Two new Digital Projection E-Vision 9000WU projectors, capable of 9,000 lumens of light output power the new video screens at Lighthouse World Outreach Center.
Photos courtesy of Lexie Starnes.
The best thing about having a problem is that it provides an opportunity to find a solution and a path for improvement.
The worst thing about having a problem is that it tends to arrive on its own schedule and rarely follows paths of convenience.
For Lighthouse World Outreach Center in Monroe, Ga., both maxims proved true in late 2020.
Strata chose two Digital Projection E-Vision 9000WU projectors, capable of 9,000 lumens of light output, to be the new workhorses of the projection system.
With the coronavirus pandemic still raging, the multicultural church in the eastern suburbs of Atlanta was inching towards its first Christmas season in the then-new reality of restricted access, social distancing, and limited attendance.
But then disaster, perhaps fortuitously, struck.
Just weeks before Christmas, one of the two projectors in the 1,000-seat room died. In fact, the projector, an older model only capable of producing a 4x3 aspect ratio on analog inputs, was so old that replacement parts or lamps were simply not able to be sourced.
The best thing about having a problem is that it provides an opportunity to find a solution and a path for improvement.
Pastor Raymond Hardy describes the old video system, saying, "“It was almost embarrassing to try to show certain things because the quality was really degrading and really getting kind of poor.”
“Our existing system was about 17 years old,” according to Senior Pastor Raymond Hardy, “and it was out of its useful life. We were having to repair it all the time and trying to find parts. And we just made the decision to go ahead and to upgrade, and at the same time, try to enhance and do something a little better, a little different than what we had.”
Desperate for a solution, Hardy and Creative Director Paul Hamilton reached out to Strata, an integrator with whom the church had an existing relationship.
David Roche, the church’s project manager with Strata, remembered the situation easily.
“They said, ‘Hey, can you come talk to us and see what we can do?’ So we went over and took a look and came up with a quick plan to get it done,” he recalled. “The timing was motivated out of necessity, but it was kind of on the roadmap anyway.”
Just two years prior, in 2018, the church had partnered with Strata to install a 60’x15’ edge-blended projection wall in a new children’s space. That naturally led to conversations about making upgrades in the church’s main sanctuary, which was in dire need of its own overhaul.
It has become the basis for a new environment and atmosphere that, instead of being a source of embarrassment, is something of which they can be proud.
“We were having difficulty during services at times [with] screens going out,” said Hardy. “It was almost embarrassing to try to show certain things because the quality was really degrading and really getting kind of poor.”
Not only was the church still relying on old equipment, with projectors barely capable of outputting 2000 lumens, the infrastructure was all still standard definition. The combination of older, inconsistent technology and inefficient design was a ticking time bomb whose detonation was less a factor of “if” than “when.”
On all of their projects, Lighthouse has historically proceeded at a methodical pace, choosing to pay as they go and move ahead debt-free, as opposed to taking out loans or relying on fundraising campaigns to pay for expenses already incurred.
But when the sanctuary projector died in late fall of 2020, it was clear that the church would need to pivot to a phased approach for its technology upgrades, instead of implementing them as one large project.
Fortunately, Hardy, Creative Director Paul Hamilton, and Roche had already been working on a long-term vision and implementation plan, which enabled the team to take a holistic approach to the projector issue instead of just seeing it as an isolated installation.
Part of the video upgrade at Lighthouse World Outreach Center was relocating the video screens closer to the middle of the stage area. This keeps people's attention directed to the center, rather than the extreme left or right where the screens were originally located.
At Lighthouse, the side walls of the stage angle back towards the upstage wall. The flat surfaces of the side walls are where the older projector screens had been mounted. However, due to the angle of those walls, the screens were pushed farther towards the wings of the stage than is ideal, which often created a visual and engagement disconnect for the audience.
Installing new projectors would also provide natural momentum for the church to reconsider the location of their screens and explore shifting them more centered and upstage. This would then create a more visually appealing perspective for the congregants.
“We're trying to get away from two screens spread out so far out in the room, on either side of the room where people nobody's looking at the stage,” Strata’s Roche explained. “When they're looking at the screen, they're not seeing who's up there speaking, or seeing him, they're looking over here somewhere or over there somewhere,” he continued.
The new 16x9 screens would now span across the angled corners where the side walls and upstage wall intersected, placing them in a more centered location along the back of the stage. By drawing the audience’s attention more towards the center of the room, Roche and his design team felt that would drastically improve both engagement and the amount of community felt in the room.
In most situations where 4x3 screens are replaced with 16x9 ones, it’s typically recommended that the new screens at least be the same height as the older ones, so as to reinforce the perception that the viewing surface area is larger.
Unfortunately for Lighthouse, their upstage baptistery created a restriction for how wide the new screens could be, so the overall size of the new screen surfaces (roughly 14’x8’) was slightly limited.
However, there were no such limitations on the new projectors that were installed, and that’s where the project truly excelled and created the most impact.
Strata chose two Digital Projection E-Vision 9000WU projectors, capable of 9,000 lumens of light output, to be the new workhorses of the projection system. And with a crisp, digital, high-definition signal that was being projected at over three times the brightness of the older, dying system, the impact was immediate.
“I, as a pastor feel more comfortable entering into the sanctuary with the product that we're able to present,” said Hardy. “It was embarrassing for me at times, you know, some of the things that we were trying to show [with the] quality, so it's helped me as far as relieving me [of that anxiety],” he added.
To provide a bit of separation from the backdrop area, lighting fixtures located behind the screens help silhouette or frame the screens providing additional color and intrigue to the projected images.
As part of the projector install, Strata also helped Lighthouse install some architectural up-lighting under the projector screens to add some color and ambiance in those corners where the rear and side walls met.
Doing so helped “frame the screens,” according to Creative Director Hamilton, “and it just adds to the overall effect of the lighting and the stage.”
After the successful projector install, the church systematically began biting off other chunks of its long-term upgrade vision, first implementing additional cameras to use for their live online stream, and then progressing on its plan to also improve the audio and lighting infrastructure.
But it was the projector upgrade, where the church was pushed to the brink just before the Christmas holidays, that quite possibly made the most notable impact.
“[By working with smaller churches] you get a chance to really do something that makes a huge difference for them,” gushed Roche, who then continued, “and this really did change a lot of their services where they could rely more on the screens [and] get people more engaged” by having the confidence to utilize more videos in their services.
Many ministries would be dramatically impacted by having a main projector die just two months before Christmas services, and Lighthouse was one of them. But by having a key integration partner, a plan, and a reliable technology solution in place, they were able to turn a potential disaster into an opportunity for growth and an increase in impact and effectiveness that they could leverage for continued influence in their community.
It has become the basis for a new environment and atmosphere that, instead of being a source of embarrassment, is something of which they can be proud.
“I shouldn’t use the word proud,” corrected Hardy, “but we are thankful.”
