With the right hardware and software, video elements are now being controlled by the lighting director, worship team, and sometimes the other way around. Will this mean the end of video switchers as we know them, or will they take on additional functions like lighting or will they be circumvented altogether?
There are a lot of possibilities. With RS-232, a switcher can control worship software or video server. Lighting can be controlled with DMX or control worship software. Musicians can send MIDI notes to control worship software. Timecode from a video server can fire lighting cues. Commands may be sent on dedicated cabling, as with RS-232, or over the network as with MIDI or DMX. The video or slides may also have cues for lighting built in, allowing the video director to control, not only video playback, but also the lighting.
In the past, video directors and lighting directors have collaborated in creating looks that compliment one another. Through the use of the DMX protocol, a presentation computer can send a command to fire a lighting cue or can receive a command and display a slide. This can remove the video switcher from the mix altogether, at least for screens that don't need a live IMAG feed.
In some applications, software-based switchers, like Wirecast, BoinxTV, vMix, Atem etc. may replace hardware switchers. On the other hand, if worship software or video servers take control of lighting, some churches may find that software-based lighting consoles fit their needs for controlling video.
Some worship software, like ProPresenter, can be controlled by MIDI as well. So, worship leaders can control slides based on signals sent over the network from software like Ableton Live. This turns ProPresenter into something like a software-based switcher and can remove control of video from the video director.
Victory World Church in Atlanta is taking yet a different approach, using LED panels not to replace a projector, but for environmental lighting elements. You might mistake the LED wall at the back of the platform for a lighting element, but while it's controlled by the High End Hog4 lighting console over HogNet, that's where its similarity to lighting ends. Charlie Pike, their lighting and stage director, is responsible for what content goes onto the LED wall, not the video director. During worship, it might have an abstract background and lyrics, but during the message, it's more subdued.
This is what happens when the lines blur between video director, lighting director, and/or worship leader. Either the video switcher gets more responsibility or less. Not every church needs IMAG. Some are better served to think of video as just another form of lighting. Others will have some screens that show IMAG while others are purely for graphics and abstract video, which blends seamlessly with lighting. In such churches, worship software controlled by other production interfaces replace or supplement the switcher altogether.
If video production creates and displays a video, what could happen if it included lighting cues which augment that video? Maybe the video goes with a song with a driving beat. At each down beat, the lights change, and change reliably every time. The visual experience expands from what's on screen to what's lighting up the room, being shown on the floor, on the ceiling, and so on.
If your lighting console can take cues from timecode provided by a video server, like an Abekas Mira or Arkaos, consider how Ben Thomas from Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, Texas approaches lighting. The lighting director programs cues, putting in triggers that correspond to timecode in the video from the server. Lake Pointe doesn't create videos and lighting for every song, but only “when timing is imperative to the video…to ensure that video/lighting/music are in sync.”
If a Hog, GrandMa, or Jands Vista lighting console controls the computer with the worship software, as well as controlling the lights, isn't the lighting director doing much more than before, verging on directing video (even if it's from a lighting console)?
Worship leaders can also switch and control video. A great example of this is what Matt McGowan at New Haven United Methodist Church in New Haven, Indiana is doing with Ableton Live. When Ableton Live plays loops and clicks during church, worship leaders still have control of adding in another chorus or skipping a verse on the fly allowing him or her to follow how the Spirit leads.
When a MIDI foot controller like the Looptimus is connected to the Ableton computer, the worship leader can easily advance to the next song while praying, reading scripture, or leading the room, taking the guess work out of when it's time for the computer operator to start the next song or video.
Still, there are still some limitations to the idea of a worship leader or lighting director doing the job of a video director and circumventing the switcher. Directing IMAG from Ableton (or a lighting console) would be very difficult, but imagine a situation where PTZ cameras are programmed with certain shots to go with particular parts of the song and even have those shots repeated over and over again. It would take a lot of the stress out of live production and give production people the ability to create entire services in advance. The art could be created days, weeks, or months ahead of time, not live.
Since both DMX and MIDI can control some worship software programs, perhaps a single person could do the three roles of audio, video, and lighting in some churches with hardware like Soundcraft's Si Performer Console which adds control of DMX lighting to a digital audio console.
The technical roles inside churches are certainly changing. Perhaps the LD used to complain that the screen limited her creativity because she couldn't shine lights on it. Now, the screen can be one of those lights that augments the her lighting design in a new way.
Perhaps your church often runs short on volunteers and either the lighting director, audio director, or video director often find themselves doubling up. Now, one person can operate with the presentation computer, which he prefers, one week and another person can operate with lighting desk the next, each doing two jobs at once.
Nowadays video switching isn't just switching. Lighting isn't just lighting. Sound isn't just sound. Music isn't just music. They're all combining to form something new, different, and perhaps, better than the sum of the parts. Soon you may switch lights and cameras or program your part a head of time and sit with your family during the service.
