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Gwinnett Church in Sugar Hill, Ga.
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"School is awesome, but the real world is where you really learn to work with your most important assets—people." - Adrian Varner, Technical Director, Gwinnett Church, Sugar Hill, GA.
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"I like to think of lighting as just another instrument—just like one stage." Josh Mobley, Lighting Director, Gwinnett Church, Sugar Hill, GA.
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Tech Director, Adrian Varner's (below) experience has taught him that production is not just about getting the job done, but also working well with the people around him. "If I fix a problem, but I've made it difficult for those around me," he says, “then I've failed."
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The sound system features Martin Audio’s MLA Compact self-powered multi-cellular loudspeaker arrays.
One of six churches in the Atlanta area closely affiliated with North Point Ministries, Gwinnett Church in Sugar Hill, Ga., recently completed construction and outfitting of a new, 1,300-seat worship center. The center's main sanctuary, called the Theater, features outstanding audio, video and lighting technologies to provide the powerful and absorbing worship experience that North Point churches have become known for and that have been major factor in their growth. But these technology leaders agree that moving forward is as much about the people as the technology. “Maintaining good relationships,” says Gwinnett Technical Director Adrian Varner, “applies everywhere in life, but especially in the church world—we're a church where people come first.”
It's not surprising that Varner appreciates a church where people come first. His parents were church planters who moved the family to the Atlanta area from the mission field in Lima, Peru, when Varner was just 10 years old. At 15, he was volunteering and learning about sound at his parents' Spanish-speaking church. In his later teen years, he decided he needed a church he could call his own. “It was a huge leap forward for me,” he recalls, “moving from a church with 100 people to one with 800 people.” In the larger setting, he says, he learned about both people and production as he helped to run two services with a live band. “The worship leader there had an appreciation of live audio,” he recalls, “and I tried to learn as much as I could.”
Training with Intention
In his college years, Varner worked three summers in a row at a youth camp near Birmingham, Ala., that offered a combination of worship, teaching and recreation. Being responsible for productions at the camp taught Varner a lot. “The production value was huge,” he recalls. As he describes it, running productions on his own forced him to get into situations that he had to get himself out of. “I had to improvise and work with what was on hand to put on the best show possible,” he says.
During his last summer there, he met someone who had worked at North Point Ministries who made an introduction for him and he was soon volunteering and working part-time for North Point in their middle school environment. Being at North Point regularly allowed Varner the opportunity to help out with productions in the main auditorium and, after two years, he was awarded a position as a full-time production associate.
Working at North Point, Varner was able to assist with the weekend services that included capturing the weekly message given by Senior Pastor Andy Stanley. Varner was able to take what he learned by working at North Point and use that in his next position within the organization as the technical director of Gwinnett Church. Looking back, Varner sees how his experience and the people around him were his path—and how working his way up prepared him for larger productions and larger organizations. “A huge benefit of having been in a smaller church,” he says, “is that you get your hands on everything. “
According to Varner, his “formula” is an easy one to follow: “Just work hard and ask questions.” He advises young engineers that being able to go to a school to learn production is “awesome,” but a classroom is not like real-world opportunities that force you to quickly adjust and find work-arounds. “Also,” he adds, “the real world is where you really learn to work with your most important assets—people.”
People First
Top on the list for Varner and the technical team that designed Gwinnett Church was being sensitive to the needs of the people around them. And, in the case of Gwinnett's new building, that included a neighborhood in close proximity to the church. One of their first technical challenges was how to design a “no compromises” audio environment for worship that would support Gwinnett's high-energy services and not disturb the surrounding community (some houses are just 300 feet from the back wall of the stage). To reduce sound levels outside the building, the building design specified concrete walls and a concrete roof. Most importantly, Gwinnett looked to its long-time technology collaborators, Clark of Atlanta (with offices in Dallas, Austin and Los Angeles) to help them build an audio system that would provide great sound for the congregation, but not leak from the building.
