confidence monitors for the singers but not the screens for the congregation, use preset 5. This new preset is basically preset 2 with CPU1 directly connected to the confidence monitors.

Leave any thoughts below!

Sunday Morning Prayer

2009-03-17T11:09:00.003-04:00

“Prayerlessness is an act of practical atheism.” - Gordon Fee

In the hectic schedule of technical team preparations on Sunday morning, I can often run about the church as an atheist. I am doing in my own strength and thinking in my own wisdom. That is not worship of the one true God. God commands me to stop and draw him into my serving.

As Joshua Harris mentioned last Sunday, we will be trying out a new pre-service prayer routine this Sunday. This will give us all another opportunity to stop and seek God together. Ten minutes before the service starts, a pastor will gather people down front to pray in groups. Each group will be led by a pastor and will pray together for the congregation, our guests, and any special elements happening in that service.

I'd like all of our teams serving in the auditorium to join a group to pray each Sunday. A few things for team members to note:

You should aim to be done with all your setup and preparation by 8:40am. Please arrive a few minutes earlier if necessary.
Please make your way back to the auditorium fifteen minutes before both services (8:45a, 11:15a).
Join the group nearest your serving location.
We will go directly into singing from these prayer groups, so please skip out a couple minutes early. Give yourself plenty of time to get to your post and settle in mentally before the service starts. The countdown clock will be playing on the TV screens in front of the stage, so keep your eye on that and leave with at least two minutes to spare.

I am grateful for one more opportunity to seek God as partners in the gospel. May he continue to meet Covenant Life as we gather to sing, listen, serve, and apply.

3.8 Reverb

2009-03-10T10:59:00.003-04:00

Covenant Life enjoyed another wonderful Sunday a few days ago. Here's a brief review of the morning:

Devon Kauflin led us in singing (four songs in the first service, three in the second).
Josh Harris shared items of pastoral priority for this week.
We also ran the Next promotional video to get the church excited about this year's conference, which will be just down the street in Baltimore.
Bob Kauflin taught from Ephesians 5:15-21 on Wisdom and the Spirit-filled Christian.

General Comments

Did you get sick this winter? If not, take a moment to thank the Lord for his mercy in your life. An unusual amount of people have been getting the cold or the flu this year, which means production team members like you have either been sending or receiving an unusual number of last-minute requests for substitutes. Let me say thanks for being faithful to send those requests and for being generous in responding to those requests. Many of you have given up extra time to cover for someone who is at home recovering. Thanks.

Sound

I have heard nothing but positive feedback about Julie's mix this weekend. Specifically, Don mentioned that the acoustic guitar sounded great and was perfectly located in the mix. I thought that Devon's vocal sounded comfortably in the lead, clear but not harsh.

The rest of the sound team did a great job as well. Soundcheck went smoothly and the band was able to end early to accommodate the 10:31 Youth Meeting on Saturday.

One sound team mentioned to me afterwords that she had changed the batteries in a wireless in-ear receiver, only to find out when the service started that they were in backwards. Her honesty allows me the opportunity to remind everyone to always check that an item works after changing the batteries. At least flip it on momentarily to confirm that you see lights.

Lighting

I have zero notes on lighting this week. All the lights were aimed well, and the cues ran smoothly. Thanks, Dave, for starting from scratch this weekend and making it all work so well.

Video

The video team was busy this weekend, having the most challenging job of all the teams this time around. Naturally, then, they have the most notes from the morning.

The Next promo video was perfect both services. Thanks, Dave (video Dave, not lighting Dave), for handling this so well, and for counting down to the end.
Sarah did a great job on camera 4 this weekend, nailing the spontaneous speaking in both services.
We had some timing issues with slides in the first service. Some reminders: 1) the "Welcome" slide should not come up until the pastor mentions the guest reception; 2) the "Please turn off cell phones" slide should not come up until the actual handoff between the introducing pastor and the preaching pastor. The only exception to this is when the introducing pastor specifically asks people to turn off their electronic devices.

The big note from this Sunday is a note to self. I need to make sure to coordinate ahead of time between the lyrics operators and the house director for the hymn memorization time. This is becoming an increasingly complex moment in video land, and I didn't prepare everyone enough ahead of time, so the first service was somewhat rough. The second service was perfect, however, so thanks for adjusting.

Lyrics

Closely linked with the video team are the lyrics operators, and I had a few related notes for them from this last Sunday, too.

Brittany (I'm guessing based on the handwriting and her personal passion for fonts) asked,

Can we switch the default sermon notes font to "Sylfaen"? It looks purtier. :)

Nope.

However, I would like to change up our fonts regularly, getting away from the "default font" idea, just to keep them from getting too stale. I'll look at Sylfaen to consider adding it to our list. Leave a comment to suggest your favorite sermon notes font. It must be both attractive and easily readable, but it cannot draw attention to itself. Free fonts are preferred but not required.

Two other quick ideas:

Please left-justify all the sermon notes. We've gotten into the habit of center justifying some and not others. We should stay consistent and left-justify everything.
Remember that pressing the down arrow at the end of a song will take you to the next song. If you mistakenly press the down arrow and then correct yourself by pressing "c," you will show the chorus for the next song. Be careful with those arrow keys.

