Volunteers are the life blood of any technical ministry. The staff guys are great but the volunteers really make or break the team. Tech volunteers are a little different then other volunteers, I want to prefeace this with every ministry has it's own unique volunteer challenges and I have no idea what those are. However, I am intimately familiar with tech volunteers, and this is my ego-cast so I get to talk about them.
Tech volunteers have to be scheduled on a fine line between overworked, and out of practice. Take camera ops for example, most of my volunteers have nothing to do with cameras outside of serving on tech. If they take 2 weekends off they will not have touched a camera in 5 weeks. So I keep my team lean to make sure no one is out of practice (yes I understand that sounds like a rationalization, but it also happens to be true). The down side of this is that I don't have a lot of people sitting in the bullpen just waiting for me to go "give me the lefty."
Two years ago we launched our first multi-site, when that happened I lost some critical volunteers. Anyone serving in a volunteer oriented ministry knows what I am talking about. These were some of my go-to guys, the people I relied on most, and they were leave to go to our multi-site. Good news was the multi-site got some people who were trained, and knew exactly what they needed to do. Down side, I did not have people to back fill those positions at the main campus.
Fast forward two years and I have built my team back up to a great number of people, a great rotation, and now we are launching another multi-site. In the last 2 weeks I have been told by between 1/3-1/2 of my volunteers will be leaving. Most to the multi-site but some because families are moving, graduations, general life change.
So here I am faced with the challenge of rebuilding this team for the 3rd time in 4 years, and to be honest I am just not sure I am up to it.
Every tech ministry knows how hard it is to recruit people, but I honestly think it is tougher for us than other ministries. I am biased about that, most likely, but I still believe it. Anyone can park a car, though it take a special person to tolerate getting the finger every weekend and continue to happily serve. Anyone can hold a crying baby, though it takes a special person to really feel like they came out ahead in that deal. I know our first impressions people and our kid city people would rather have the volunteers who love it and are great at it. However, they can make do with those that will just do it.
That is never enough for tech. Techies are, not always, but almost always; geeks, nerds, egg heads people who speak in a language of numbers and alphabet soup. Most have a background in computers or technology, most will be predisposed to enjoy being around the warm ambient glow of TV panels and console controls. Techies are a breed apart, not above, but apart and not just anyone can do it.
However, the most important thing is techies get it done! When the power flaking out, when there gremlins in the machines, when all the tie line and gaff tape in the world just isn't enough they still get it done. They produce the improbable in no time, the miraculous on a moments notice, the impossible served weekly. The best recognition they can ever hope receive is NONE, and now I need to find more of them... awesome!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
IMAG Style Part 3
Once we got our shot count up I wanted to focus on
transitions. We have always used dissolves, mainly because I believe
cuts are jarring, I still believe this.
Please note that is my opinion not a rule, lots of churches use cuts all the time and it works for them and that is great, for us it's not what I wanted. Also on our switcher cuts are actually harder to do then dissolves, more on that in gear.
We use almost exclusively dissolves,with the dissolve time varying based on the speed of the song. This is, I think, a little dangerous because you can't just dissolve between any 2 subjects. (also an opinion not a rule) Making good cross dissolves requires intentionality to look good, if not the resulting transition is VERY distracting. To combat this we embraced push-through or push-past transitions. I strive to keep our cameras always in motion, and when we get it right the transitions are almost not really there because as one shot ends another is coming on.
Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (I get points somewhere for that right?)
The first shot ends when the camera op has zoomed or moved past the subject. For example, if a camera op has a close up of a guitar he may move the camera up the neck of the guitar, once he reaches the end he will continue the move opening up a large negative space. If we are doing things right, that space will be occupied by the subject of the following shot. This gives our IMAG a very fluid and more artistic feel, making it overall less jarring and as a result less distracting (which should be the entire motivation for any tech guy) It's also a little dangerous because it is really easy to mess up the timing. However, I was of the opinion that if our camera ops were not going to take safe shots the least I could do is not make safe transitions.
One the functional side I strove to keep the shots bigger on screen than they are on stage. Compromises had to be made because of the last influence, gear.
Our gear had more influence on our style then I would have liked, that said I think many churches have made a point of making sacrifices in gear, due to budget, that have dictated lots of their decisions. We are no different, and the more TD's I meet the more I discover it's really status quo. It probably should be, tech isn't cheep and at 30,000 ft it's an easy thing to make a big cut in favor of LOTS of other things in the budget.
I digress
Our switcher also makes dissolves vs. cuts a little problematic. It's actually tougher to make a cut on our switcher, so it influenced our use of dissolves. Also we take wide shots, not because I want to, but because to keep the fluid continuing movement, it works in my favor if the camera is zooming from tight to wide, thus continuing the movement, over holding a static shot. We only currently have 5 cameras (yes I am aware I said ONLY 5 when most churches have NONE) Of those 3 are manned 1 is static of the worship leader, and one is strictly for multi-site/overflow unmanned and locked down, not used for IMAG at all. With this style everyone moving and only 3 manned cameras, needing shots every 3-5 seconds, leaves me as the director waiting often times. We do have a static bail, it kinda breaks the flow but if the transitions continue on the right pace it's not terrible. Our on stage cameras are prosumer and don't have CCU, so we have color and iris issues most of the time, I am hoping to correct that in the next budget year or 2
Please note that is my opinion not a rule, lots of churches use cuts all the time and it works for them and that is great, for us it's not what I wanted. Also on our switcher cuts are actually harder to do then dissolves, more on that in gear.
