Production Musings

Response Stage Design Part 1

// April 23rd, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Stage Design

We just began an 8 weeks series addressing what it means and does not mean to worship. “Our church culture often defines worship as a specific time during a Sunday morning service that consists of some praise choruses, or perhaps a specific music service that occurs during the week. Certainly, that is one way people connect with God. But, we may be limiting ourselves by missing some of the most valuable meanings of worship. It was never intended to be a simple activity that we perform but something much broader. In reality, it was not even supposed to originate with us.” – BR Teaching Team

Tim conceptualized this design to use offset 2′x4′ pieces of white coroplast. The idea was to use 16′ vertical 2x4s on 4′ centers. We would staple one end of the chloroplast to the stud and the other end would be offset approximately 8″ from the stud. I modified our original 3d models to illustrate the assembly in a way much better than I can describe:

Tim, Colin and Todd will attest to how difficult I can be to work with at times. I tend to over think and over analyze details of ideas or concepts and immediately move to “what are the potential problems with this idea?” or “can I immediately identify challenges we’ll need to consider ahead of time?” when brainstorming. Talk about a Debbie Downer for the creative process. In this case, I was worried about the 12″ spacers creating undesirable shadows when downlit and I was also worried that the spaces between the panels wouldn’t look right. For both cases, I was wrong. In hindsight, I think the shadows and spaces played to our advantage once we got color on it.

The entire structure is braced to the back wall and safetied. For sidelight we used the AC Lighting Color Splits (one per side), 5 High End Studio Beams above it, 6 ETC S4 Jr for band backlight and 5 S4 Jr Zooms for Vocal frontlight. Fresh pics to follow….

I’ve Been Marked

// April 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Video

This was a transition element we used to bridge the last baptism of each service into Steve Fee’s song “Glory to God.”  Tim Gosnell conceptualized this element and shot the footage. I helped interview people and edited this project. Tim did the final color adjustments and tweaks. Judson Lee wrote the music used underneath. A large group of vocalists kicked off the chorus Glory to God a cappella as the music culminates at the end.

Baptism Intros – March 2010

// April 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Video

We recently had a Baptism service in which 36 people who have decided to follow Jesus were baptized. The aim was to capture a brief description of what God is doing in their life. We have been in a series entitled “Leaving a Mark” focusing on being intentional about the kinds of marks we leave on the people in our lives. All of us are leaving some type of mark either positive or negative. For this project we posed the question, “How is Christ marking your life?” or “How has Christ marked your life?” This is a 1:30 short comprised of just a few of the responses we captured. Tim Gosnell shot and edited each clip. The individual clips were played as each person walked on stage to get into the horse trough we use as a baptismal tub. Shot on 2 Canon 7Ds, Sennheiser K2 Shotgun mic w/ the ME67 capsule were used for capturing audio. The audio was sync’d using Pluraleyes. Here’s a pic of Tim’s setup I took w/ an iPhone:

New Zealand – Entry 4

// April 2nd, 2010 // 5 Comments » // Travel

Ok, let’s finish up with New Zealand and get on with our technical lives, eh? As I mentioned before, I had a particular adventure in store during this trip. Kellie and I have been dating for nearly a year and God has positively had His hand on our relationship and has been leading us down paths that are merging together. Both of us have grown over the past year in our obedience in following Christ and our love for one another. For me, there has been no greater teacher than that of past mistakes, failures, and just plain stupidity/foolishness…for I am a wretch in constant need of grace. God is teaching me though – the true essence of loving another as Christ loves us. Because of His goodness, faithfulness, redemption, and forgiveness and because Kellie is an amazing Godly woman with the patience of Job and because I think she’s beautiful inside and out I wanted to ask for for her hand in marriage. And I wanted to make it special. So, this is why I went to New Zealand. On the second day of our hike on the Routeburn Track, we climbed Conical Hill at Harris Saddle. It was a tough, steep, rocky climb and in the end well worth the views. At the top we were surrounded by tall, snow capped peaks of the Southern Alps. I handed Woody the camera and walked off with Kellie.

“Do you know why I brought you to New Zealand?” I asked.

“Uhmmmm, because you love me?” she said, smiling as the pitch of her voice raised 2 octaves by the end of her question.

“Yes. And because…” reaching into my pocket I pulled out the ring wrapped in a microfiber cloth which I had been safely carrying in my zipped side pocket since we left Virginia over a week and a half prior. “…I want you to be my wife. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

At this point, I probably should have had prepared a really great, “sweep-you-off-your-feet kind of speech”, but that’s all that came out. That and microbeads of sweat. And there I stood, nervous geek that I am, smiling. No only that but what happened next was slightly more embarrassing. She was crying and smiling and laughing all at the same time.

“Well, get down on one knee and ask me!” she said, smiling politely.

With one knee bent I asked properly and she said yes. It was a really beautiful moment for us both and we were happy that Woody and Nan could be a part of it. So for now, here’s a photo of the spot where it all went down:

We finished out a long day of hiking as an engaged couple. We slept well that night, thankful for new beginnings, new adventures and new spiritual places requiring full trust in God. The following morning I took this photo at Lake McKenzie before the wind came in to disturb the water:

To finish out this post, here are a few of my favorite photos from the South Island. First, our visit to Milford Sound. It was great to see and experience it but I don’t think I would do it again. In my opinion, you can see the geographic features from a much better perspective by hiking through it rather than from a cruise boat. None the less, it was still quite breath taking and we were fortunate enough to see seals and penguins in their native habitats. The second photo is one I took from Lake Matheson or “Mirror Lake” as they call it. On a clear day, Mt. Cook rises from the landscape and completes the photo nicely. You’ll just have to imagine what it could have looked like behind the clouds. The final photo was taken in Punakaiki of the Pancake Rocks. There were some really amazing rock formations and what’s interesting is that geologists really have no earthly idea how they were formed to look like stacks of pancakes. This was our final evening on the South Island of New Zealand before we began traveling back to Auckland, through Sidney for a day and then back to Virginia. Thanks for bearing with me on this recap of our adventure.