Sermon Media

Thanks, Tom and Olu, for your hard work this weekend. This was the first weekend that we were able to complete the entire new process without needing to go back and adjust anything. Well done, guys!

One quick note for all sermon editors. Listen to the beginning of the sermon by clicking here. I think this should have started about seventeen seconds later. Specifically, it should start when Bob says, "I have a good friend, Drew..." While our members connect with the fact that we are in a series on Ephesians and that we've been blessed by it, the non-member is clicking on the link to hear the sermon, not to catch up on the most recent going-ons of Covenant Life Church.

I think we are still holding on to an age-old editing rule that says, "Start when the pastor asks people to open their Bibles." Let's throw that out once and for all, and start when the sermon starts. That will serve everyone listening.

Your Turn

Thanks, everyone! What comments do you want to add?

3.1 Reverb

2009-03-04T09:28:00.005-05:00

March 1st was another very busy Sunday at Covenant Life. Our services included the following elements:

Devon Kauflin led us in singing four songs, including our latest hymn for memorization: And Can It Be?
Five people were baptized in the two services.
Braden Greer prayed for people in the Philippines.
Brian Chesemore encouraged us to read When I Don't Desire God, by John Piper.
Joshua Harris shared some pastoral priorities (aka announcements).
Matt Maka preached from Ephesians 5:1-14 on Sexuality and the Beloved Child of God. If you haven't heard it yet, listen now. Given the topic, teens should ask their parents before listening.

General Comments

We have started the new annual recruitment cycle, and each team member has been assigned one of the 12 months of the year in which to decide whether he or she will continue serving for the next year. Team members can expect an email from me today with the month to which they have been assigned.

For our team members, here are the two simple steps to the new process:

Two months before the end of your annual commitment, you will get a Planning Center invitation to serve for the following year. For instance if your new serving year is scheduled to restart in June, you will receive an email around the first of April.
To sign up for the next year, accept the plan in Planning Center. If you decline, you are indicating that you no longer wish to continue serving on the Production Teams in that role (or at all). Please respond to that invitation within thirty days.

An exciting aspect to the new process is that current team members will be able to fill spots as they come open throughout the year.

Here's how that will work:

As soon as we know someone is leaving, we will send an invitation in Planning Center to the entire Production Team.
If you wish to be considered for this position, please accept the invitation within five days. Important note: if you accept a new position, you will be committing to another full twelve months of service.
From there, we will consider all the interested people and decide who would be the best fit for that role. If no one signs up, we will try to assign a new volunteer to that role.

OK, now onto the details of this last Sunday...

Sound

I must begin with special thanks to the extended Cowan family (including Uncle Dan) for taking over the sound crew this last Sunday. We had several sick and out-of-town team members. We could not have done this weekend without you!

On their checklist this weekend, one sound team member asked about battery levels for the different services. Please make sure that you have four to five battery indicator bars before both the first and second service. Anything below four bars should be placed in the "rehearsal battery" bin and replaced with "service batteries." Even though they will probably work, please don't leave three-bar battery sets in transmitters through the second service.

I had only one thought on the mix this weekend. I think that Devon's voice can tend toward harsh when it cuts through the mix. From my experience mixing the Na Band, I'm not sure there is much to be done with his vocal EQ without losing it in the mix. I do think the harshness can be eased when he is more strongly supported by the background singers. A carefully EQed and featured background harmony could potentially mellow out the sound without causing Devon to lose it's leadership role in the mix.

Lighting

OK, I'm digging back a couple weeks for this one, but it is critically important. Two Sundays ago, less than fifteen minutes before the service began, a dimmer rack control module failed. This has never happened before, but every lighting operator needs to know how to solve this problem. The solution is to go back into the dimmer room and press the reset button on the control module. If the reset doesn't work, there is an extra control module in the spare dimmer box, which you can hot-swap into the rack.

Video

Baptism Sundays are always busy days for the video team. An extra camera and several transitions during singing can make for a hectic morning. Thanks to the team for working so hard to pull it all together.

This weekend's team did a great job of getting the shots right before they went up. I don't remember any out-of-focus shots or incorrectly shaded shots. Well done, everyone.

As we discussed between services, the first service transition to Isaac in the baptistry could have been faster, but you all nailed it in the second service. The important thing for all video teams doing baptisms is to get camera 2 on the worship leader early enough for camera 1 to find the pastor in the baptistry before he speaks. The worship leader will ask people to be seated, but that comment is very brief, and the pastor in the pool talks almost immediately.

The other issue we ran into was "stuttering" on the camera 5 baptistry shot. It looked like the shutter speed was set way too high. The shutter speed should be set at around 1/60 second, and should not be adjusted during the shot. Use the iris ring on the lens to increase or decrease brightness.

Now, to be honest, I'm not sure that was the problem on Sunday because we are running the camera through a converter box to turn it's composite signal into component for the camera switcher. The problem could be in that box, so we have some more troubleshooting to do on this one. Any ideas?

Sermon Media

Two quick notes for the sermon media team:

When you create mp3s, either of music or of the sermon, please make sure to change the template in the "Save As..." dialog box to CLC Web Settings. Do not use the default settings. The default settings create a file that is three times the size we want for the web.
If you haven't yet seen the video I created on burning the Archive Audio DVD, here it is.