“Clark has had a close and trusted relationship with North Point Ministries for over 18 years,” says Houston Clark, a principal and co-founder of Clark. He credits the strong relationship and the company's continued success in good part to a philosophy that, while Clark is a “one-source” for all church technology needs, they deliver quality by treating the areas of design, installation and commissioning of systems equally and separately.
"We're a church where people come first."
Adrian Varner
Technical Director, Gwinnett Church, Sugar Hill, GA.
Ed Crippen, Clark’s design engineer on Gwinnett's audio system, notes that, in this case, the audio design was driven by Gwinnett's desire to be a good neighbor. “They needed an audio system that would be in line with North Point's tradition of great audio;” he says, “one that wouldn't be a compromise, but would also not disturb the neighborhood. To do that, we needed to build a system that would give us precise control of the SPL gradient through the defined listening area.” Crippen's goal was to create a system with just ±3 dB variation across the seating area, then [with] a dramatic decrease in acoustic energy outside that area to minimize reflections in the room, as well as leakage to the outside.
Audio Specifics
To meet the unique design specifications for audio, Crippen worked closely with George Clark, co-founder and chief designer at Clark. Presenting several alternatives to Varner, the Gwinnett team was most impressed with the performance of Martin Audio MLA Compact self-powered multi-cellular array loudspeakers. “With MLA Compact speakers you can focus the energy where the seats are and have fantastic rejection where there is no audience,” Crippen says. “It achieves this with its own software that optimizes the end result for the user-defined seating planes and non-audience areas; it doesn't behave like a typical line array.”
Clark installed a left-right stereo system with eight MLA Compact boxes per side with four Martin DD12 powered two-way speakers (two as side fills and two as delayed side fills) to cover the 160-degree field to the sides. Nine Martin DD6 speakers were installed as front fills under lip of stage. To control energy from low frequencies with a minimal number of boxes, Crippen made the decision to add cardioid subwoofers to the system. The Martin arrays are controlled by the company’s Merlin loudspeaker processor. According to Crippen, the sound system meets the design criteria with careful measurement showing a 15-20 dB drop beyond the last row of seats. Most importantly, Varner is pleased with the result from a sound engineer's perspective. “The system sounds great for music and spoken word with highs that stay smooth and don't get aggressive,” says Varner. “It's my favorite room to mix sound.”
Clark specified a Digico SD10 console at front-of-house and another for monitors. “Digico offers a solution that is easily scalable. It doesn't matter what the price range, they all have the same high-quality audio components, plus workflow and software are the same,” says Crippen.
Gwinnett engineers use Shure ULX-D and Sennheiser 2000 Series wireless microphones and Countryman E6 headsets. Radial DI boxes are used for connectivity on stage and Shure PSM 900 wireless systems for in-ear monitoring. Crippen also specified the Neve 5045 Portico Source Enhancer, a two-channel device that isolates background noise and can provide as much as 6-10 dB of additional level to a source. “It really makes a huge difference for the presenter's sound,” he says.
Lighting Tactics
Josh Mobley is Gwinnett's lighting director and employed his eight years of production company experience to help Varner design a lighting system for the church. Like Varner, Mobley values people along with technology. “Volunteers are amazing,” he says, “and at Gwinnett they are treated inclusively.” Mobley recognizes that treating volunteers as key players goes a long way and encourages them to accomplish more.
The goal of Mobley's team is to create a distraction-free and welcoming environment. “We want people to feel comfortable and focused on the service,” he says. He advises his volunteers to take extra time to pay attention to the small details, as that is what he believes makes productions go smoothly and without distraction. About their role providing the right lighting for each song or presenter he says, “I like to think of lighting as just another instrument—just like one stage.”
Gwinnett's lighting control system includes a Jands Vista L5 console and an Arkoas MediaMaster media server. Twenty-four ETC Source Four Zoom fixtures with 750-watt lamps are used for key and back light positions, and the system uses an ETC Sensor 3 power control system. Mobley likes the church’s 20 Martin Mac Auras for color mixes and effects and 12 Mac Viper profiles for color and as movers. In addition, the installation includes 50 Chauvet ColoRado Tri Tours for band backlighting, as well as to light scenic components and 112 Chauvet Epix Strip 2.0 LED lights with an Epix drive 642 processor controlled by the Arkaos media server and 12 Color Kinetics ColorBlast TRXs.
