Production Musings » Blue Ridge Community Church

Oldie Video – Hiccups

Andrew Hunt — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:55:17 +0000

How about a few entries about oldie video’s we’ve created in the past that I haven’t posted? With this one, we were aiming to humorously illustrate the topic of “advice.” Where do we look for it? What kind of advice is it? Do we believe it? Why? Why not?

Created by Tim Gosnell and Jeremy Wilkinson. Shot on Canon 7d, Sennheiser K6 series shotgun, Zoom H4N. Enjoy my cameo…but make no comments about the strength of my neck, head placementl, or any other attacks on my execution of such a delicate maneuver.

T3 Stage Design

Andrew Hunt — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:10:28 +0000

We just wrapped up our 2nd Series of the year. I suppose I must have gotten distracted along the way because I totally did not take any photos of it. I do, however, have a special documentation of the process thanks to Tim and Colin. They setup a Canon 7D and took photos every 30 seconds during work hours all the way up until Sunday morning into the 1st Service.

About the design:
- We wanted something warm
- We got the lanterns from The Paper Lantern Store (along w/ 15′ cables)
- Used 40 watt bulbs
- For power distribution, we found a great 12 outlet distro at Harbor Freight for $20. We replaced the ends from Edison to Stage Pin and it worked like a charm.

Between the 15′ extensions and the distros, we should have a really nice setup for future designs when we want to incorporate lots of dimmable incandescent fixtures.

Collide Series Part 2 (2009)

Andrew Hunt — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:30:55 +0000

I mentioned yesterday that this was the design for trying new things. For part 2 of Collide we were into the holiday spirit and decided to have a little stage change-up for several weeks. For several years now, a few other Blue Ridge leaders have really desired a giant screen on stage. We currently have 2 screens off stage left and right. At any rate, finally we had a fantastic opportunity to explore some uncharted technical territory. We pulled off a 24′x6′ image across the back of the stage.

The response to our experimenting was overwhelmingly positive. Our executive pastor told me, “Out of all of the technical things we’ve ever tried, I haven’t received as much positive response to anything as I have the center screen.” Despite the way we bootlegged this setup, people seemed to like it. The number one comment we received was that it was “much more engaging being able to look straight ahead rather than off to the side.” It was a technical learning win as well. While we were in the planning stages, someone asked me if it was going to turn out ok. I responded, “I have no earthly idea. It could be successful or we could fall flat on our face.” Either way we would have learned something.

As far as changes to the set, we did away with the angled truss, joined the ends and made one nice long straight piece of truss from which to hang the projectors. We measured their placement and distance as best we could, 8′ apart and 15′ from the screen if memory serves me correct. VGA was supplied to each projector fed by a Matrox TripleHead2Go. Our operating resolution was 2400×600 and our screen was about as homemade as you can get. Todd used thin finishing boards as a flat surface and a half inch frame around the back. In addition we used two 20′ battens secured to the frame to give us rigging points. To finish it off we wrapped it in spandex. We love spandex, can you tell?

My Macbook Pro drove the whole system from stage left after we discovered that the Matrox doesn’t appreciate having a 100ft VGA extension between it and my laptop. (It is supplied with a proprietary cable that must be between the computer and itself.) If any of you understand why that is so, feel free to educate us! To control my laptop and be with the rest of the tech crew, Colin screen shared it over our network and it worked like a charm. Overall, we didn’t have any major issues with screen sharing although we would not recommend this method for anything other than a short term experiment.

Here are a few solid things we’ve learned from this project as we look to do something more permanent:

1. We shouldn’t make our own screen. Fluctuating humidity and temperature causes wood to warp. Even over 5 weeks, noticeable image distortion could be seen.

2. Brand new projectors and new lamps are a must. As projectors age, so do their LCD panels. Color and brightness should match as closely as possible. The provided photos illustrate the color/brightness differences.

3. Edge blending is a must if you desire smooth transitions between projectors. We’re considering Panasonic projectors because it’s built in and hard to beat the quality.

Propresenter worked very well in controlling the display. As we consider a longer term solution to a center display we feel strongly about Renewed Vision’s product in terms of reliability and quality. Special thanks again to Lester Hamrick of Just Right AV for the use of his projectors and volunteering countless hours as well as Mark Hudson for giving several days worth of his time during this stage design and for his faithful service over the last several years.

Student Ministries Stage Design

britninelson — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:40:27 +0000

**Note from Andrew: I asked Britni Nelson, our newest stage design family member at Blue Ridge, to write about Student Ministries’ most recent stage design. I snapped a few photos from a non-Student Ministries event to give some context to their ideas and execution. May I introduce to you…Britni Nelson and the student ministries design team:

We all leave a mark, we all influence people we come into contact with, and whose mark are you leaving, our own or Christ’s? With this stage design we wanted to really drive home the point of making and leaving a mark.