How to Burn the Audio Archive DVD from David Wilcox on Vimeo.

Leave Your Comments

Thanks for reading, and make sure to leave your comments, too.

New Multipin Connectors in the Events Center

2009-02-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Watch this short video to learn about the new Ramlatch multipin connectors in the Events Center.

New Multipin Connectors in Events Center from David Wilcox on Vimeo.

How Loud is Too Loud? - Participant Instructions

2009-02-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

Piles of thanks to all of you who responded to my request for an extended discussion on volume levels in church. We have some great folks coming together to talk, study, and write. At this point, the count is 11 of us, which is probably about all we can manage, but if you really want to be a part of the discussion, please let me know by commenting on this post.

Now, for all participants, I need you to take care of a little administrivia.

First, I'd love to know a little bit about you ahead of time. Please send me an email at dwilcox[at]covlife[dot]org with the following info:

Your full name
Your church
Your role in your church's sound
Your blog address, if you have one
Pick your top two preferences for the weekly discussion time: Mondays@2:00p; Wednesdays@8:00p; Fridays@1:00p; Saturdays@10:00a; Saturdays@1:00p (all times EST).

We'll be using tokbox for our video chat, so sign on up. Once you sign up, select "Find Friends" in the upper right, then "Search the Tokbox Directory" and enter David Wilcox. Then select "Add as Friend" so that we can easily connect with each other. You can video chat with me any time if you have questions about tokbox, want to test your connection, or just want to talk.

I'll be trying to use undistract to keep everyone aware of the chat links, etc. However, if you are a twitter user, you can follow me to get up-to-the-minute info on the video chat.

I can't wait for this dialogue to begin. I believe that God is going to use this to clarify our thoughts and convictions about volume levels in our churches.

2009-02-21T12:24:00.004-05:00

What's Next?

Find out here.

I'll be mixing the main sessions again this year, with a couple new bands and the return of choirs and orchestras. I am grateful to be able to serve again. Honestly, I'm mystified as to why they ask me back because I'm not in the target audience any more, and, even when I was, I was not cool. Hopefully, I can help them make good music for the glory of God nonetheless.

Enjoy their latest promo video, then register for the conference to meet Jesus once again, and then pass the word on to your friends.

2.15 Overdrive

2009-02-19T10:00:00.002-05:00

From Ben Neumann...

Recap:

John David led our singing.
Josh Harris led our announcements.
Ken Tarter shared a brief testimony.
Robin Boisvert preached on the gospel and bitterness.

Overall this past Sunday flowed very smoothly, and leaves room for only a few brief comments. A handful of very good comments were made on the drum mix this past weekend. Jon David’s band has a softer sound that leaves more room for dynamics to come through with the drums, and they came through very nicely. The accordion (miced simply with a Shure SM58) and mandolin again were a nice addition for the arrangements. Also, an obvious note but worth mentioning, Jon David changed his strings the night before. The brightness that new strings gave really enhanced this portion of the mix. Dave any comments on what you did differently this Sunday regarding the drums?

There were not many lighting changes this week. However, one important note to mention is that shirt color on stage affects which and how many lights to use for a particular person. In this case, the lights were set for the singers a certain way on Saturday night based on the brightness of their shirts. Sunday morning, however, the singers had contrasting shirts on (dark vs light), and therefore small lighting adjustments had to be made, which Craig did joyfully!

Similarly, on the video end, Robin Boisvert had on a shirt with a thin stripe pattern on the shirt. This kind of pattern “confuses” our cameras and makes for some small but distracting effects on the IMAG screen. Our camera operators adjusted by zooming in closer and tightening the frame so that the cameras would see more space between the plaid stripes.

Thank you again to the sermon media team for transitioning into the new mode of editing since the window closed. It does involve more attention to detail compared to when the window was open and people were waiting for CDs. One small reminder is to leave off any comment such as “lets pray” or “lets bow our heads” from the recordings. The last segment of the recording should be the last statement made by the preaching pastor prior to the closing prayer.

Thanks everyone, feel free to leave feedback!

How Loud Is Too Loud? - An Extended Online Discussion

2009-02-18T10:37:00.008-05:00

He's standing behind you at the sound booth. You do not know him well, but you have talked before. You have a good idea of what he is about to say. "The music is really loud. Can you turn it down a little?"

While I am grateful that I don't have to answer this question very often at Covenant Life, I know that this question comes to mind more often than it is actually asked. And I also am confident that this is true for many churches around the world each Sunday.

As the tech director at Covenant Life, I own the responsibility to understand, teach about, and help the pastors navigate decisions related to volume levels of music.

And here's the challenge I am struggling through now:

Most of what I've read about volume levels in church acknowledge the many complexities of assessing loudness:

It depends on how you measure and where.
It depends on the sound system.
It depends on the music mix.
It depends on how loud the congregation sings.
It depends, it depends, it depends...

But, honestly, those same articles tend to be very simplistic in their prescriptions: Don't get louder than [enter your favorite number] decibels.

So, step one: if you know of an article that actually tackles the complexities, would you please send that my way?

