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“We’re kind of like a travelling church, with the goal of sending people back into their own communities to do ministry,” says Daniel Ellis, audio engineer with Jesus Culture. Photo courtesy of Darren Lau.
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Focus of these manual lenses was controlled by electronic follow-focus equipment from Red Rock and Jag35. Photo courtesy of Tyler Faires.
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Lenses were mostly Canon EF lenses, with some Sigma lenses added into the mix. Photo courtesy of Tyler Faires.
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Photo courtesy of Darren Lau.
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Cameras were broken into two groups; one that was placed around the band on stage and the second was more mobile and circulated around the 5,000 people attending each show. Photo courtesy of Garret Davis.
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Blackmagic Cinema Cameras were used on camera jibs in the back of the theater and on the floor using Fisher dollies in front of the band on tracks in the stage pit. Photo courtesy of Tyler Faires.
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Lighting Designer, Robbie Kurtz from LA-based DPS used random two-inch aluminum pipes to create a "bird cage" effect above the stage. Reflections create interesting shadows across the stage and audience. Photo courtesy of Darren Lau.
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Video Producer, Nathan Grubbs used 16 Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF models, as well as three Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras to capture the event. Photo courtesy of Garret Davis.
Many people may recognize Jesus Culture as a top Christian recording band. However, Jesus Culture is more than merely a band—it is also a global movement and church ministry. Beginning as a youth group out of Bethel Church in California, the group has grown and now tours campuses, cities and countries around the world with their ministry, and their movement numbers in the tens of thousands.
“The style of what we do for events is similar to the Passion conferences, where we blend times of worship with biblical teaching,” states Daniel Ellis, audio engineer with Jesus Culture. “We're kind of like a travelling church, with the goal of sending people back into their own communities to do ministry.”
At the end of 2013 Jesus Culture moved their base of operations from Redding, CA to Sacramento, CA. Shortly after the move, they held a conference in Sacramento's Memorial Auditorium, attracting about 5,000 people to the multi-day event.
Jesus Culture used this event to do a new live worship CD as well as live worship video. To accomplish this, they utilized DPS, rental company based in Los Angeles for their PA system, rigging, system support and lighting gear. Lighting Designer Robby Kurtz from DPS, and Nathan Grubbs, an independent worship video producer, were contracted to do the video shoot and post-production editing.
Audio
“DPS provided the audio system and manpower for load-in and setup, along with the convention center's union labor (required in Sacramento),” states Ellis. “As we were doing both an audio recording and a video recording, we loaded in two days prior to the event to set up and have extra rehearsal time.”
Ellis continues, “Once the system is hung and operational, I do the tuning of the PA. For this event, we used a Meyer Sound Leo line-array system. I use the Smaart acoustical measuring software to take measurements of the room and set EQ, levels, and delays between the main hang, front fills, and subwoofers. After that I play a familiar track and walk around the venue, tweaking the system as I go to make sure the coverage is even and consistent everywhere."
Two Avid (formerly Digidesign) Venue Profile digital audio consoles were used, one for FOH (front of house) and one for monitors. A Midas H3000 analog console was used for recording. Recording Engineer Jeremy Edwardson handled the multi-tracking of the event with a ProTools DAW (digital audio workstation) system.
“We used a mixture of Sennheiser and Shure microphones,” Ellis adds.
Lighting
“This event was special because it was Jesus Culture's first conference after relocating to Sacramento,” states Kurtz. “It always happened in Redding, CA before that. And this was their first DVD and first CD. Because of that, they wanted it to be special and make a statement: "This is who Jesus Culture is." They wanted to go big with the event.”
For a stage design, Kurtz worked with Grubbs to come up with something unusual that would really stand out on video as well as be a presence for those attending the event. They built what they came to call the “bird cage”, a collection of random length two-inch diameter aluminum pipes with LED fixtures and some strobes designed into it. Lighting it from the front would cast interesting shadows while also reflecting the colors of the lighting across the stage and audience.
A few lighting “pods” were also built and hung over the stage to support some of the lighting. The pods were four-foot hexigons made from truss.