We use almost exclusively dissolves,with the dissolve time varying based on the speed of the song. This is, I think, a little dangerous because you can't just dissolve between any 2 subjects. (also an opinion not a rule) Making good cross dissolves requires intentionality to look good, if not the resulting transition is VERY distracting. To combat this we embraced push-through or push-past transitions. I strive to keep our cameras always in motion, and when we get it right the transitions are almost not really there because as one shot ends another is coming on.
Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (I get points somewhere for that right?)
The first shot ends when the camera op has zoomed or moved past the subject. For example, if a camera op has a close up of a guitar he may move the camera up the neck of the guitar, once he reaches the end he will continue the move opening up a large negative space. If we are doing things right, that space will be occupied by the subject of the following shot. This gives our IMAG a very fluid and more artistic feel, making it overall less jarring and as a result less distracting (which should be the entire motivation for any tech guy) It's also a little dangerous because it is really easy to mess up the timing. However, I was of the opinion that if our camera ops were not going to take safe shots the least I could do is not make safe transitions.
One the functional side I strove to keep the shots bigger on screen than they are on stage. Compromises had to be made because of the last influence, gear.
Our gear had more influence on our style then I would have liked, that said I think many churches have made a point of making sacrifices in gear, due to budget, that have dictated lots of their decisions. We are no different, and the more TD's I meet the more I discover it's really status quo. It probably should be, tech isn't cheep and at 30,000 ft it's an easy thing to make a big cut in favor of LOTS of other things in the budget.
I digress
Our switcher also makes dissolves vs. cuts a little problematic. It's actually tougher to make a cut on our switcher, so it influenced our use of dissolves. Also we take wide shots, not because I want to, but because to keep the fluid continuing movement, it works in my favor if the camera is zooming from tight to wide, thus continuing the movement, over holding a static shot. We only currently have 5 cameras (yes I am aware I said ONLY 5 when most churches have NONE) Of those 3 are manned 1 is static of the worship leader, and one is strictly for multi-site/overflow unmanned and locked down, not used for IMAG at all. With this style everyone moving and only 3 manned cameras, needing shots every 3-5 seconds, leaves me as the director waiting often times. We do have a static bail, it kinda breaks the flow but if the transitions continue on the right pace it's not terrible. Our on stage cameras are prosumer and don't have CCU, so we have color and iris issues most of the time, I am hoping to correct that in the next budget year or 2
Monday, July 11, 2011
IMAG Style Part 2
Our style, well it's different. I would like to say we developed it in an prefect environment and that we thought long and hard and made many difficult choices. In reality that was about as far from the truth as it could be. There are 3 things that have really influenced or dictated how our style works: Feel, Function, (looking for a another F) and Gear (heavy sigh: alteration fail)
We currently do more then just functional IMAG, the feel and pace of the worship really dictate how the IMAG will feel and look. I strive to push my camera ops to look for the "not safe shots" and they produce things are truly sometimes nothing short of magic.
I would like to note here none of the current camera ops at my church have any previous experience whatsoever. One of our guys is a professional photographer by trade, but is a close as it gets. All of them have been trained in house, and as a result our style is what they know.
When I started we used functional IMAG, and it was good, but in my opinion it didn't really fit. To me it just felt wrong. When I was hired one of the first things I did is I strove to get out SPS (shots-per-song) up. At the time we were averaging maybe 15-20 shots over a 3 minute song. That works out to about 1 shot every 15 seconds or so. Which is great for a hymn, ballad or very introspective song. Unfortunately no one remembers the last time we did a hymn. I thought it was too slow for our fast style of worship. So my first week I threw safe and slow out the window and I said we are shooting for 40 shots a song, easily doubling our speed. Shot composition went from safe to desperate. I was calling for cameras that were still looking for a subject, so the guys were making stuff up just to get me to the next shot. It didn't happen week one, or even month one, but after 6-8 weeks we finally got up to 40. In the mean time my camera ops were having ALOT of fun. (which is also important to me, I love my job, I want them to enjoy what they do)
Wow still more to go, gunna have to be a 3 parter
We currently do more then just functional IMAG, the feel and pace of the worship really dictate how the IMAG will feel and look. I strive to push my camera ops to look for the "not safe shots" and they produce things are truly sometimes nothing short of magic.
I would like to note here none of the current camera ops at my church have any previous experience whatsoever. One of our guys is a professional photographer by trade, but is a close as it gets. All of them have been trained in house, and as a result our style is what they know.