And, step two: please consider participating in an extended online discussion. My goal from this discussion is that we all come away with clearer convictions about volume in our church services, clearer direction for our ministries, and confidence to clearly communicate our conviction and direction to the people whose preferences we don't meet.

This discussion will include (God-willing):

One 15-30 minute online chat each week. This will be a group talk event, not a presentation by any one person. I will choose the topic, but I won't be the sole or even primary contributor.
One blog post per week per participant based on the video chat. If you don't have your own blog, I would ask you to email me a three- to four-paragraph email with your response to the discussion that I can post on undistract.
30-60 minutes per week of research. You may get an assignment to learn something to teach to the group, so don't expect to just ask questions, pose problems, and then walk away.

So, this would be approximately a 2-hour per week, weekly commitment. I expect the discussion to last about two months, but I'm open to shorter or longer as the Lord leads.

Leave a comment here or email me at dwilcox[place @ symbol here]covlife[period goes here]org if you would like to be a full participant. Lurkers will be welcome to watch the video chat and read the results, but only full participants can talk in the chat or have their thoughts posted outside of the comments on undistract.

Who's in?

2.8 Reverb

2009-02-10T12:36:00.008-05:00

We had another great weekend with a first-time Sunday preacher. Mike Bradshaw - more famously known to our Discovery Land kids as Mr. B - taught us about the gospel and our words. Listen again to learn about how our words carry the dangerous potential to corrupt or the glorious potential to give grace.

What else happened on Sunday?

Devon Kauflin and the band formerly known as Na led us in singing to our Savior.
Braden Greer led us in taking the Lord's Supper together.
Joshua Harris shared some upcoming events of pastoral importance, most significantly the preview nights for the new Introducing God class.
Dean Adamek shared how God is at work at Rancho 3M orphanage in Guadelupe, Mexico.
Mike preached this sermon, which you can apply here.

General Comments

As you know, change is the only constant in our world. Starting in the next couple weeks, we are making another small administrative change. Instead of Ken or Brittany placing song sheets on each stand for the musicians, there will be a wall file in the sound booth near the sound checklists that will hold all the song sheets for that Sunday. Mixers and SundayPlus operators will need to get their song sheets from there. Also, if the band doesn't get this note, you can let them know where their music will be.

Sermon Media

I'm going to start today with a note for our sermon media team. For those of you who haven't met them before, we have nine people who handle all the Sunday sermon recording and editing. For some time, they have been the "outsider" team, but I want to draw them in more under the Production Teams umbrella. You will likely see more notes for them in the future. Now that everyone knows who they are, here's what we learned Sunday on the sermon media team...

First, thanks to everyone on the team for adjusting so graciously to the changes associated with closing the sermon media window. I know it means more work and new processes for you in the first few months. Your help is making a significant difference in the amount of work we have to do throughout the week.

Mark, who was editing this weekend, quite ably followed all the directions on the new checklist. However, the noise reduction part of the software does not work well on music. When he, as instructed, ran noise reduction on the entire service file, it made the sermon sound terrible. Lesson learned: we will only run noise reduction on files that are solely speech, not on anything that includes music. Music recordings will only be normalized. The checklist now indicates that correctly.

Sound

The sound crew did very well, especially considering that they were shorthanded by two people and did not have a Saturday night rehearsal. From my limited vantage point, it seemed like Sunday morning rehearsal went smoothly. The band was able to wrap up at 8:30a sharp, which is usually a sign that soundcheck was done at a good time.

The stage setup was clean and neat, another important factor with the empty stage look we are using. The team also did a good job of putting people exactly where we had indicated on the stage plot. In retrospect, I should have spread people out more, so there wasn't such a big opening stage center, but that was completely my fault.

The only mix comment I received was that it seemed like Jake's loops on Only Jesus were too loud in the second service. If I understand correctly, the band and mixer really liked what Jake was doing in the first service, so they decided to highlight it more in the second service by using it more and having it more prominent in the mix. It might have been too much.

Since we've been doing more with loops in the last year or so, it may be time to have a discussion with the mixers and Jake to figure out the best way to place loops in the mix. Sometimes they are just texture. Sometimes they are the foundation of the mix. Sometimes they are the transitional elements. As always, listen carefully and communicate with the band about arrangements.

Lighting

Craig did a nice job with the lighting this weekend. Thanks, Craig, for flowing with the on-the-fly house light adjustments for communion. I had forgotten to indicate that the house lights should be at 90% when the trays of bread and juice were being distributed.

I was reminded this weekend that lighting is much more than intensity levels on the display monitor. Other things affect the brightness of the subject, including the burn-in level of the lamps, lamp bench focus, burn-in level of the gel, as well as the color of the subject's skin and clothing.

How did this show up on Sunday? Megan was wearing white and has very light skin. She was glowing. Devon, on the other hand, was wearing black and has facial hair. We couldn't get Devon as bright as Megan by just adjusting light levels without dropping Megan into the dark. If we had noticed this in time, we probably should have added another light to Devon. This is just another element for which lighting operators need to be ready to adjust.

