Don’t Like How Your Livestream Looks? It’s Probably Your Lighting.

Two seasoned church creatives share some lighting wisdom and solutions.

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The spring of 2020 pushed many church production staff into a world that was previously only the territory of “big” churches—livestreaming. Of course, most had watched Bethel Redding’s worship, kept up on UPPERROOM’s worship moments, or had tuned in to other megachurches that were broadcasting, but the idea of trying to produce a live TV broadcast probably seemed way out of reach. A lot of “ifs” were involved. “If” the church grows enough. “If” the church has the budget. “If” that’s what the church vision and mission require of the team. 

And then of course, during the pandemic everyone had to choose between streaming or shutting down entirely. Fast forward three years and most everyone is still streaming. The gear is there and the volunteers love to do the work, so keep doing it, right? The challenge is how to make it better. Pricier cameras? Get off OBS and onto a good Blackmagic “real” switcher? Make it all 4K? LED walls are more affordable now, so grab one of those and make the backdrop unbelievably good?

In 2023, many churches own and operate an impressive live broadcast setup, and their LED walls have redefined the stage design. But there’s still a problem. “It doesn't matter how good of a camera you have; if you have bad lighting, it's gonna look bad.”

That was Alex Fuller, the owner of Fuller Lights, which helps churches design their lighting and video build systems. Alex’s clients include Bethel Redding, Jesus Culture, Saddleback and Gateway, and he currently serves as the live production pastor at Zion City Church in Tucson, Arizona. Church Production sat down with Alex and asked him for advice about what churches should do if they’ve upgraded their broadcast gear and bought an LED wall, but their stream is still lackluster.

“A lot of times we get it wrong by upgrading cameras and adding video walls, when the first thing we need to do is actually upgrade the lighting.”

—Alex Fuller, Live Production pastor at Zion City Church, Tucson, Arizona

“It's kind of like if you have a data amplifier and you amplify a bad signal—it's just a higher quality bad signal. It's kind of the same kind of thing. And so lighting definitely needs to be 'the' thing,” Alex explains. “I think as soon as you upgrade your cameras, you realize very quickly when your lighting is inadequate or underwhelming. A lot of times we get it wrong by upgrading cameras and adding video walls, when the first thing we need to do is actually upgrade the lighting.”

The idea is that a stock used Canon camera that a church picks up for $700 on eBay can actually look better on a livestream with good lighting than a much more expensive camera that’s capturing a band and a preacher under misplaced or poorly colored lights. 

“A lot of times, especially during the pandemic, it kind of got done in reverse. Everybody was just buying new cameras because they thought ‘We're doing livestream—we need awesome cameras!’ And then I've gotten a lot of calls asking, ‘Uh, the lighting doesn't look good and why doesn't the screen in the room match what's on the backdrop? Why is the backdrop a different color than what's on the IMAG screens? Why are the screens always blue?’” 

Coming Up With Solutions

So what’s a church to do? Blow more money on new lighting?

Not necessarily, but maybe.

Alex offered some advice. “I think some churches have the right stuff, they're just not using it. And then other times they have the wrong product and so it really depends on the room, the angles, all those types of things. I think if you can have somebody that knows something and have them come in and help you out and even just tell you, ‘Hey, do X, Y and Z, or I can help you do X, Y and Z...’ you know, it's usually worth the money to pay a professional.”

A quick Google search might surprise a church production staff with a lighting consultant like Alex nearby that can help. They might be surprised at just how affordable they are. 

Church Production also sat down with Aaron Davis, who serves as the creative manager at LifeMission Church, a broadcast multisite church with four campuses across greater Kansas City. Aaron offered advice on the some of the finer points of arranging lighting on stage, even using what a church has on hand before spending money on any upgrades.

“I always try to aim for some type of three-point lighting. I always think you need a room light or a hair light because it makes a preacher stand out from the background. There must be some type of bright illumination around the edges so that they can stand out from the background, especially on camera. I'll usually try to do two light sources on the front, just like you would say a key light and a fill light,” Aaron says.  

“The reason why I don't do straight down [the middle] is because you cast more light on the back of the stage.”

—Aaron Davis, Creative Manager, LifeMission Church, Kansas City, Kansas

Three-point lighting is common practice in recorded video, which is Aaron’s particular specialty at LifeMission, but the rules work the same for live broadcast as well. Aaron suggests avoiding centered lighting that shoots straight down onto the stage subject.

“The reason why I don't do straight down [the middle] is because you cast more light on the back of the stage. But when you shoot at an angle, the carry-over light is hitting the length of the stage to cast onto the corners rather than onto the LED wall,” Aaron adds.

Alex also had some advice for churches that find the brightness of their LED wall competing with their front lights. “When people are upgrading video walls onstage, they don't think about how that’s just a giant light source shooting right into your camera aperture and hitting the sensor in the camera. And so then you have to run your front light extremely bright to try to combat it and you lose all of the contrast and because everything is so bright you can't really get any dynamics. So I tell people, start your video walls and the processors by cranking down to like 20% and start there.” 

If, however, when it is time to spend money on upgrades," Aaron minces no words, “I personally would say spend your money on lighting, because even if you have an amazing camera, with bad lighting it's still going to look bad.” 

It’s also important to understand that the camera “sees” differently than the human eye.

Alex echoed this sentiment, “Some churches really do need to upgrade their stuff and some churches really do need to fix their front light. Like the worst is when I go into spaces and they have incandescent lamp fixtures mixed in with some cheap Chinese LED products that flood the stage with horrible white light. Don’t do that! Try to get the atmosphere to look the best that it can so that then when you capture and record it, you're setting yourself up for success.”

It’s also important to understand that the camera ‘sees’ differently than the human eye. And different types and brands of cameras ‘see’ differently from each other. The lighting design for your livestream needs to be done in front of a monitor, not just by looking at the stage with the naked eye.”