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Photo of Calvary Life Family Worship Center in Cheshire, Connecticut courtesy of Elation Professional
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Photo of Calvary Life Family Worship Center in Cheshire, Connecticut courtesy of Elation Professional
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Photo of Calvary Life Family Worship Center in Cheshire, Connecticut courtesy of Elation Professional
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Photo of Calvary Life Family Worship Center in Cheshire, Connecticut courtesy of Elation Professional
Nearly everybody working or volunteering in church production has spent time thinking that there must be something more they can do with their lighting or video projection system. Image magnification (IMAG) is necessary when you are in a large congregation (or arena) and you would like to see the faces of the worship team from more than ten rows back. It is also nice to project the lyrics to worship songs in front of interesting backgrounds instead of the basic blue, black or white backgrounds of most corporate Powerpoint presentations. Most churches have at least some control of their lighting systems, even those that have just a few “looks” preprogrammed into their control board.
So why do so many of us consider lighting and video as completely separate disciplines. Sure it takes time to learn how run a camera, program a lighting console or create slides for lyrics or sermon notes. But whether your church has a broadcast-quality IMAG system with full moving light support, or you're just projecting song lyrics and sermon notes with small lighting system a few dimmers and a few colors, you're all working with light. Get out of the box that separates video and lighting. All it takes is a little imagination to come up with creative ideas to expand and enhance the worship experience using lighting and video technology.
Immersive design has emerged over the past few years, and is showing in lighting and video designs all over the world. You see it in rock and pop music concerts, Super Bowl halftime shows, techno concerts, contemporary operas, Cirque du Solei productions, and television awards shows The key ingredient to immersive design is the integration of stage lighting and digital media (video) lighting.
In the past, digital scenery involved using projectors and LED walls portray where the play or scene was set. Scenic designers usually designed the projection content, with some assistance from the lighting designer. Over the past two decades, lighting designers, as well as specialized digital media content designers, took command over projection design. As video projection uses light as it's primary medium, it was natural that this shift in responsibility and artistic expression would occur.
Immersive design is defined by its ability to involve the audience with in the actual design elements of the production. The audience is fully immersed in the environment and the story. The immersive designer will use the entire performance space, including the audience, into one story-telling environment.
So what can be accomplished with this approach and technology? Just look at the recent Super Bowl Halftime Show featuring Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The designers utilized LED video technology in supporting the immersive style of the production design. Bruno Mars dances on a stage that consisted of an LED screen, with an LED screen behind him. Video was fed into these screens to support the music with abstract moving images. To immerse the audience with the effect, special LED hats were handed out to spectators. These hats were embedded with a receiver and three LED’s on the front. When 80,000 spectators put on these hats during the halftime show, they became a part of the world’s largest LED screen. Signals were sent to the hats to activate and control their individual colored LED’s. The audience was now immersed into the overall design aesthetic, and more important, they felt like they were an integral part of it.
Cirque du Solei is continually pushing technological boundaries in their shows. In the Cirque production of Love, the audience seating is designed to envelope and serves as part of the staging areas. There are projection screens hung around and above the audience, as well as hanging scrim (transparent) projection screens that the audience can see through.
I am not suggesting that you do the same for your Sunday service. However, you could immerse your congregation with other methods of lighting and video design. I am presently working on a church in Chino, California that is fortunate to have flat white walls in their sanctuary. Yes, they are bright and somewhat generic, but they also serve as a wonderful opportunity to reflect light that can be controlled. By projecting light and video onto these walls, we can immerse the congregation with images that surround them so they feel that they are in the center of the experience, instead of just watching it on two small projection screens. This does require tight control of the house lighting to minimize spill light, but new LCD (and LED) technology in projector design and LED house lighting has made it much more affordable to accomplish this. In fact, technology has advanced so much in recent years that video projectors are almost becoming “throw away” devices. So why not buy several and create your own immersive design?
But what about content? Digital Media Design is a major art form that is now being taught at the leading college-level theatrical lighting programs. All my students are constantly creating videos. This is no surprise, as they grew up creating videos. Most of my students arrive at the university already trained in video editing software such as Adobe Premier, or even iMovie. Their cell phones have better video cameras in them than what was available in professional broadcast video cameras during the last century. If we wish to engage the younger generations, then we need to hop on board with this technology and immersive design.
Using immersive design does not mean that you turn your Sunday service into a rave. Projecting flashing strobe lights into the congregation could be a bit distracting, but if you had a way to change the colors of your house lighting, you could subtly change the color to support the mood. For instance, if the moment or song contains a somber, reflective message, you can soften the audience light to a light blue. For an exciting worship song, the lighting could change to gold. You can build the intensity of the congregation lighting as the intensity of the service increases. This can be accomplish with modern color-changing LED house lighting.
Of course some of these approaches have been used in the past simply by stationing your lighting technician by the house light dimmers. But imagine if you could multiply the effect by programming your lighting and projections in very specific and intentional ways that support the power of the service and immerse your congregation into the passion of the moment.
Using your video equipment in creative ways is a wonderful method to support the message and express your art. Remember, you are not creating the passion, but supporting it. The congregation will appreciate it, and it could help make your service a much more satisfying worship experience for all.