Lighting for the event was almost exclusively automated units. “We had around 30 Martin Mac Vipers for profile fixtures,” Kurtz describes, “about 80 Clay Paky Sharpies mounted long several 30-foot tall truss towers; 80 GLP Impression X4S fixtures providing stage wash. Vari-lite VL3500 profiles provided the key lighting. We also added in some Chauvet Nexus 4x4s, some 2K Mole Richardson fresnels mounted on the pods. We also had some four-light and two-light blinders.”
A Martin M6 console was used for controlling the rig. “I've used Martin since 2004,” comments Kurtz, “and I really liked the M6. I own the console we used for the show, but also had a Martin M2PC running as a backup system in case of an emergency. I like the flexibility the M6 has with the amount of faders and bump buttons. I can pull together a show really fast with it.”
Memorial auditorium's upstage wall is brick, reflecting the venue's over 100 years of service to the community. “Instead of adding an upstage curtain, we up-lit the brick with Chroma-Q ColorForce 72s.”
To speed up load-in and reduce the amount of union labor the ministry would have to pay for, all lighting was pre-configured at DPS so that it could be rolled in and be mostly ready to go.
Lighting for Video
Planning a video shoot changes the dynamics of lighting design, as lighting purely for the human eye rarely works well for video.
“I color-corrected all the key light fixtures to 5,600K to avoid color temperature issues on camera,” states Kurtz. “I used the VL3500s also as an even wash light for the speaker by widening them out and projecting them evenly across the stage.”
Controlling the amount of contrast in the lighting was also important for good results on the video side of the project. “I was careful to manage the contrast levels of all the lighting to keep it balanced,” explains Kurtz. “I needed to have enough front light so that all the eye candy didn't get blown out. I also needed to make sure the levels were comfortable for the cameras. When I'm doing lighting for video, I'm more careful about where the light goes. I also try to protect the artists from getting too much color on their faces. I typically never color the band for a project like this.”
To avoid having performers disappear off of the video when featuring a solo by one of the musicians, Kurtz always makes sure he has appropriate backlight up on all the band members. He utilized the GLP X4S fixtures for backlight.
Video Capture
“I wanted to get right down into every aspect of the performance and capture the emotions of the band and audience feeding off of each other,” states Grubbs. “What I had in mind was definitely not a small task, and in the end we used 19 Blackmagic Design cameras as backbone of the whole shoot.”
Grubbs used 16 Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF models, as well as three Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras to capture the event. Following the event, he compiled the footage into a single concert video, which has been sold over iTunes and Blu-ray.
For the shoot, the cameras were broken into one group that was placed around the band on stage and one group that was more mobile and circulated around the 5,000 people attending each show.
To achieve these setups, the Blackmagic Cinema Cameras were used on camera jibs in the back of the theater and on the floor using Fisher dollies in front of the band on tracks in the stage pit, and on roving Freefly Movi gimbal rigs and the rest either handheld or used with SteadiCam rigs. The Pocket Cinema Cameras were used as handheld cameras on stage and in the audience, helping to get into extremely tight spots and capturing audience reaction.
Lenses were mostly Canon EF lenses, with some Sigma lenses added into the mix. Focus of these manual lenses was controlled by electronic follow-focus equipment from Red Rock and Jag35.
“The images coming out of the Blackmagic cameras were amazing, and we were able to capture exactly what we needed,” commented Grubbs. “I can capture a huge amount of detail shooting in ProRes. The cameras worked great in the low light situations as well as the harsh lighting of spotlights and effects.”
Footage from the cameras was fed to the back of the theater and saved on drives for final editing the week following the concerts.
“Capturing in ProRes meant we didn't have to waste any time transcoding to prep for editing,” says Grubbs. “Each camera captured video to its own internal SSD drive while the director monitored each camera via SmallHD AC7 monitors via SDI cabling in the director's room.”
Editing was performed using Adobe Premiere on an Apple Mac computer system. Color grading was done using Magic Bullet Looks.
“It took about three months to complete the editing of the project,” states Grubbs.
With a worldwide audience, Jesus Culture is faced with how to constantly stay connected with members who cannot attend events in person. They feel their concert video from this two-day youth ministry conference was the perfect way to continue to spread their message and build their global community.
