The broadcasts that Chelsea Gribble directs go to 19 campuses in Charlotte, three elsewhere around North Carolina, two more in Florida and even one in Toronto, Canada. She is also co-founder of White Door Productions, a photography and videography company based in Charlotte that she started with her sister. Where she found time to answer even these few questions, we really don’t know!
CPM: What drew you to Elevation and its team? What's your personal background as it relates to church production?
Gribble: The first thing that drew me into Elevation was the way they creatively used video in the worship experience. Then, when I was in film school in Chicago, I shadowed the production team at a church in downtown for a project. At the end of the day, I remember writing down in my notebook, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I had no idea what that meant at the time, or what that actually looked like, but I knew that somehow, I wanted to find a way to incorporate my passion for film and my desire to serve the church. When I started volunteering on Elevation’s production team when I was 19, I was able to be creative in my role as a camera operator. When I came on staff four years later, I was hired as a video editor, while still serving on the weekends as a video director. I still serve alongside a lot of the same people I started with in 2012.
CPM: You co-founded White Door Productions in Charlotte almost five years ago. How has your work there prepared you for your concurrent role at Elevation Church?
Gribble: When I started volunteering at Elevation in 2012, I had just dropped out of film school. On the 14-hour drive to Charlotte from Chicago, I signed up for volunteer orientation. I didn't know what was next for me, but wanted to get involved with Elevation and have some sort of creative outlet. A few weeks later, I began serving as a camera operator on the production team at the broadcast location. I learned a lot being surrounded by fellow creatives, as well as getting inspired by the content that Elevation created to support the worship experiences. A year later, in 2013, I co-founded White Door Productions with my sister. It was, and continues to be, a great outlet for us to express ourselves creatively and work with some really awesome people.
CPM: What's in the culture of Elevation that really speaks to you, and that you think other church tech teams can learn from--whether they're multisite like Elevation or a single location?
Gribble: One thing I love about the way our team is structured is that we don't just see ourselves as executors, but our broadcast camera team includes some of the most creative people I know. In a role that could easily be seen as ‘get these four shots and go home when church is over,’ our team doesn't settle for that. As a broadcast camera team, we continually push to make our capture the best it can be. My team knows that they have full freedom to try that new shot and it's because of that attitude that we've gotten to the level of capture that we have. I would rather see our camera operators try a new shot and it fail horribly than to go in and out of the church each week and never try anything new. It keeps things fresh and fun for our team, while also allowing us to continually improve how we support the worship experience.
CPM: Tell us more about the recent deployment of Fujinon lenses at Elevation Church.
Gribble: Last year … we upgraded our cameras to VariCam LT accompanied with Fujinon Cabrio series glass. We needed high quality lenses with a wide variety of range options, so Fujinon just made sense for us. The consistency in quality of Fujinon lenses allows us to bring in a variety of focal lengths to our multi-cam environment and create a seamless experience for viewers.
CPM: What's the biggest blessing of working in church production, as you see it?
Gribble: The biggest blessing is the people that I get to do it with. We aren't just executors on a weekend, but we're friends who support each other and genuinely love each other. Things can go wrong, technology can fail sometimes, but at the end of the day the message is going to get out, people are going to encounter God. And if I get to be a part of that while serving alongside people I love? I don't know how it gets better than that.