Finally, a small thing: because the lighting team is responsible for all lighting aspects to the auditorium environment, the team members should be going backstage to make sure the hallway lights are set correctly. This minimizes light spill from backstage to onstage during blackouts. Some operators have been confused by the labeling of the light switches. Which ones should be on and which ones should be off? I now added numerical labels to the switches which correspond to the checklist. There are nine switches, each with an indicator of "Up" and "Down" to make the three-way switches easier to understand.

Video

The video team was busy this weekend. They did a great job on a couple items in particular. First, they nailed the video of Caly that Mike used as an illustration in his message. It rolled in at just the right time, flowing very well with his speech patterns and was timed perfectly to his verbal prompts. They also did very well with Dean Adamek's pictures. He didn't exactly follow the script, and they reacted very well to direction from several different people. Thanks, John and Ed, for your quick responses.

One thing that all the teams can still improve on is preparation for shots from the ministry mic. Unfortunately, we still have many shots going up late, too bright or dark, out of focus, and with uncomfortable framing. Here's the problem: these are moments when the Spirit of God wants to speak to very specific people in the congregation. If the camera shot is bad, that could draw the attention of those same people away from God. We need to work harder to get this right.

The camera 4 operators have had a checklist item to ask the lighting operator to turn on the ministry mic lights and then note the f-stop number with the lights on. This should allow them to preset the brightness during the meeting even with the lights off. Even though these items have largely been checked off, I'm afraid this either isn't getting done accurately or it isn't being used later in the service. So, I've added some more details to the checklist. The camera 4 operators (and camera 5 for baptisms) should fill in the blanks for the f-stop number and the focal length for a good shot. If you have any questions at all on how to do this, please talk to your camera director, video producer, or me.

SundayPlus

The SundayPlus operators did a good job this weekend. Thanks, Dolores, for staying late after the 10:31 meeting to enter the songs into the system. This always sets us up well for a more calm Sunday morning. I have only one note for them from the whole meeting: Please don't shut off the countdown clock before it hits "00:00". Ken is really pushing the band to start when the countdown hits zero. However, when we shut if off at 00:10, they get confused and tend to start late. We should let the countdown run all the way out, and only then switch back to the lyrics computers.

Thanks, everyone. What would you like to add?

2.1 Reverb

2009-02-04T10:29:00.007-05:00

Braden Greer taught the fifteenth sermon in Covenant Life's series in Ephesians this last Sunday. You can listen again to hear how the new birth makes new actions possible. As a reminder of what else happened, here's the list of items from this weekend's very full Sunday:

Bob Kauflin led us in singing with an "acoustic" band.
Bob introduced our new hymn for memorization for February, Be Thou My Vision.
Isaac Hydoski shared an exhortation regarding our adoption into God's family.
Adam Malcolm prayed for Tajikistan. Due to time, this got cut from the second service.
Joshua Harris led the church in praying for President Obama based on Albert Mohler's prayer.
Joshua shared some pastoral priorities, aka announcements.
Braden preached. Did I recommend yet that you listen to it again?

I want to begin with an encouraging note. Because I am not usually in Discovery Land, our children's ministry, I don't often get to include details from that room in our Sunday follow-up posts. However, I wanted to pass on this note from Sue, who helps Mike Bradshaw coordinate the music and drama teams in Discovery Land:

I worked with the Week 4 team this past Sunday [actually 2 Sundays ago now] and was amazed at how smoothly and quickly everything came together. We were able to follow the schedule Mike had laid out with almost minute-precision. There were only three techs there: Dan, Mark, and Caleb. Honestly, I can't tell you exactly HOW they made it all fall together so smoothly but it did seem that everyone knew exactly what they should be doing and how to get it done efficiently.

Any thoughts from that team on how everything came together so effectively? What did you do to prepare the equipment and yourselves? Please comment on this post to teach us all a thing or two.

Second, I found a note on one of the checklists that went something like this: "It would be nice to be able to IM Dave." You can! Let me introduce you to Twitter. Twitter is a simple messaging service that allows you and me to connect, whether we are at our computers or not.

Here's how to get set up:

Go to http://www.twitter.com and sign up for an account.
Go to your account settings, then devices, and sign up your cell phone for text messaging. Important note: this could cost you money, so make sure you know what your calling plan allows for text messaging.
Go to http://www.twitter.com/davidjwilcox and click on the follow button. Then select "On" for device updates. This will allow you to receive my updates on your cell phone.
Then, I will follow you back, so we can communicate. Please choose a logical username or fill in your profile, so that I know who you are. I don't follow random people (aka spammers).
Then you can send me a public message by texting 40404 with a note starting with @davidjwilcox, for instance, "@davidjwilcox Will there be a song at the end of the service?"
Or send me a direct (private) message by texting 40404 with a note starting with d davidjwilcox, for instance "d davidjwilcox Your hair looks really goofy after you take off the intercom headset."

Also, if you don't want to sign up for an account, but you do want to receive my updates from Twitter, simply send a text message to 40404 with "follow davidjwilcox". You won't be able to send me messages, but you can read the updates I'll post.

Sound

The sound crew did a good job this weekend. Not having a Saturday rehearsal always pressurizes the Sunday rehearsal time, but it seemed like this weekend's team handled it peaceably.

