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“We like it big; we like it exciting,” says Woodlands Church Production Manager, Matt Kramer. The main campus venue seats 4,200 people and Kramer says each week the goal is to keep attendees interested by not doing the same old thing. “We're relatively modern compared to a lot of Southern Baptist style churches. It's kind of more the rock style of worship. We try to make it exciting and new and fresh as much as we can.”
Kramer is in charge of all of live production and support for the church’s two satellite campuses. He manages all audio, video and lighting staff, the volunteer teams and is responsible for all the AVL systems and operations. Services are livestreamed and distributed regularly on Daystar.
“The mentality here is trying to keep it fresh and keep it current. So a big part of our identity is fresh music.” - Associate Media Pastor, Dave Marks, Woodlands Church
Keeping Livestream Fresh
“There’s more technology than there was six or eight years ago,” Kramer explains. “So, a big part of that was bringing more of a focus to our live stream or our online campus. Originally when we started it, it was just we send online whatever we have to send them, and that's what they get. It's front of house, mix off the board, whatever we plan on doing with the IMAG screens, that's what they’d see.”
But now Kramer and his team have been boosting the livestream production quality with more handheld cameras in an effort to bring more energy to what people are seeing online. “We have two different directors in the control room at the same time. One of them has a little bit more freedom to cut a little bit faster and mix in some of the other cameras for what we send online because our goal online is to make them feel like they're here in the room with us.”
Keeping Music Fresh
“The mentality here is trying to keep it fresh and keep it current. So a big part of our identity is fresh music,’ says Associate Media Pastor, Dave Marks.
While there’s definitely been a shift in worship styles to a be more live production-oriented, Kramer says they also are very careful to make services about the Gospel and connecting with God. For example, they’ve stopped doing secular song covers. “There's obviously some kind of balance you want to be welcoming to the unchurched because those are the kinds of people we're trying to reach, but you also want to create an environment that is serving the Lord. And so, I feel like there's been a really good shift in that direction.”
And Marks says having the original home-grown additions to the service makes the difference. “They're always writing music, they're always changing up something, and we're always changing sets. So, it just keeps things fresh, which is just as important as why he preaches a different message every week.”
For the lighting designers, all music planning is done a week and a half in advance…
Keeping Sets Fresh
Marks is also responsible for all the set designs, which are an integral part of Pastor Kerry Shook’s messages. “Kerry’s always been about illustrations. The way Jesus taught was with illustrations, and that's how Kerry teaches,” he explains. “It's about something that people are going to walk away from and remember, which is I think really important.”
Marks says there’s been some amazing set pieces to illustrate weekly sermons. Ice cream shops, camping sites, race cars, and circuses have all graced their stage. “He'll do cooking on stage and relate different ingredients to the sermon. He had me build a big box and it was about putting God in a box and he had this big box onstage and he kept referring to the box. So, people see that and they say, ‘Okay, yeah, I can relate to that.”
How does Marks keep his designs fresh? He says it’s all about grabbing an idea before you need it. “I pay attention to what's going on in the industry and try to keep at least a reasonable finger on the pulse of what's going on. And if I see something that will strike me, I mean, this is going to sound weird, but if I see a color or a pattern or something, I'll take a picture of it,” he says. “And the other thing I do, which is so old school, but people just think it's awesome. If I see something in a magazine, it doesn't necessarily have to be a set. It could be anything. I rip that page out and I throw it in a box.” He uses that archive of photos and magazine pages to help with ideas and inspiration for new set designs.
Marks says being ready in advance saves time and money. “We have to be good stewards of God's money. I work within budgets, but over time, one of the things that I've learned is that there are certain things you just can't get around buying, but there's a lot of stuff that, with a little bit of imagination, you can make relatively inexpensive.”
… it’s all about grabbing an idea before you need it.
Keeping Gear Fresh
Woodlands PA is a new d&b audiotechnik Soundscape System. It’s immersive audio and object-based mixing. So, it’s important they plan where vocalists are standing on stage. “We don't just have panning, we have placement. And so, each of our vocalists is placed in the mix based off of where they're standing on stage,” Kramer explains. Instead of figuring out where everyone is and then place them in the mix, it’s all done beforehand. “We put together a stage plot of where each vocalist is going to stand before we get to rehearsal so that our front house engineer doesn't even have to think about that at that point. It's just worry about mixing and making it sound good. So that's one pretty significant example for what we've changed recently.”
Even with recent upgrades, the team still has some outdated equipment like broadcast-style ENG cameras. But they’ve made some adjustments with lighting to add depth of field and Kramer says while he would love to have super 35 sensor cameras eventually, it’s nice to know stewardship is the top priority. “I've told my family and friends who have questions about how large churches spend their money that I work in production at a large church, and I often times get very frustrated with how little I feel like we invest into my department. But also, it gives me a good perspective of knowing that our church leadership has very good priorities in where they spend money.”
For the lighting designers, all music planning is done a week and a half in advance so that at the beginning of the week an MP3 is created for the worship set. “Our lighting designer has basically second for second of every song we're doing exactly as we're doing it so he can be prepared before we get into the weekend. So, he's programming Thursday and Friday before the Saturday service.” The LD’s are lighting contractors and they work with the video team to eliminate any issues that might pop up from lighting programming interacting with the cameras by planning ahead and watching the service. “There's a lot of times during service where he's watching and asking on comms, ‘Hey, it looked like the drummer was a little bit dark. Do you need me to do something about that?’ Most of the time we're relatively consistent about how we light the vocalists and the band, and that's the biggest concern for our video team anyway.”
Keeping Relationships Fresh
While a lot of planning goes into making each week unique musically, dramatically and production wise – Kramer says flexibility to work on leaderships’ timetable is paramount. “Obviously we are here to support senior pastor and the church leadership, however they need it, and flexibility is most of the time how they need it. And so that's what we do,” Kramer explains.
He says they’ve been able to build a solid relationship with an understanding that even when things come in late, the production team is happy to serve in any way necessary. But also, that whenever things can get planned ahead of time, it makes things so much easier for everyone. “I try to be very open with our head worship pastor about what we do and why we do it and make sure that falls under his expectations and what he really wants to do with the service because it's ultimately up to him. The more details that the production team has, the easier it is to get our jobs done.”
Finally, Keeping the Team Fresh
One of most any growing church’s challenges is recruiting and keeping more and more production volunteers. “One thing that I think has made a big difference in our team and how everyone works together and in their investment in the team is we have a life group together. And so, the whole church made a big push for life groups and part of that was one guy who used to work on my team now actually works in life groups, and he started a life group for the production team and the life group meets every week. It makes it feel a lot more like a family than if you're just getting together on the weekends when everyone's working,” Kramer concludes. “I love the guy who started it. I wouldn't have thought of that first. And he's incredible. So, I think that's made a huge difference.”
