{Technical Director Profile}
Ken Robertson
Mariners Church, Irvine, California
On a long stretch of road between two large towns sits Mariners Church. The once desolate parcel of land neighboring the area’s landfill is now home to a campus rich with a community all its own. Each week more than 10,000 attend Mariners for worship and teaching at one of three identical contemporary services. It is here that Ken Robertson has filled the role of Mariners’ technical director for the past five years.
Mariners’ acquiring Robertson was a blessing in their technical ministries’ development. The accomplished ministry director cut his proverbial technical and managerial teeth at nearby Saddleback Church as their TD for ten years. He embodies that rare balance of love for all things technical with extreme devotion to his staff and volunteers. Robertson’s work history illustrates well how having a heart for God can lead you down some dubious and question-filled paths — and only in hindsight do you see yourself well within the Father’s master plan.
Back in the late 1970s, after working on outdoor concerts with Youth for Christ, Robertson moved into a three-year stint with a Christian recording studio. From there, strangely enough, Robertson found himself accepting a construction job. “At the time I wasn’t sure why I was there. I didn’t like it nor did I have any talent for it. The Lord seemed to make that opportunity happen and it has since turned out to be one of the most significant job opportunities in my employment history,” recalls Robertson.
In his role with the commercial construction company, Robertson learned how to read building plans, deal with subcontractors, and many of the other day-to-day nuances of construction. “That job really set me up for being able to work with construction teams during the building phase for churches, which I did with both Saddleback and Mariners as well as other churches I am consulting with today,” he explains during a recent interview with CPM. During the conversation, Robertson shares his insights with our readers.
CPM: How did you transition from Saddleback Church to your present role as technical director at Mariners Church?
Robertson: While I was working at Saddleback, I made a life-altering personal mistake. I wasn’t sure I would ever work at a church again in a job I love. The Lord in His grace allowed me to move into a job at Mariners Church nearly a year after leaving Saddleback. I didn’t know at the time they were planning on building a worship center almost identical to Saddleback. I was hired as their only technical employee and I have since added to the staff.
CPM: What is the most challenging aspect of working in technical ministries, from your perspective?
Robertson: Trying to work with information that doesn’t come as quickly or as ac curately as we would like. For many of the churches that I’ve come across, if there is a complaint, it concerns the timeliness of the information that we receive to do our jobs. Information tends to be very last-minute because people don’t always think about or even understand what is needed from us to make things work. Typically, it’s that we don’t know what the service is going to hold for us before maybe three or four days out.
CPM: Have you found any solutions in overcoming this issue?
Robertson: We used to guess and build sets or create videos with what information we were given — sometimes just the series title. In the end we’d get burned because often times the title wouldn’t relate to what we had produced. Our solution was to stay away from thematic elements, to stay more generic and design a set or produce a video that was interesting all in itself. Also, we would only go after those things we could get our hands on, like a particular song, etc.
CPM: What trends have you and your church recognized in the technical arts?
Robertson: About three years ago one of the things we started to do was pay more attention to the set design. Since that time we have become more aware, as other churches are becoming aware, of how a good set can influence the mood for a service. For us, it has been a combination of set design and lighting. Tod Otte, our set designer, is great at this. People will come in on a weekly basis to poke their heads in just to see what the environment looks like. So we tend to change the set at least every other week as opposed to walking into the same look every service. It isn’t extravagant, but it’s a method. We try to utilize a minimal budget but use a lot of creativity with set design.
Also, we have chosen at this point not to use high definition (HD) which seems to be the media of choice with many churches today. We didn’t choose to spend the extra dollars to do the HD system, but instead use standard definition and maintain a high signal path. Even people “in the know” who see our images on screen would question whether they were high def or not.
CPM: Why was the choice made to not switch to HD?
Robertson: At the time we were designing the building, HD had not really settled yet. It was very expensive. HD cameras that could be operated by the volunteers were really expensive. They were more reasonable in the prosumer range — but the smaller-format cameras are more difficult to operate and get a steady shot.
We felt that going to HD would cost us at least twice as much; therefore, to stay within budget, we would’ve had to sacrifice other areas of our installation. Honestly, we didn’t feel like the bang for the buck was there since we don’t broadcast and we have minimal DVD sales. And for what we were doing live with IMAG, it just didn’t make sense. Not going with HD seemed to be better stewardship for the money.
On the other hand, we felt that going with all moving lights was better than conventional. So where many might use, say 200 conventional lights for the same stage, we went with 60 moving lights. Partly for staffing because we knew for conventional lighting we would be looking at a lot of people to move lights around. We didn’t want to put a catwalk up, so even though the moving lights cost us more, we wanted the versatility and the look, and the ease of operation that moving lights would give us.
CPM: How were you able to raise the quality of the standard definition (SD) signal?
Robertson: We keep the signal quality high throughout the whole system so there is no weak link in the chain. Our projectors are excellent quality — they are Christie + 16s. Also, we project rear screen and we can control all the light in the room.
CPM: What do you believe are the characteristics of a good church technical director?
Robertson: I think you need to be able to access what the church really needs. To carry out the programs within whatever culture the church is in. We don’t have to have the very latest bells and whistles as far as equipment goes; we have to create reasonable budgets for what the goals of the ministries are. A good TD should be able to facilitate that need without being extravagant. Also, you have to have vision for the future and you have to be able to recognize talent in people that you hire. Almost every person that I hire is more skilled at their specific task than I would be. You have to be able to recognize talent in your staff and then give them the tools to do their job. And then, if needed, shape softly what you feel should be altered without being overbearing.
CPM: Do you have any last thoughts you would like to leave with the technical directors out there?
Robertson: Many people who end up in technical areas tend to be high achievers who can accomplish a lot without purposefully asking God to be a part of their efforts. A difficult thing for me is allowing or inviting God to be part of what we do. Times when we thought we had performed the highest as a team we failed to get any feedback — good or bad — from the service. Times when we thought things fell apart on something, surprisingly, people would come up and tell us how great they thought something was — and what the service meant to them. So I would say the best we can do will be what God can accomplish in our weakness.