Who doesn’t love to throw and splatter paint around sometimes? We took 3 different colors of paint, in this instance, orange, blue, and green semi-gloss and used 8 foam balls. We dipped them into the paint and threw them onto to wall to create yet another type of mark. Each splatter is different representing that each of us leaves a different mark. To fill in gaps between the marks that the foam balls had made we used paint brushes and paint stirrers to create the more unique marks and designs on the wall. We hit the walls with blue gels to make the colors pop.

We used 4×8 sheets of insulation board t hat had been glued together and painted with flat white paint creating 4×16 sheets to create our “X”. the top corners of the board were fitted with wires then screwed into the wall. Then screws were screwed in the wall for the boards to rest on. We Used Pink gels and closed the shudders on our lights to focus the lights only on the “X” making it stand out with its vibrant color.

Hanging the 4x16s

Andrew Hunt — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:44:50 +0000

I’ve gotten a few questions on how the 4×16 panels were actually hung so I took a quick photo of what we did. All of the materials I mentioned in the previous post can be found at Home Depot. The metal ends you see pictured is metal ribbon used for bailing cardboard or other materials and I believe it comes in rolls. Sawyer Scott designed these panels and ran the wire the length of their edges. We drilled holes in each end and used hanging wire at the tops and bottoms. We hung from the truss and anchored to eye bolts in the stage floor. Each panel had 4 rigging points. As you can see, it doesn’t have to be precise or super neat.

“Inside Outside Upside Down” Series

Andrew Hunt — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:06:51 +0000

The life that Jesus lived and the things he taught were totally backwards from the ideas the world held. Today it’s no different. Love the person one cubicle over who grates on your every last nerve? (Don’t read too much into that Colin.) This series explored the teachings of Jesus regarding things such as modern idolatry, human sexuality, what is love (baby don’t hurt me), family and a few others.

For those much farther along the lighting and design process that I am, I’d love your critique of our stage designs. We always strive to do the best with what we have when it comes to stage design. At the cost of $3.25 plus shipping per umbrella we created this. There are obvious similarities to the previous design. The idea behind it was to include a few subtle tie-ins to the series title. Umbrellas belong outside but we used them inside and upside down. Too cheesy? :) Hit them with some deep purple gel and really made them pop. The rectangles in the back were supposed to be like falling dominoes, except upside down. Only a few people connected that. What would it look like to really do an upside-down stage design? How could we have done it better? I was personally pleased with how this one turned out. It’s one of the most colorful/Dr. Seuss looking things we’ve done in a while.

Now, let the next stage design begin…

One of Those People

Andrew Hunt — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:22:45 +0000

At Blue Ridge, Celebrate Recovery meets on Sunday afternoons. The purpose of CR is to help people work towards recovery from various hurts, habits, and hang-ups that life may present. There seemed to be a myth floating around @_theridge that CR is for “those people,” usually referring to a drug addict or alcoholic. (You may have even had the stereotypical image pop into your head as you read that.) While CR is certainly a helpful tool for the drug addict or alcoholic, it actually covers far more life issues. When you’re co-dependant and enabling, when you can’t seem to get a grip on your anger, past relationship hurts, past mistakes you wish you could take back, the inability to control your thoughts, sex addiction, fear, when everyone else seems to be the problem and well, I could keep listing them off. When they asked for a short video promo to debunk the myth of “those people” and encourage people to come to an Intro to Celebrate Recovery I felt strongly about the purpose and accepted the task. Here were our goals going into it:

Make it fun and light
Make it short and simple
Make it relatable and non-threatening
Make people want to come check it out

Tim Gosnell and I worked on it together. We left space at the end for a text bumper containing information about the Intro to CR event. Both of us are complete amateurs when it comes to video…so please, share your critique as we always are striving to learn and improve with how we communicate!

Irrational Series Stage Design

Andrew Hunt — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:30:20 +0000

Ok, back to stage designs. I’m not going to lie, this design wasn’t a big hit. It definitely wasn’t a big hit for the poor couple that chose to get married on the stage with giant question marks in the background. (But hey, I like to think that we helped strengthen their marriage – what better day to really question everything. Right?) On a serious note, to that couple and all who get married at Blue Ridge, we do apologize that we are unable to change the stage to be more wedding friendly and elegant. There are just not enough hours in a Saturday!

The week of stage change, the whole team was in Chicago for Willow Creek’s Art Conference. There wasn’t much we could do but we gave it our best shot. Two of the stage design volunteers, Sawyer and Sue Scott, took it upon themselves to make several giant question marks matching the series graphic above. Styrofoam insulation is the stuff. It’s cheap. It’s light. It’s easy to work with. After some tracing and many many hours of cutting 3 different sized question marks they were done. Prior to leaving for Chicago, I changed a few colors and aimed the Color Splits where the question marks would appear. When we returned to Lynchburg on Saturday, Todd and I spent several hours getting them hung, stood back, and said, “It is good.” It was our best. This was our last design with the giant riser built on stage. I’d say it was split 50/50 of those where were sad/happy to see it go.

