With live video streaming now a must for churches, lighting designers are more conscious of the camera than ever. The result: a shift away from flashier effects and toward simpler designs that create a potent connection with viewers at home.
"Before COVID-19, our designs were large-scale, taking advantage of our space’s height and depth,” explains Daniel Page, lighting designer at Fellowship Church in Dallas. “We have transitioned to a much more intimate design using about 20% of our stage.”
“Today, the camera allows the audience to look closer, and our canvas has gotten a lot smaller. Subtlety is the name of the game." Daniel Page, Lighting Designer, Fellowship Church
Why? Lighting should always be about supporting and enhancing the central vision, Page says, explaining that pre-pandemic the mission included more dominating designs that evoked emotion through a more drastic change. “Today, the camera allows the audience to look closer, and our canvas has gotten a lot smaller. Subtlety is the name of the game,” he states.
The live eye vs. the camera
The sanctuary at Hope Church in Memphis, Tennnessee seats approximately 6,000. Ron Crawford, lighting director at the church, explains that prior to COVID, the tech team took a theatrical approach to production lighting. Since Hope re-opened for in-person worship the its third week back in September 2020 at 10% capacity, the primary focus changed to lighting for live streams. “Before, it was for how it looked with the audience in the room. Now it’s how it looks on camera,” he says.
At Hope, Crawford says that house lighting is dimmer than it used to be––again, to accommodate the camera––and that his lighting techs pay close attention to camera cues and maintaining focus on the stage. At the same time, effects still continue to serve a purpose, as do scenic design elements for wide-angle shots. “Overall, it’s about trying to keep the audience engaged, and trying to keep them at an emotional level. The stage lights help them to participate within the worship experience from an outside-the-walls experience, so to speak.” He adds that this focus on the virtual experience has allowed he and his team to experiment with certain elements that wouldn’t necessarily have worked so well when the live audience was the priority. “We’re now much closer to the action than we ever could be live.”
LCBC Church, Mannheim, Pennsylvania
Tim Moser, production designer at LCBC Church in Manheim, Pennsylvania says that he’s seizing these new challenges by experimenting with what does and doesn’t work on-camera. For example, in a live environment it’s common to isolate individual musicians when they’re performing a solo. But in a broadcast setting, the camera will achieve this. “And at the same time, you can put lights on stage––you can put them up close [to the worship leaders],” he says. “We have a jib on stage and it’s great because you can put the lights wherever you want if you know the camera operators are not going to pick them up.”
Joshua Tuggle, technical director at The Naz Church in Grove City, Ohio says the church was live streaming prior to the pandemic, and that his team was already well-versed in the technology. The increased emphasis on the virtual experience, however, required a shift in mindset. “It wasn’t a matter of figuring out how to do things, it was a matter of how to do them differently,” he says.
Tuggle explains that The Naz seats around 4,000, with a theatrical stage measuring approximately 70 feet wide and a continuous three-screen display as a backdrop. “[Prior to COVID], lighting was spread out a lot––we had most of our movers and washes up in the catwalk,” he describes. “What that meant was it looked really cool live once we had haze in the room, but it was incredibly bland online.”
Creating intimacy
To accommodate the camera, The Naz’s worship team is positioned in the center of the platform (Tuggle estimates that they are using two-thirds of the stage these days). “When we decided to focus mainly on online [services], that meant putting most of our lights on stage––and not just on stage, but in the middle of the stage,” he explains. Worship leaders and musicians are heavily backlit, and all but a few of the church’s moving fixtures are also on stage. “There are still a couple up in the catwalk, and wider shots pick those up nicely, but it’s really about making it so if you’re watching a tight shot of our worship leader you can see him clearly, and it looks interesting behind him.”
Tuggle relays that while he still applies higher production value looks––such as moving fixtures with gobos for big musical bridges––he has instructed his team to tone down certain elements. “If it was a slower song, they’d backlight the lead and kill key almost completely. It would be a silhouette, which looks cool live, but it looks really bad online––especially if the camera director isn’t getting the shot in a certain way,” he explains. These days, the goal is to aim for 70%-75% key lighting, with a minimum of 50%, “because we need people to see the worship leader’s face as they’re leading.”
For Crawford, church production lighting for a virtual audience should contribute to creating a sense of intimacy to achieve a connection with each worshipper. “You don’t get to see their faces, you don’t get to see these people, but you’re intentional about connecting with each and every individual––not just the mass, but each individual,” he says. This is especially important for churches that are delivering combined services that address children, youth, and adults. “Now, everybody’s in the living room together. How do we keep the six year-old engaged? How do we keep the 14 year-old engaged? I think that’s been the fun part, and that’s been the silver lining in all of this, is that it’s stretched us to think outside of the box when we should have been thinking outside the box anyway.”
