Church of the Highlands, Birmingham, AL
Whether your church chooses to do a live service that is streamed online or a prerecorded service that is released online, your Christmas Eve production will have an impact on people's lives.
For many churches, Christmas Eve draws in more attendees than Easter. So Christmas Eve services represent an incredible opportunity to reach people who once attended and now don’t, the unchurched, and the fence-sitters.
Should the Christmas Eve service be the same as every other year, but just live streamed?
Whether your church performs a cantata, a full play, or a simple Christmas service with a few songs and communion, these services are both a gift to your church and to your community. They matter in the life of the church.
This year obviously looks much different than years past. And even though many tech teams have learned how to create an online weekly experience, they’re still grappling with how to create a Christmas Eve experience online.
Should the Christmas Eve service be the same as every other year, but just live streamed? Should it be different because of a significantly larger and more diverse online audience? Should it be live or should it be prerecorded?
In the all-important question of whether to go live or prerecorded, it’s important to understand that each comes with its own set of pro’s and con’s. Here are some of them to consider as you decide which route is best for your church and your team.
Producing Christmas Eve Completely Live
Pro 1: Live streaming a live event is more efficient from every aspect. Techs and talent show up, potentially do a rehearsal, and then the live event happens. If people are used to serving on the tech team, this will be especially efficient.
Pro 2: Experience. For those in the room, it will feel similar to what Christmas Eve may have felt like in the past. A lot of people have had difficulties with so much change this year, and maybe the ability to gather on Christmas Eve at the church will mean something significant.
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Con 1: No "do overs." The performance, the camera angles, the audio mix is what it is. This can potentially produce high stress for many volunteers, especially when it is one of the largest services of the year.
Cameras are usually positioned based on working around crowds, but in a service that is primarily attended online, it’s a good idea to reposition cameras so they’re closer to the stage.
Con 2: A completely live performance will likely focus more on the people in the room than the online audience. With the exception of churches with a large enough production team to focus only online and only live, the attention is at best split between the quality of online vs. in-person. This is an important point because many churches still have a majority of people attending online and a smaller percentage in person on regular Sunday mornings. This fact could potentially be amplified on a holiday like Christmas Eve.
If a church is primarily gathering in-person and has a small percentage online, then doing a completely live gathering and simply streaming it online may be the best choice. However, based on what most churches are reporting in the U.S., this isn’t the case.
Postproduction is a different skillset than producing a live service. For many churches, this is new territory.
Con 3: Staffing Christmas Eve. It may be more difficult this year to get the amount of people needed to serve on Christmas this year. Most tech teams have had to significantly grow this year to pull off live streaming church. The amount of people it now takes to make church happen is easily 30%-40% more. Gathering this large of a team on a holiday could be a challenge considering that Christmas Eve services tend to be difficult to staff on a normal year.
Tips for Going Live
If your church and your team decide that the pro’s of going it live outweigh the con’s, here are tips that can help you nail the live service.
1-Coach the pastor to speak directly to the camera and address the people online as much as possible.
Everyone knows that addressing the online audience is important. But in light of Christmas Eve it could be even more important because of the amount of people who are likely to attend digitally this year. Again, it could be many people's first encounter with the church. Reminding the pastor of how important this is will be helpful.
2-Consider repositioning your camera(s) closer to the platform to make the online viewing experience better.
Oftentimes, cameras are positioned in the room based on working around crowds, but in a service that is primarily attended online, it’s a good idea to reposition cameras so they’re closer to the stage and give a better angle for the online audience.
Producing Christmas Eve Prerecorded
Pro 1: This option means the Christmas service can be recorded in sections instead of all at once. This is a benefit because it allows the team to take the time to adjust lighting, audio levels, and video cameras for each segment of the service. For example, if the primary segments in the Christmas Eve Service is singing, preaching, and maybe a dramatic segment, then it could be scheduled in three different nights, leaving time in between to recalibrate the gear for each part of the service.
Pro 2: Prerecording allows the team flexibility with people's schedules. For example, if there are four different segments to the Christmas Eve service and the pastor is only in two of them, he or she can record their two sections independently from volunteers who are singing or contributing in some other way to the service.
This may also mean not needing to have the entire production team for each segment of the service. For example, if there are three cameras but two of them will be stationary for the pastor's portion of the service, then less camera people need to be scheduled for those segments.
Pro 3: Audio and video can potentially be remixed after it is recorded. If the church has the ability to multi-track audio and record each camera independently, then recording and editing in post is possible. This will result in the highest quality possible.
Pro 4: The last pro—the all-important "take two." Being able to capture multiple takes of a performance and put them together can have a significant impact on the overall quality of the Christmas Eve service. Multiple takes can especially make a significant difference for the music portion of the service. The ability for vocalists to sing the song in a few different takes and then choose the best version is a significant benefit.
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Con 1: The first con to prerecording is time. Prerecording simply takes more time. There is more setup time, more editing time and more energy spent from the team. While it may be challenging in a live service to get the entire team to a Christmas Eve service, the premium is paid in hours for the production team. There is more time spent recording all of the segments as well as post editing audio and video. The product will be better, but it will take longer.
Con 2: The second con could be lack of knowledgeable volunteers. For example, some churches may have great live sound engineers, but they may never have multi-tracked and remixed a service for YouTube consumption. Postproduction is a different skillset than producing a live service. For many churches, this is new territory. The con can simply be that the production team may not have experience doing this. In some cases, a church might be able to pay for someone to edit and remix the service for them. There are several services that do this now, as well as many people who contract themselves out to churches for these types of occasions.
Tips for Prerecording
If you have the time to prerecord, the technical ability to craft a polished product in postproduction or the time and resources to hire out that job, here are some pointers that are wise to follow.
1-Schedule more time for each segment than you think you need.
If one of the benefits of prerecording is being able to get multiple takes, so schedule time for multiple takes. Make sure there is enough time for both the production team and the people on platform to feel comfortable with going through their portion a few times.
Scheduling enough time between each segment is also very important. If the production team needs to reset cameras, lighting, or microphones, then making sure there is enough time for the team to get in the room will be helpful.
2-Calibrate for each segment.
Lighting changes affect video significantly. When a church does a live service that has significant lighting changes, video coloration can suffer. However, when the service is prerecorded, then the production team can white balance and set ISO for each part of the service. This can help the service be as dynamic as you want without letting the quality suffer.
3-Watch and listen to the service ahead of time.
For those that have not done a good deal of postproduction editing and mixing, how it looks and sounds on a computer screen vs. a TV is different. Take time to upload a version of the service to test it before it is released for the entire church to enjoy in their homes.
Whether your church chooses to do a live service that is streamed online or a prerecorded service that is released online, your Christmas Eve production will have an impact on people's lives. So whichever way you choose to go, think it through. You are sharing the most important story ever told—a story that couldn’t be told without the help of your production team.