The mix was very good, Dave. Whatever you did with Ben's acoustic guitar was exactly what we were looking for in the "acoustic band" sound. Did you use the tube compressor for that? How did the AKG 535 work for the Cajon?

One reminder for monitor operators: No mix output peak lights should ever come on. This will cause at least uncomfortable compression in the person's headphones. Many times, it will distort the mix.

What typically happens is this:

There is a leftover mix from the last week, which was pretty loud.
The musician comes in and immediately turns the entire mix down at their box or wireless in-ear pack.
They then proceed to turn up the instruments that they want to hear.
Quickly, this will lead to peak lights on the meters because we are overdriving the outputs of the mixer.

The remedy is this: Turn each input down in that mix at the board. (Do not turn down the overall mix level). Then have the musician turn their box back up. Then adjust the mix as necessary.

All musicians should have their volume levels at minimally 75%. Don't forget that the wireless in-ear receivers' painted volume "markers" not very accurate. Make sure to turn the volume all the way around (with in-ears OUT!) and then turn it back to about 75% of the highest level. Audio producers, we need to make this a weekly reminder to the musicians. They should not be expected to remember this from week to week.

Lighting

Lighting was pretty simple this weekend, and Alex did a great job. By the way, did you know that Alex was the 10:31 award winner? That means that, of all the high school senior guys, Alex was chosen by his classmates, teachers, parents, and pastors as the one who best exemplifies the motto of our youth ministry: "Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." Congratulations, Alex! You have our deepest respect. Thanks for your example of godliness and service in secret.

Video

The video work was very smooth this weekend. Special thanks go to Isaac and Ryan for jumping in at the last-minute to camera direct. The first shots we saw were solid, without much shading happening after they went live. That was a very good thing.

I think, however, that we can still be faster to get the shots right and then get them live. Two reminders for the assistant directors:

All stage lighting changes are indicated on your service rundown worksheet. Whenever there is a number indicated in the line of the service item, a lighting change will be happening. That's when you need to be most ready to adjust on the fly.
The lighting cue indicated as "Sermon" on the sheet is such that you can safely start by setting the iris knob at the 12 noon position. When you see "sermon" as the coming lighting cue, for instance when a pastor is coming up on stage, take the next camera shot to the 12 noon iris position, wait for the lights to change, and then adjust slightly to lock in the brightness.

Remember, you are the eyes of the congregation, and most people will open their eyes when someone comes up to speak. The goal is to get each shot right and live before they say the first word. It's a tall goal, but you can do it!

What would you like to suggest from this last Sunday?

Ever Seen Sound Travel?

2009-01-21T17:03:00.001-05:00

Here is a great little video from John Huntington demonstrating how sound takes time to travel through the air.

Seeing Sound Waves from John Huntington on Vimeo.

1.11 and 1.18 Reverb

2009-01-21T09:47:00.005-05:00

This silly picture (silly only because I'm in it) showed up on Josh's blog last Saturday. The subtitle included,

[Dave] leads a small army of servants who make live video and sound happen throughout the building on Sundays.

I want to take this opportunity to again say thanks to all of you. This picture would be meaningless without all of you doing your part. I also want to point out that you do more than just make live sound and video happen each Sunday. You also make it happen at every other church event. And you don't just make it happen. You make it happen with excellence in both execution and spirit. Thanks for honoring God in your service. Note: my apologies to all the lighting folks who didn't get represented in the caption. You are not forgotten by the Lord!

I also want to thank those of you who came to the mandatory January meetings these last two weekends. We had a great response to the change in the annual serving cycle, with almost half of the team willing to extend their service into 2010. That is such a wonderful representation of God's heart for this church. He is working in you, giving you a sacrificial heart of service, to continue to provide for the church into the future. Thanks so much!

As we discussed, some of you will have your annual commitment decision come due in April of this year. By the end of January, we will assign everyone their month. And those of you who will come due in April will hear from us in early February.

If you were not able to make one of the meetings, I am creating a DVD of last Sunday's meeting for you to watch. Warning: this video will have zero production value, but it will be informational and will explain how to send us your response.

For various reasons, but primarily because moving my office was more work than I expected, I wasn't able to find the time to post my reverb comments for Sunday, January 11th. Instead of going through a blow-by-blow of the past two weeks, I thought I'd mention just a few of the little details that make the big difference. In some ways, these details are very basic, simple, and easily accomplished. At the same time, these are the first things we tend to forget when we start to get too comfortable.

Checklists

First, I need to ask the forgiveness of the entire team. I looked through the checklists this week, which means I looked over my own. It was incomplete. That's unacceptable. Please forgive me for being lazy, and for setting such a poor example. I will make every effort to never do that again.

Why is it important that we read the checklists carefully and follow through with them? The checklists are our safeguard that we don't forget the small details. We had a prime example this weekend, when the house lights went up and down several times during communion. That could have been avoided if the lighting checklist had been fully completed.

Now, let me be clear that I'm not picking on our lighting operator from this last Sunday. It could have been one of my incomplete checklist items that caused the distraction. It could have been one of the other 6 or so people who didn't complete their checklists.

Let's redefine faithfulness. Faithfulness is checking every box.

