Front light only being used on a single speaker to highlight him away from his surroundings.
I made a mistake during a rehearsal one weekend --- a mistake that changed the course of how we use live video at Grace Church. In the moment, I was sure I was going to have to explain the mistake to my superiors. To my surprise my superiors saw the mistake and loved it, asking me if we could do it on an ongoing basis. Needless to say I was a bit shocked. The mistake ultimately turned into a launching point, the beginning of a process to establish a common language to be able to communicate clearly what success means to our staff and volunteer video team. The Grace Church “Way of Production” for video was born.
In late summer of 2008 we opened a new auditorium. The new space is unique in that it has 270 degrees of seating and about 400-600 seats sit behind the front center speaking position. Our congregation and team was familiar with IMAG as we used it in our old space for the message and other special elements. The big difference was we would be using it for the whole service, something we had never done before.
After nine months in the new space I was frustrated and could not identify why. As a video team we were producing a solid product but it was inconsistent and was missing something from week to week. After approaching my worship arts pastor, we made our first step towards clarity by selecting 8-12 person focus group. We intentionally invited people with different video backgrounds and ended up with a nice cross section. We had professional television news anchors and staff, video production artists and people with no background in video at all. We asked the group to commit to a four-week period and asked them fill out a questionnaire during the service they attended as well as participate in a group review lunch on the fourth weekend.
Each week we would develop a set of questions, intentionally specific and vague, to see what people actually were actually noticing. We also changed or modified stylistically the way we did video each week to determine what was and was not seen. The responses from the questionnaire and the live review gave us great insight. It confirmed things we already knew. Opened our eyes to the things we did not and most importantly it revealed the things we were dismissing as professionals in church production.
After the conclusion of the focus group we set a new goal. We wanted all of our volunteer and staff video directors to be able to direct in a way the average person would never know who was calling the shots. The focus group set the foundation for the training that would occur once a month, each month, for the next year. As we gathered together as video directors we challenged each other and grew in our craft and began to ask more questions. These questions lead to the next step in our process: Defining our audience.
I had always thought our audience was simply “the congregation.” However, through the monthly review meetings I quickly found out it was more complicated. As this concept became clearer, I had an idea there was more than one audience category for Grace Church. But I wanted to do a bit of research to ensure I was on the right track.
I started by reaching out to a few churches across the US. I wanted to see how others were doing their video production. Some I found online, others I actually sent a letter or email asking for a copy of their service. I included a note explaining the reason and research behind the request. Once I had everything all together in one place I began to review each video, while making notes and selecting segments and elements to share and discuss with a newly formed team at our church that was charged to develop our video philosophy. Through this process I refined what I experienced into the following three audience types: #1 In room or IMAG. #2 Recorded message for video campuses. #3 Broadcast, or a viewer watching remotely.
Type 1, In room or IMAG: This audience is sitting in the room and has the ability see the service elements live or watch on a screen which is magnifying people and key elements to a larger-than-life format. These people also have a full perspective because they see the whole room with their eyes and understand its layout.
Type 2, Recorded message: This audience is viewing the service in a group setting at a remote campus. The video style is exactly the same as the IMAG style showing the person in a larger-than-life format --- with a few exceptions. We must provide perspective at the beginning of the message showing the room and the stage to allow the viewer to have a visual map of the space where the recording is taking place. This perspective fills in the gaps of background items and elements not fully seen in a tight IMAG shot. We will also insert wider shots when needed to show a stage element or prop used as a key part of the message.
Type 3, Broadcast: This audience is separated from the live experience. To have a similar experience as someone in the room or at a remote campus, the video must be shot using a mixture of wide and tight shots providing perspective and telling the story of the experience as if they were live in the room.
Grace is committed to using the visual arts and the technical arts in our services, but how both of these items translated to these three distinct audience styles was not immediately clear. A weekend service at Grace could include any of the following elements: corporate musical worship, teaching, performance song, drama, dance, visual arts such as painting and sculpture. The team charged with developing the video philosophy gathered as a group and began understanding these audience styles though questions, opinions and discussion. The more we discussed the worship elements and audience styles a certain clarity began to form and we began to develop a common language giving us the ability to more accurately convey our different worship elements to our various viewing audiences.
We determined our go-to style for all our audiences was IMAG for any speaking content apart from the message. We would use the recorded-message style for all remote campus message recordings, even if it meant people in the live space would see wide perspective shots. We identified a mix of styles for the rest of the artistic elements we may have on a weekend.
One element I found most interesting through our discussion was the art of dance. Dance is very difficult art form to re-produce using IMAG. In our space we choose the broadcast style as the best tool, depending upon where you sit you may need the perspective using a mix of wide and tight shots to fully understand the context of the dance.
At the conclusion of our meetings I took the notes and began to write up a document outlining all of the decisions, definitions and outcomes of our discussion. We now have a working document we can share with new volunteers and staff to help them understand how we do video. This document is not a set of rules but more of a set of guiding principles. We also are intentional about reviewing and updating it to keep it current and relevant as we grow and change as a church.
While I would like you to believe we knew exactly what we were doing with video right from the start, and that the mistake I mentioned earlier was immediately recognized as “brilliance,” but the reality is it took a time of frustration between my volunteers and me before we realized something was not right. The truth is that our team invested about a two and a half years to develop our video philosophy. I would encourage you to set aside time to develop a philosophy of your own for your church. Research other churches and rely on staff, volunteers, congregation and even outsiders to help you. Don't just copy directly what another church is doing. In the end, you should come up with a solution that works best for the audiences, culture and facilities at your church.