In the upcoming designs, we’ll be using Google Sketchup more. I’m excited about the potential for designing virtually.

ETC’s Ion Lighting Controller

Andrew Hunt — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:31:03 +0000

I know I know, if consistency is the key to keeping a successful blog then I fail. It’s ok though, even though it may be a helpful thing to some, it falls behind my daily responsibilities here at Blue Ridge Community Church. I have at least 3 big things to write about, including 2 new stage designs but today I’ll be writing about ETC’s Ion console.

For several years now we’ve been facing challenges within our lighting team. Volunteer programmers would have trouble performing certain tasks with our old Leprecon LPX-48x controller. Basic tasks such as editing a cue live or moving cues around within the cue list were cumbersome for volunteers. As I began moving towards these issues I realized that it wasn’t a people problem as much as it was a hardware problem. Enter the ETC Ion. It has replaced our Leprecon LPX48. The Leprecon controller wasn’t a horrible controller and it does have it’s place in the industry, but it did use syntax and workflow that didn’t make it as easy for the weekend warrior volunteers who serve at Blue Ridge. Simple changes of service became a big issue, no one could make a blind edit with confidence, and not to mention a mysterious problem with our house lights where we would lose control and have to manually reset the dimmers.

The Ion solved many problems for us. Here’s a list:

1. Undo – my oh my, the simple pleasures. One tiny mistake while editing can cost a programmer but this great feature has proven it’s worth. It also keeps a history log of commands entered. This is helpful from a directors stand point when a programmer says, “The console isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do!” So, “Let’s see what we told it to do.”

2. On Board Learning – forgot what a command key does or how to use it? The console will tell you!

3. Networkable – I can save tens of hours every stage change, hundreds of hours every year by controlling the console from my laptop from stage wirelessly. It came with the network dongle allowing my laptop to become a Primary controller. I still have a few issues to resolve with this feature…looks like Macs don’t play as friendly with ETC but I haven’t explored the latest firmware and editor updates…we’ll see!

4. iPhone – yes, you can control it via iPhone – iTunes App

5. Expandable – add multiple fader wings for up to 240 programmable faders.

I don’t know if the ‘perfect’ lighting console exists (some say it was the MicrovisionFX) but I can say with utter confidence that going with the Ion was a giant leap in the right direction for us. Even our beginner volunteer programmer has picked it up and can edit with a level on confidence that comes more quickly than it ever has before!

April ’09, The Vineyard Series Stage

Andrew Hunt — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:06:34 +0000

The Team:
Crystal George, Art Laura Eagle, Art
Randy Redmond, Pipe Bending Sawyer Scott, Pipe Bending/Design
Sue Scott, Pipe Bending/Design Scott Breiholz, Trellis Work
Todd Foster, Design/Stage Hand Colin Harman, Design/Stage Hand
Andrew Hunt, Design/Stage Hand

It’s going on five months since we’ve been using the extra big stage riser and it looks like it has 7 weeks left through this next series. We will miss you, you big, giant, trusty stage riser. You treated us well. Actually, the neat part is the cost of this whole thing. The initial build took about 5 days and cost $1160. We’ll be getting about 6 months of use out of it….at an estimated $192 per series (assuming a 4 week series). It was also constructed so that about 95% of it will be recycled into our housing repair ministry.

The challenge within each series this year has been how to incorporate the riser in a new fresh way that ties into the series. As Colin, Todd and I brainstormed ideas going into The Vineyard series, we all settled into using a mixture of flourish/vine art and soft goods. Laura and Crystal hand drew each vine onto the spandex and then colored them in. Sawyer and Sue made the side structures come to life. Each structure is supported by three main vertical 1.5″ pipes and 5 hand bent (Thanks to the help of their good friend, Randy Redmond) 3/4″ pipes. Diameter = 5′ and their radius expands just slightly past 180º so they look more circular rather than half round from the front. Pipe couplers were used to expand the total height to 15′ and were bolted at each vertical pipe. We stretched spandex around each structure, covered the tops with black plastic (the technical would be “Giant Garbage Bags”) and lit each from the bottom used AC Lighting’s LED Color Splits. (I’m a big fan of these LED fixtures, BTW. They’ve been rock solid.)

Scott’s trellis design worked very well in front the vine art. We back lit this w/ 4 Par 64s using Rosco Light Tough Spun diffuser and Storaro Yellow. Here’s a few shots. For more, check out my Flickr.