Storage and Organization

As I always recount on our quarterly work days, the whole world follows the rules of entropy, meaning that things go from order to chaos unless they are acted on by a force from the outside. You can be that force of order when you return everything to its dedicated storage spot.

The Events Center is especially troublesome, so we used the last work day to organize the backstage area. Ben and Caleb also filmed a video to show how it should look whenever our teams leave. Each and every team needs to own this in order for it to work.

Go ahead, subdue the earth.

Stage

Since we have abandoned the flats as a stage backdrop, we can no longer hide disorganized piles of cables, cases, coats, and coffee cups behind them. Now, we need to return to ruthless removal of all unneeded items. To the green room with you.

Similarly, we need to be more careful with the neatness of cables. For the most part, all coils of cable should remain at the base of the mic or music stand. In some cases, extra snake cable should be coiled up at the main wall panels. Please avoid coiling piles of cable near a subsnake box, as the pile becomes tangled spaghetti when troubleshooting is required.

I will be posting a video soon about how to tape down cables, since this is a detail I have not stressed adequately enough. In the meantime, a few rules: 1) don't tape anything down until you are confident it works; 2) never tape anything down with a single strip of 2" gaff; 3) keep your eyes on your RSS feeds for that video.

Camera Shots

Back in November, we had a run of excellence when I told the video crews there would be a prize for the first team that went an entire morning without requiring Ben or me to use the phrase, "Focus Toward You." Unfortunately, since then, we've been back to our old ways. Several, if not many, shots are going up with the wrong exposure or with the focus obviously too far away.

While I know this is difficult to perfect, this is a basic necessity to avoid distraction for the congregation. The essence of the job of the camera crew is to be the eyes of the congregation. The human eye adjusts almost immediately to changes in brightness and focus, and we need to replicate that with the cameras.

This degree of excellence requires 100% of the team to be hard at work at all times. Each camera operator needs to watch those little monitors really carefully. The assistant director and the camera 4 operator must pay careful attention to the brightness of every shot. Camera directors must be pleasantly demanding, insisting that each shot be right before it hits the program. House directors can be that final line of defense. If it's not right, don't put it up unless you have absolutely no choice.

We can improve in this area, and Ben and I will be pushing you all to excel. Let's make the video great, every shot, every moment.

Lighting Setup

Another result of the non-existent backdrop is that our lighting has simplified significantly. The temptation could be to ease up a little on aiming lights on the band, since we don't have the panels there to accentuate sloppiness. Please make sure that you don't rely on last week's light plot instead of aiming lights for your stage setup.

The Little Things

Now, before I conclude, let me make clear that last Sunday was a great morning. People worshiped the Lord, and we heard his word preached. I believe that the Spirit used these things to strengthen and change people and to bring himself much glory. I write this post not primarily about the last two weeks, but instead to address some tendencies that I'm seeing across the teams. While they are just tendencies now, they could become bad habits if we're not vigilant to address them.

"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31

The little things do count to God.

What other little things could we do to improve?

Events Center Backstage Cleanup

2009-01-17T14:55:00.004-05:00

At our work day one week ago, a team of folks cleaned up and organized the Events Center backstage area. Our hope and expectation is that from now on the Events Center will return to this state after each and every event. While this doesn't necessarily require a video, we wanted to let you see that neatness is indeed possible with the hope that it will inspire you to keep it that way. Thanks in advance for your help in keeping this area in order.

Events Center Backstage Organization from David Wilcox on Vimeo.

1.4 Reverb

2009-01-06T12:25:00.003-05:00

One Sunday down. Fifty-one to go. I can't believe it's already 2009.

What happened on this first Sunday of the new year?

Judah Groveman and Zelos led us in singing.
Mark Mitchell prayed for a missions team to India and shared other pastoral priorities, aka announcements.
Josh Harris preached the second and final sermon in the short series, The Good Recession. If you missed it, please listen and ask God to adjust your thinking about need, greed, and money.

General Comments

January Meetings - Don't forget the first round of mandatory meetings this weekend. Come January 10th at 9:00a if you are on the sound, lighting, or IMAG video teams. January 11th at 1:30p is the sermon audio team meeting. Stay tuned for final locations, which are dependent on final RSVPs. If you opt not to attend this weekend, you must attend the second round on January 18th and January 24th.

Awareness Around Equipment - We experienced a surprising glitch this Sunday. In the third song of the second service, the lyrics froze. But they only froze in a few places: the mezzanine televisions, the confidence monitors, and the RF feed. The lyrics computers themselves were working fine, and so was the main screen.

After a bit of somewhat frantic troubleshooting, we located the problem. The center screen scan converter "freeze" button was on. To be completely honest, I am not sure exactly how it happened. Given it's location, I would not be surprised if an accidental and very light kick from a toe happened to turn that button on. Obviously, it was no one's fault except my own, and we'll protect that gear with some plastic covers as soon as possible.

This is a great opportunity to remind everyone to be aware of the equipment around you. Beware of Bibles on keyboards or lighting boards, involuntarily toe-tapping the camera tripods, stretching your legs out under an equipment desk, brushing the audio patch cable bay as you walk by, loose sleeve wristbands catching sound board faders, and the list goes on. These are all things we've experienced, and, though accidental, they can still easily distract.