A Pathway Pathport Octo network switch is used for lighting distribution, and 100+ Chroma-Q Inspire 2 fixtures are used for house lighting, as well as work lighting over the stage. “Chroma-Q's RGBW allows us to go to color in the room,” says Mobley. “It's also warm for an LED.” Varner and Mobley's lighting design includes a pattern of Epix strip and incandescent fixtures for the back wall. “There's a nice contrast between warm and LED,” says Mobley, “and [the fixtures] create a back wall of light that has no gaps so [it] presents speakers well for broadcast.”
Video & Broadcast Smarts
Because North Point Ministries relies heavily on their concept of connecting churches via broadcast video, North Point has assembled a multi-site production support team. This group provides a central point for communications on Sunday morning, along with ongoing consulting and integrating services for North Point Ministries' churches like Gwinnett. “We get involved on various levels,” says Brendon Petty, technical director of NPM Production, “to deploy, upgrade or maintain systems at each location. Essentially, we help each campus harness production technology to meet their specific needs.”
While North Point churches are well connected, each has its own pastor and technical staff, is fully outfitted and participates in local programming. About 40 Sundays out of the year, a live message from North Point's lead pastor, Andy Stanley, is broadcast from one of North Point's originating campuses and is recorded (for playback on delay or at a future time) at the other churches. On other Sundays, the local lead pastor, like Gwinnett's pastor, Jeff Henderson, presents the message.
Gwinnett’s sophisticated video system, designed by Petty and operated by Video Director Travis Fish and his video team, employs two Digital Projection Titan Quad 16,000 lumen projectors behind Stewart Large Electriscreen CB rear projection (28 x 16 feet) side screens. The center screen system consists of a Digital Projection Titan Quad 20,000 lumen projector with a Da-Lite 2000 series front projection (16 x 9 feet) screen. Three Panasonic AK-HC931 and three hand-held Panasonic HPX-170 cameras equipped with Teradek Bolt wireless capture the action. Renewed Vision ProPresentor is used as presentation software for lyrics, graphics and lower third graphics, along with ProVideoServer software running on a Mac. Blackmagic Design components are used for I/O connectivity.
A Ross Carbonite 2ME production switcher is used for video production and effects with signal directed by a Harris Platinum 96x96 video router with multi-view to production locations including signage, other venues and recording stations using three Blackmagic HyperDecks and two AJA Ki Pro solid-state video recorders. North Point originating campuses send the video message with embedded audio signal via fiber with virtually no delay to be recorded at the local campuses using a Harmonic Omneon servers. “Much like a DVR you use at home,” says Petty, “we are able to playback the recording whenever the local service program requires, usually on a two- to four-minute delay.”
For Sunday broadcasts, North Point's Technical Operations Center acts as a central control room to monitor all broadcast signals and fiber connections. Each campus utilizes their own Clear-Com matrix intercom system (not a typical “party line”) which allows for communication in groups or individually. “It's important that each campus is able to operate alone,” remarks Petty, “but our individual systems are also combined via fiber and VoIP technology to allow seamless communication between all locations.”
Petty's video design at Gwinnett includes gear similar to that in use at other campuses. “Our goal is to have consistent quality by using similar gear in similar ways,” he says. “I think that translates into a consistent experience for volunteers and congregation.“ An additional role that Petty's team plays is to collect “great ideas” from the campuses. “We all approach our production environments a little differently. So, when we find someone doing something new and interesting,” he says, “we'll be sure the idea gets passed around.”
While Gwinnett, with its association to North Point Ministries, may be a large church by many people's standards (their long-term plan includes an additional 3,000-seat worship center), the technical team operates very much like a smaller organization—big on communication and big on people. Something Varner's experience has taught him is that production is not just about getting the job done, but also working well with the people around him. “If I fix a problem and I've made it difficult for those around me,” he says, “then I've failed. Looking back, I can see that every time I've stepped forward I've been blessed with people around me who taught me.”
