What Did You Miss At Capture?

Capture Summit ‘23 was about more than just gear.

by

I just got back from three impactful days in Dallas after mixing it up with church creatives, production professionals, and our kind hosts at Cottonwood Creek Church. Capture Summit ‘23 did not disappoint and if you didn’t make it this year, I want to tell you about what you missed because you gotta make it next year.  The gear, the sessions, and the connections made this more than worth a line item on your budget for 2024 (read on to learn how to save big on that line item).

It’s one thing to know about new gear to add to your budget for next year, but there’s so much more significance in having a friend to call when you need help with more than just troubleshooting.

Atrium Gear & Giveaways

Capture Summit stacked the main atrium with meaningful church gear professionals like Sony, Canon, Nanlite, B&H Photo, just to name a few. These reps showcased and sampled tools at a wide range of price points that any production leader could add to their workflow right now. Soyuz and Tula Mics demonstrated the practical value of their high-end microphones that will fit just about any budget of a church looking to build a professional studio. JVC laid out their remarkable PTZ offerings for thrifty directors looking to livestream, and Resi stood by ready to answer questions about their industry leading encoders, decoders, and cloud UI. Of course, Canon came with all the glass you could ever want, and Hollyland made an impression with their new wireless intercom system that offers a well-built, high-value alternative to Clear-Com or the budget-conscious EarTec systems. Each rep knew the church production world inside and out, often coming to their job out of the church production world, so there was plenty of shop to talk and knowledgeable solutions for church production leaders of all shapes and sizes. Lectrosonics displayed their top-notch wireless microphone and field recording systems. Marshall showed their latest PTZ and POV cameras StreamingChuch.tv talked us through their church-specific streaming platform, and Remote Control Studios showed their innovative solutions for doing high quality remote interviews. Zeiss showed their amazing line of cinema lenses and Ministry by Text showed church creatives the new world of, well, ministry by text. Panasonic was on hand with their professional broadcast cameras, and BZBGear showed their excellent, but affordable PTZ cameras and controllers. Sony Faith introduced the world to their new director, long-time Church Production contributor, Mark Hanna.

And these vendors arrived with open hands, giving away tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear at the last main session on Wednesday afternoon—we’re talking Fujifilm cameras, Canon camera kits, capture-ready Nanlite lighting rigs, DPA mics, and Backblaze cloud subscriptions and much more.

Sessions

While we all love gear, Capture really ramped things up with the breakout sessions.

The Cottonwood Creek Team spent a solid hour educating us about their video over IP system and how churches of most budgets can start to move away from traditional HDMI and SDI installations into reliable video over IP networks that offer unmatched flexibility, reliability, and longevity. The team also took time each day to give a tour of their FOH system for anyone who wanted a more hands-on approach to learning.

Church Production’s own Marcel Patillo (who also heads up the video team at Church of The City Nashville and his YouTube channel The Modern Filmmaker) spent time each day teaching producers how to use Davinci Resolve and edit for power, pace, emotion and feel. Dennis Choy, the production lead at Saddleback, took deep dives into practical leadership and management principles he gleaned from his years and years of work. Josh Etheridge, the film team lead at Blue Ridge Community Church, opened up his creative process for finding and heightening emotion along with advice for practical lighting setups on a budget.

The main sessions featured Cottonwood Creek’s Lead Pastor John Mark Caton opening up about his struggle with mental illness and how to know when you’re not OK; the world-renowned speaker and illusionist Harris III who stirred everyone to understand the science of awe and how to marry the practical side of goal-achieving with the ability to still dream big. Veteran filmmaker, Phil Cooke also spoke on how church creatives can become better leaders and communicators.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Capture featured over 50 breakout sessions for church production leaders, creatives and techs of every stripe, all with immediately practical tips, tricks, and principles for church ministry on any budget.

Connections

Obviously, church production people eat up learning and gear, but, most importantly, Capture Summit brought together church leaders who often find themselves disconnected and misunderstood. We all found the greatest value of the three days by shaking hands in the atrium, taking someone out to lunch, or grabbing coffee over breakfast. It’s one thing to know about new gear to add to your budget for next year, but there’s so much more significance in having a friend to call when you need help with more than just troubleshooting. This is a hard job; we need good people who love Jesus to help us stay healthy. If I’m honest, I spent most of the second day in the atrium because I couldn’t get away from the remarkable people I met and the conversations that followed. If you missed anything at Capture that would help you decide to come next year, I hope it’s the opportunity to make friendships with good people.

That being said, Capture is on for 2024! We’ll be at Cottonwood Creek Church again, and tickets are live. Don’t miss this opportunity for early bird savings on what is going to be the conference for church production creatives in 2024.