When I started we used functional IMAG, and it was good, but in my opinion it didn't really fit. To me it just felt wrong. When I was hired one of the first things I did is I strove to get out SPS (shots-per-song) up. At the time we were averaging maybe 15-20 shots over a 3 minute song. That works out to about 1 shot every 15 seconds or so. Which is great for a hymn, ballad or very introspective song. Unfortunately no one remembers the last time we did a hymn. I thought it was too slow for our fast style of worship. So my first week I threw safe and slow out the window and I said we are shooting for 40 shots a song, easily doubling our speed. Shot composition went from safe to desperate. I was calling for cameras that were still looking for a subject, so the guys were making stuff up just to get me to the next shot. It didn't happen week one, or even month one, but after 6-8 weeks we finally got up to 40. In the mean time my camera ops were having ALOT of fun. (which is also important to me, I love my job, I want them to enjoy what they do)
Wow still more to go, gunna have to be a 3 parter
Friday, July 8, 2011
IMAG Style Part 1
IMAG is an interesting thing and lately IMAG style seems to be a hot topic lately. I thought I would explain our style a little.
First, a little about IMAG in general some churches do it cause they feel they have to some do because they actually have to, some do it because it helps artistically aid in raising the excitement in the room. For us it's really a combination of all three.
On a little aside, I think IMAG is one of the aspects of AVL that you can cultivate a style with little dissension. In the Church AVL world audio mistakes are the most noticeable, it's a fact. Don't believe me go to any church large enough to have an FOH and Video Director and ask each who gets the most constructive comments at the end of the day. People feel the need to let the FOH guy know something was to loud or not loud enough all the time. Conversely almost no one hunts down the video guy to constructively criticize his work. Lighting mistakes come in number 2 on the list, mainly because it's very noticeable if you black someone out or light them up at the wrong time. In video short of totally blowing a cue, mistakes are taken as artistic license most of the time. So IMAG is an area where you can experiment pretty safely, that said it's not a blank check, if you do something super distracting you WILL be told.
Many churches use what I will call functional IMAG. That is they have shots that make people bigger. In this category churches focus on "safe shots" that means lots of head room, slow motions, and technically composed shots. Most of the transitions are going to be slow dissolves, so as not to jar the audience with a cut. The pace of the individual shot will be relatively slow, but will be tastefully interpreting the music. This is good and for a lot of churches it totally succeeds in the goal of bringing the people in the back of the room into the front row.
On the other side of the scale is Church On The Move. If you have never seen their stuff you need to go check it out. They do an AWESOME job!! I think what they do succeeds for a number of reasons, but mainly as you can see most of the shots are IMAG making people bigger, but they are not afraid to take lots of artistic license with it. The other reason I think it works, is because it is an accurate artistic interpretation of the worship. Artistically it makes sense, even though most IMAG rules and camera shooting rules in general are bent or flat out broken. They use a slow cinematic frame rate of 24FPS, the also teach the camera ops to zoom as far across the stage as possible, narrowing the depth of field. This creates that shallow depth of field DSLR look. They use mostly cuts as the main transition, and their shot composition in most cases is anything but safe, except on the worship leader, the have a totally safe bail shot to him.
At this point I have rambled well beyond my intended scope so I will make this a 2 part blog with the second part on our style.
First, a little about IMAG in general some churches do it cause they feel they have to some do because they actually have to, some do it because it helps artistically aid in raising the excitement in the room. For us it's really a combination of all three.
On a little aside, I think IMAG is one of the aspects of AVL that you can cultivate a style with little dissension. In the Church AVL world audio mistakes are the most noticeable, it's a fact. Don't believe me go to any church large enough to have an FOH and Video Director and ask each who gets the most constructive comments at the end of the day. People feel the need to let the FOH guy know something was to loud or not loud enough all the time. Conversely almost no one hunts down the video guy to constructively criticize his work. Lighting mistakes come in number 2 on the list, mainly because it's very noticeable if you black someone out or light them up at the wrong time. In video short of totally blowing a cue, mistakes are taken as artistic license most of the time. So IMAG is an area where you can experiment pretty safely, that said it's not a blank check, if you do something super distracting you WILL be told.
Many churches use what I will call functional IMAG. That is they have shots that make people bigger. In this category churches focus on "safe shots" that means lots of head room, slow motions, and technically composed shots. Most of the transitions are going to be slow dissolves, so as not to jar the audience with a cut. The pace of the individual shot will be relatively slow, but will be tastefully interpreting the music. This is good and for a lot of churches it totally succeeds in the goal of bringing the people in the back of the room into the front row.
On the other side of the scale is Church On The Move. If you have never seen their stuff you need to go check it out. They do an AWESOME job!! I think what they do succeeds for a number of reasons, but mainly as you can see most of the shots are IMAG making people bigger, but they are not afraid to take lots of artistic license with it. The other reason I think it works, is because it is an accurate artistic interpretation of the worship. Artistically it makes sense, even though most IMAG rules and camera shooting rules in general are bent or flat out broken. They use a slow cinematic frame rate of 24FPS, the also teach the camera ops to zoom as far across the stage as possible, narrowing the depth of field. This creates that shallow depth of field DSLR look. They use mostly cuts as the main transition, and their shot composition in most cases is anything but safe, except on the worship leader, the have a totally safe bail shot to him.
At this point I have rambled well beyond my intended scope so I will make this a 2 part blog with the second part on our style.
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