Sound

Saturday rehearsal this weekend went well. The band wrapped up 15 minutes early, which is always a good sign. Gavin admitted, though, that the rehearsal didn't start off so well. The monitor team hadn't fully checked outputs before stopping to eat dinner, so there was some troubleshooting going on during the first twenty minutes of rehearsal. That definitely slowed down the official rehearsal start time, but the band was still able to get through all their songs in the designated time. Audio producers, please always make sure to do all line checks before eating dinner.

The mix was very good this weekend. Dave, I thought the sub frequencies this weekend were spot on. You are really helping us get this right, and I'm grateful for your hard work. The overall band sound definitely benefits from PJ's open drumming. He doesn't fill a lot, but just keeps a solid beat going.

I heard all the instruments when I expected to, and you didn't miss any microphones. My only thought on the mix at all was during the first song of the second service. When any song splits the men and women up, I think the women should be as loud, if not louder than the men. For instance, if the men sing first, the women need to be able to hear their line and sing over the guys, so the women may actually need to be a little bit louder.

Lighting

Lighting was very simple this weekend because we had a new set which was, in fact, no set. Overall, it was a nice change. Did you like it?

I have two quick lighting thoughts:

Speech During Music - I want to make a change to our regular practice when someone comes up to talk during music. Until now, we have added the sermon lighting to the band lighting. However, the lights on the front line musicians often create hot spots in the sermon area which make the lighting for video less than ideal. From now on, I'd like to transition fully to only the sermon lighting whenever someone comes up to talk, whether planned or spontaneous.
House Light Changes - Sometimes, we have lighting cue changes that only adjust the house lights, for instance the transition between the announcements and the sermon. We have house lights at 90% for the announcements, then drop the house lights to 65% for the sermon. If you happen to miss a cue like this, please just skip the cue rather than make the transition at a random time. The difference between the 90% and 65% house lights is much less important than keeping the focus on the sermon once it's started.

Video

I have a testimony from Tyler:

The pastor cam really makes an appreciable difference in the amount of lead time we get in preparing for a ministry mic moment. The extra time gives us a crucial edge in preparation and will allow greater consistency in getting the camera on target. In short, it rocks. Thanks.

Now that we have a much better view of what is happening in the front row, I want everyone to be aware of the ministry mic approval process, so that you know what to look for:

A person comes to the pastors at the mic to get initial approval for their idea.
The pastor considers if it is strong enough and if can be made to fit into the song flow.
If they think it will work, they walk across the front row to consult with Josh or Grant.
Josh or Grant will give the final approval on the content.
The pastor returns to the aisle by the mic and lets the church member know whether or not they will be able to share.
The pastor communicates with the worship leader that a person is ready to share.
The worship leader decides exactly when they can make the musical transition to the ministry mic moment.

All of this may happen in the matter of 30 seconds or over a period of five minutes. The key for us is that at step 1, we should immediately get cam4 set up for the ministry mic. If at step 2 or step 5, the person leaves the lineup, we can return to normal operation. Cam4 ops, please don't forget to write down your preset focal length and iris levels for the ministry mic location, so that you can lock in the shot without lights or a subject.

On a different note, I've noticed that we are slowly shifting to an all-the-same shot setup. All three cameras have essentially the same framing, from just below the pulpit up. We need to change it up a little. Cam1 should stay close in, but cam2 should be wider, preferably waist up. This makes the cut from cam1 to cam2 less awkward and sets up for a nice transition from cam2 to cam4.

Finally, for lyrics operators, a few small but important details to remember:

All lyrics should be centered. Not only should they be center justified, they should be centered on the screen. If you adjust one side margin, please make sure to do the same on the opposite side, so that the text remains in the center and doesn't shift one way or the other. Also, please know that your operating position is severely off-center. If you are unsure if the image is rendering center on the projector, please walk to the center aisle and look from there. Don't try to make it look exactly center from the computer station.
All sermon notes should be left justified.
For sermon points, all complete sentences should end in a period. Sentence fragments should have no punctuation at the end. This is something we'll need to watch because the pastors are not paying attention to these deatils when they type their manuscript.
Please make sure that either Ben, Bram, Josh, or I look at the sermon notes before the service starts. We try to get there, but sometimes other things get our attention. It is very important that we look over them before the first service starts, and you can help by reminding us.

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Sunday, also. Comment away!

Saturday Randomness

2009-01-03T21:02:00.002-05:00

Some Saturday Randomness:

I want to blog more. That's one of the things I'm writing in a blog post about my goals for the new year. You would already know if I had actually finished the post. So, it's not a great start, but maybe this randomness makes up for it.
Tech ministry is like kindergarten. Neatness counts. I spent much of today revising our sermon media systems, recreating the order forms, and making an organizational bin for the completed CDs and DVDs that are ready for pickup.
Similarly, my next video assignment is this: How to Tape Down a Cable. Somehow, I've failed to adequately train my team in this critical art, and I waste many minutes battling to remove stuck-to-self gaff tape.
Windows are wonderful. I'm exploring changing offices to one that is further from the rest of the staff (downside) but has windows (upside). So far, my outlook and my productivity have been way up. We'll see how the new spot works out for tomorrow's church service. Ah....natural light.