Many of you have probably seen this, but if not, you need to. Cameron Ware is the Visual Director at Irving Bible Church in Irving, TX - home of my beloved Dallas Cowboys. Anyway, Cameron does things with projectors that most people haven’t even considered. Take a look at his website, VisualWorshipper.com and see what you think about it. Even if you’re in a church that couldn’t or wouldn’t do large-scale projections on a weekly basis, it would be a great tool to have around Easter or Christmas. If nothing else, you can get some great photos to take to your Pastor or your team to start the discussion. Personally, I love the way Cameron takes a normal church interior and uses it as a canvas for artwork. Beautiful.
1 year ago
I spent most of yesterday way up in the air on what felt like the shakiest Genie Lift on the planet. That sort of thing drives me nuts. I don’t mind being high up if I’m roped into something solid or standing on something solid. However, when I’m up in the air on something that moves and sways - Whoa - me no likey.
Sooo glad to be working on the ground today - more or less.
1 year ago
Hey folks. Sorry for the delay in getting another post up here. Things have been really crazy for me lately. After the Texas Large Church forum wrapped up, we had our Volunteer Appreciation Party here at Watermark, which went really well. Much fun was had by all. After that I took a few days of vacation in order to get things ready around our house for our new baby. Then I took a few days off after little Luke was born. All in all, I feel like I’ve been in the office maybe three days in the last month. Whew!
I’ll try be more prolific in my posting in the future.
1 year ago
A buddy who recently moved to Fresno contacted me the other day to get a little help putting an IMAG system together for his church. He’s got a limited budget and a little bit of gear (Some HVX-200’s and a Newtek Tricaster), but he hasn’t been too happy with the results too far.
I know there are tons of churches out there facing this dilemma of wanting to do something great on not much money and while I’m not a Video Consultant, I do have some ideas that might help. Here’s what I sent to him:
My first question would be, “What is your budget?” Do you have $1000? $10,000? That one question will determine how to go about everything else.
After that, I would say that ProPresenter might be a good place to start. You could hook up one of your HVX cameras via firewire and you’ve got instant IMAG with fairly nice results (from what I hear. I haven’t done it myself.)
You could start there and see what happens. You might also like the Toaster better if you’re only using it to switch and record, not to generate graphics. I haven’t used them, but have heard sort of mixed things about them.
At some point you need a good switcher. You don’t have to go crazy on cost, but you want to get something good or you’ve just wasted whatever amount you’ve spent. I would take a look at this:http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/products/switchers/indigo/
and some of the stuff Edirol has done:http://www.edirol.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=421
Contact both companies and get local suppliers where you can go demo the stuff. You could also check with the manufacturers to see if there are other churches in the area that have the equipment so you could take a look at it. Definitely demo the crud out of it and make sure it will work.
If there’s one thing I would do in all of this, it would be to get to a 16x9 aspect ratio as soon as possible. The day is coming quickly when anything 4x3 will look ridiculously out of date, sort of like having a black and white TV in the 70’s - not unheard of, but lame-o.
As stated previously, I’m not a consultant, but have some ideas. I hope they’re helpful.
1 year ago
Watermark hosted the Texas Large Church Forum on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Despite the lack of creativity in the name, the event itself was actually kind of useful. It’s very short on pretense and long on getting to know other folks that do what you do in churches similar to yours. Nice. I got to meet and spend the better part of a day with
Greg Atkinson and other guys doing similar stuff out there in churches in Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. Honestly, I can’t say that I learned a lot of new stuff, but it was good to hang out with these guys and begin developing a network of likeminded people to bounce things off of. I’ll definitely want to do it again in the future.
1 year ago
Well, I don’t have any pics, but I had a good time at the big release party. To kick things off, they had some tasty treats from Chick-fil-a and Pokey O’s. If you’ve never had a Pokey O they are definitely worth whatever you have to do to get down to Dallas and give them a try - an ice cream sandwich made before your very eyes with your choice of homemade cookies and your flavor of Blue Bell ice cream. Wow!
After all the tasty treats they got down to the real reason we all got together - the videos. You can check them out on the Igniter Media website by clicking HERE. I think my favorite was “Don’t”, the fake rock video by Johnny and Chachi of Get In Here Ministries. Totally hilarious. Not sure how you’d use this one, but possibly on Mother’s Day or something like that. Really funny and the crowd had a huge reaction to it. It’ll definitely be a big seller for them. After that, I think I liked “It’s Not Over” second-best. It’s a really well done piece with a great story and incredible motion graphics - not over the top and really tastefully done. You should definitely check it out.
All in all, I think this is probably Igniter’s best volume yet. Five great videos that are well done and definitely useable.
1 year ago
We’re going to have a fun event here at
Watermark on Thursday. The guys from
Igniter Media are coming over and throwing a release party for their latest batch of videos, Vol. 6. I don’t know anything about the release, but typically there are 5 short form videos on a range of topics. I’ll do a little report after the party, so look forward to that. Should be a good time.
1 year ago
