Gilbert and his team began shooting music videos in 2025 to leverage social media to further connect with the congregation and a younger demographic.
For filmmaker Edward Gilbert, production has been a lifelong passion. Gilbert got his start in 2011 straight out of high school, recording video announcements, handling live streaming and managing the in house broadcast production for his father’s church.
Restoration Christian Fellowship was founded on February 21, 1999, by the late Dr. Felix and Kotane Gilbert. The first service was held at West Middle School in Aurora, Colorado with 60 people in attendance. Twenty six years later, it has developed not just as a place of worship but as a community hub with facilities and ministries designed to support families and individuals in the Aurora community and beyond.
“When I started out, we used a lot of very old technology, but eventually we transitioned to a Blackmagic ATEM Television Studio switcher. It not only got the job done, but it allowed me to really learn the technical side of production by stripping down what we had and rebuilding a system from the ground up,” he explains.
Fast forward 15 years and Gilbert’s hands-on involvement and leadership in broadcast ministry have expanded both the church’s production capabilities, as well as his technical workflow.
“I’ve gone from recording video announcements to now shooting music videos for the church; who would have thought?” he says. “We developed the idea for the music videos in 2025 to leverage social media to further connect with our congregation and a younger demographic, and our social media engagement has risen significantly in terms of reach and growth. In addition to our high quality sermon highlight clips and Sunday music content, our music videos perform the best. The music videos are a series of short worship sessions featuring a collection of songs that we share across our social media platforms.”
The multi camera music video shoot utilized Blackmagic Pyxis 12K and Blackmagic Pyxis 6K digital film cameras as the A and B cameras, respectively, with two Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K digital film cameras providing additional angles, all shooting in Blackmagic Raw. Gilbert praised the consistency in color science across the different camera lines.
“Everything was shot on my personal set of Thypoch Simera-C lenses, and I love these lenses for their size and character,” Gilbert notes. “They provide a clean look when stopped down, but once opened up, the Pyxis 12K’s sensor really helped showcase their uniqueness and created a beautiful rendering of skin tones and texture, keeping the focus on the image itself. Additionally, the Pyxis 12K’s larger sensor is noticeable, both visually and in post production. It’s a beautiful image straight out of the box, which is something you don’t always get with cameras today.”
Gilbert and his team shot three songs during the session with the primary deliverables posted to the church’s YouTube channel in a 4:3 format and then broken down into vertical short form content for Instagram as well.
“We chose this format as a way to do something different from the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio you see everywhere,” he expains. “That’s one thing I truly love about the Pyxis camera line and open gate shooting in general; it gives you far more flexibility when deciding what your final deliverables can be, which translates to creative freedom and allows us to differentiate our content from what’s out there.”
In previous sessions, Gilbert also employed an ATEM Mini Extreme ISO live production switcher. “It’s one of the most invaluable tools you can have on a multicam set; it’s reliable, affordable and extremely portable. Because we were short on crew for this session, I had to operate a camera instead of directing and couldn’t use it, but moving forward, it’s a nonnegotiable for me,” he notes.
Gilbert adds, “This project was shot entirely on Blackmagic Design cameras, which sync beautifully in DaVinci Resolve Studio, my primary and preferred editing platform. I love how Blackmagic has evolved its ecosystem into a true all in one solution. DaVinci Resolve was always an incredible color grading tool, but once it matured into a full NLE, I had no hesitation adopting it fully. I handle syncing, multicam edits and grading all within one program.”
Gilbert concludes, “I’ve been using Blackmagic Design gear for a long time, dating back to the original Blackmagic Production Camera 4K. It was affordable for me at the time and was my first opportunity to experiment with Raw DNG files. Even back then, Blackmagic’s color science and workflow felt approachable and intuitive. Alongside cameras, I also started using Blackmagic broadcast equipment, including the ATEM.
“Since then, we’ve grown to rely heavily on the Blackmagic ecosystem, from converters and signal flow to cameras and HyperDecks for recording with the newer ATEM Television Studios with integrated hardware panels. Despite budget constraints, thanks to Blackmagic Design, we’re still able to produce high quality productions consistently while pushing the bounds of content types that we deliver to our congregation.”
