Pixel Church

tumblr.

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:19:59 -0500

Hey everyone. I’m not really sure who, if anyone is reading this blog, but just in case you are, here’s a little something you might find useful. If you lead a team of people to do tech stuff, music, or whatever in the local church, you might want to check out tumblr.com, the service I use to produce PixelChurch. They make it really easy to set up a simple blog which is great, but they also have another great feature I’m just starting to use - groups. On tumblr.com once you have an account set up you can create separate group blogs and invite anyone with an email address to become a member. Members can post text, links, photos, even video and audio posts. It’s a really easy way to give your team an online presence beyond just scheduling people for services. I just created a group for my team and invited everyone to participate. The verdict is still out, but several of them have joined and all that I have talked about seem to think it’ll be a great way for us to keep in touch, share life news, and prayer requests. In addition, I’m using it as a way to communicate new plans, distribute training materials, etc. If you lead a team and need to communicate with them beyond email and phone calls, check out tumblr.com.

Visual Directors - Check this Out!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:46:00 -0500

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.

Up, Up, and Away!

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:02:22 -0500

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.

Long Delay

Tue, 27 May 2008 14:29:20 -0500

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.

Starter Video Rig

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:25:19 -0500

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.

Texas Large Church Forum

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:49:52 -0500

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.

Igniter Media Vol. 6 Release Party

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:05:58 -0500

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.

ProPresenter Tutorials

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:22:00 -0500

ProPresenter Tutorials:

For all you ProPresenter drivers, they’ve posted a great set of video tutorials on their website. Definitely worth checking out.

Here’s a look at the ProPresenter Quicksheet. I hope to...

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:25:03 -0500

Here’s a look at the ProPresenter Quicksheet. I hope to have all these done by next week.

Igniter Media Vol. 6

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:29:45 -0500

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.

Here’s an example of a Quick-Sheet tutorial for new camera...

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:00:00 -0500

Here’s an example of a Quick-Sheet tutorial for new camera operators. I’ll be developing more of these for all our different team positions over the next week or two.

Digging Deep

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:52:56 -0500

Lately I’ve been working to develop more depth in our team in a couple of different ways. First, is just recruiting and training more folks. Right now we need to add about four people to our team in order to reach my goal of being four-deep at every position. I think we’ll be there in a few weeks.

I’m also trying to develop more depth by handing off much of what I do on Sunday morning to volunteers. You may be wondering why. Well, I do a lot of stuff on Sunday that has to happen in order to keep us going, but if I need to be gone on a Sunday, all that stuff falls through the cracks. So, I’m working with different folks to take on some of that load. You may notice that our switchers are starting to direct the second service on most weeks. That’s just one small way to get them into a place where they can lead the team if they need to at some point. I’m also developing some tutorials for all of our team members so that we can get to the point where the church doesn’t need for me to be there every week in order for us to have IMAG in our services. So, be looking for some emails with tutorial info in the near future. I’ll post an example here for you to check out.

What a Week I'm Having!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:56:00 -0500

Crazy days around Watermark this week. We’ve got a huge corporate event for Brinker Restaurants - I want my baby back, baby back, baby back - over here on Friday and we’re ramping up like crazy for it. Lot’s of meetings. Not sure I’ll ever see my wife and kids this week. Thankful it’s not always like this. Also thankful for the opportunity to work with their folks and not be weird as they might be expecting from church-folk. Hopefully they’ll have a great show on Friday and it’ll open some doors there.

On another note, it’s fun to be able to talk about “the show” without offending churchy types who get freaked out if you call “the service”, “the show.” I understand what they’re getting at, but there’s a “show” part to all of this, even if you’re just running a PowerPoint screen and an 8 channel mixer. Know what I mean?

Okay, if you’re reading this blog and you don’t know...

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:58:02 -0500

Okay, if you’re reading this blog and you don’t know about Worship House Media, I’m about to make your world a better place. Forget any of those other media sites out there, these guys really get it. They understand the consumer’s needs as well as those of the filmmakers and artists they represent. You won’t find a bunch of useless, old school video re-treads here. Check it out and see what I mean.

Welcome to Pixel Church

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:45:59 -0500

I have no idea how you got here, but here you are nonetheless. Pixel Church aims to be a resource for Visual Media Directors or other techie video types at churches both large and small. Hopefully it’ll grow into something very useful over time. Let me know what you think.