Photo courtesy of Devita
In addition to its in-person services, Elevate Life Church is focused on its live stream, using camera robotics to engage congregants at home and make the services as visually appealing as possible.
"It delivered exactly the shot that our pastor wanted,” says Ethan Ormeo, film director at Elevate Life Church in Jacksonville, Fla. “He saw these wide, smooth dolly shots, almost like a cross-auditorium pan that he liked in the live streams from Action Church in Orlando and Elevation Church in Charlotte.”
Telemetrics designs and builds video robotics ecosystems for broadcast and production environments.
Oddly enough, a call to Action Church resulted in a recommendation for the Telemetrics camera robotics systems – and Action Church wasn’t even using one. “Action was still using a manual dolly,” Ormeo says. “They just told us, ‘This is not what we have, and it’s OK, but we would highly recommend Telemetrics.”
“We were blown away by the dynamic shots we can get, especially as far back as we are in the auditorium.” - Ethan Ormeo
A Telemetrics TG4 TeleGlide camera track system is positioned at the back of the room (broken up into one 10-foot sections of rail and two 5-foot sections). The system is operated by a single person remotely.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Elevate Life has placed a new focus on the quality of its live stream. One result is a new video system installed at the church’s Oakleaf, Fla. location --- one of the church’s three locations in the greater Jacksonville, Fla area. The new system includes five Panasonic AU-EVA1 cameras with Canon lenses on Telemetrics PT-HP-S5 Robotic Pan/Tilt heads mounted around the church’s main auditorium. Another one on a Telemetrics TG4 TeleGlide camera track system at the back of the room provides the motion shot the pastor wanted. The entire system can be operated by a single person using a Telemetrics RCCP-2A Robotic Camera Control Panel, complete with reframe automatic shot correction.
"It's definitely a game changer.”- Ethan Ormeo
“It was everything that we didn’t know we needed until we began using the robotic system,” Ormeo adds. “When we first got it, the functionality just blew us away. We could never get this type of coverage with a person and a manual camera. Even subtle movements during the sermon can be captured. It looks really good.”
The Telemetrics RCCP-2A Robotic Camera Control Panel, complete with reFrame automatic shot correction and pastor-tracking software, helps the church’s staff bring a cinematic quality to live service production.
Since then they’ve learned the Telemetrics TeleGlide camera track system, which they affectionately call “Tina,” has a lot more tricks up her sleeve, just one of which is getting the sermon shot their pastor had been asking for.
The Telemetrics track runs across the entire back row of their sanctuary or it allows them to run the camera across the entire stage. “We were blown away by the dynamic shots we can get, especially as far back as we are in the auditorium.”
Ormeo’s team also uses the Telemetrics facial tracking feature regularly. He says it really helps for special events and when they are short-staffed. “The cool thing about the facial tracking, if you do have a speaker that basically stands still, your operator can concentrate on moving the camera manually left and right and the system automatically holds the face where you want it in the shot. But, if the pastor were to run around, all you have to worry about is controlling where the camera is on the track and it'll follow the face. I even had somebody jump off stage one time and it automatically followed their face all the way down.”
Ormeo says their Telemetrics is used for much more than sermons. “We basically shot an entire music video with a set that was built to roll on top of the track. And then we filmed a documentary that we did for the church by kind of setting up around the track, using it as like an actual dolly. So, we've definitely used it for more than just the services.” He says it also gives them the ability to do a great push-pull effect. “I think some people call it the vertigo effect. We abused it a little bit,” he laughs. “You're able to literally program a move where the camera is pushing in, while you're zooming out and then you can zoom in while you're pulling out. So, that's an effect that is fairly difficult to do unless you're using an EasyRig or some type of stabilizer. That's a shot that kind of surprised us.”
They weren’t the only ones surprised. The Telemetrics Teleglide robotics system created a lot of buzz in the congregation. “People who are interested in the creative area were like, ‘Oh my gosh, how'd you get that smooth shot in the back?’ Or ‘How can I be involved?’” Ormeo exclaims. “Usually, people want to know where it is being controlled from, because it's basically in the middle of auditorium and the controller is all the way in the video control room, which is like backstage of the backstage of the backstage.”
Ormeo says being able to control it from the video control room is a big selling point, as well as being able to take over manually whenever they want. He concludes, “I feel like it adds a certain production value to the shots that you wouldn't have any other way. Being able to program it, and just take over manually whenever we want to; it’s like we have an operator out there by just having somebody hop on here and remotely control it basically with just analog controls. It's definitely a game changer.”
