Where are you called? Sure, many of us would say “church production”, “technical arts”, “lighting”, “video”….but for who? This weekend was emotional for me. Huge victories and huge challenges. I listened to some teaching about work, occupation and calling which has broken down some of my fairly-established assumptions about my work in the church. My all too simple responses to the “where are you called” question…. “oh–I’m a lighting guy” or “I create worship experiences” is no longer enough.
I heard this weekend that God calls us to use our skill set and experience to serve people we never thought we would serve, in ways we never could imagine. Challenging.
I’ll admit, I’ve never been a youth or children’s minister. I’m not ordained. I don’t pretend to know what makes middle schoolers tick–or how to reach their heart. I know my own kids and I’ve watched the response to the teaching, pastoring and leadership of some talented passionate ministry folks…but I’m clueless to the inner workings of “age-level” ministry. In my experiences volunteering or working as staff in the “big room” weekend-service, I’ve honestly always taken for granted too important work of kids and youth ministry.
I keep finding myself in these situations where I’m privileged to help guys in the trenches of youth and children’s ministry. Why I wonder? I survey my circle of friends in ministry and so many are former kids ministers, college creatives, youth pastors or former high school worship leaders. I’m seriously the last person that would have a clue to understand their world—I didn’t grow up in a youth group. I didn’t have a classic kid-in-church experience. Why are they all soooo appreciative of a tiny fraction of help or guidance? Why do they approach things with such humility? It seems that a spending a fraction of my attention, pouring a few drops of artistry into the world of youth and kids ministry seems to be so transformative for my friends. For guys who do ministry for a year with 200 bucks….or even nothing?
I get jaded sometimes. In some of my work– a couple of LED par cans won’t drastically alter the experience for folks in the congregation. But for other ministries, colored light is transformational.
I love that. I crave that. Maybe venues, experiences and programming outside of the weekend experience are the “least of these”? Maybe we should all take a portion of our creativity, artistry and passion and go help the smallest venue, the children’s room or a no-budget youth retreat. Maybe we’d be the catalyst for a wave of transformation.
It’s time for some meaty posts around here. So, Clifton and I are launching a new series of posts to “share” a little of the curriculum we’ve been developing for the upcoming book. For those of us who volunteer, help, hang out, serve or work on lighting rigs in worship environments, cueing is a big part of our role. At a basic level, cueing is the process where we record snapshots of the stage (looks) (aka cues). Cueing can take on a lot more.
So, what about the bunch of us church lighting dudes who don’t have access to full tracking desks. Or, what about those youth, children’s and auxiliary spaces with a few moving lights and a cue-only desk? Like ETC Express, Strand 200s, etc.
Here’s a few tried and true tricks for writing cues with new skool moving lights on an old skool desk:
- Use subgroups to make focus points. If you’ve worked on a tracking desk (Whole Hogs, EOS series ETC stuff, Jands, etc.) you’re familiar with the concept of palettes. Palettes group presets for lights, sorted by type for easy access. “Focus Palettes” contain information about focus points–or locations where the lights are created. You can use submasters to make crude focus points. It’s nice to grab a submaster and focus all of the moving lights. Also makes busking (manually operating) a monthly worship service or small event easy.
- Make a Home focus point. You might have moving lights placed in all kinds of places….at all kinds of angles. Set a common “home” (all instruments pointed down for example)
- Record intensities on separate submasters. If you only record colors on some subs, positions on others, etc. then you are assured you can always move the fixtures on or off both. Preset a certain look during a break, then grab your intensity sub and fade them in.
- Use submasters to make color and beam (gobo) palettes as well. You can save only the channels and levels that affect color on your moving lights in submasters, then have different combinations of colors all ready to go. Try doing 4-5 warm looks and 4-5 cool looks. You’ll find yourself not needing too many more during your event.
- Have a “bailout” cue or submaster at the ready. Record position, color, gobos, everything – except intensity. If all else fails, and you need a look that works, have one sub or cue standing by that gets every mover into a position and color that just works. As long as you have intensity on another sub, you can pull all the others our, grab your bailout sub and then fade in the intensity and you’ve got a great look with 2 subs running.
- Make use of submaster “pages.” Many desks will allow you to have multiple pages of submasters. If you find yourself running out of handles to grab, break up your event onto multiple pages of subs. Find a natural point you can change pages, and build your subs accordingly. A handy tip: Keep your groups of subs the same from page to page. That way your label on the desk isn’t messed up every time you change pages. The intensity subs should be the same on each page, the color subs, etc.
- If you’re feeling adventurous, try saving some effects loops with position data for your movers. If you are careful about times and locations, you can make your own mini effects engine! Yes, it takes some patience, but it can be done. Try saving each location you want in the loop as a separate sub. Start with 2 locations, say all left and all right. Then record them as steps in your effect loop, adjust the times, and when you run that cue, *poof*! Automatic movement. Just remember – don’t save intensity channels in your loop! You want to manually be able to fade those guys in and out.
Ok, while their vocals might not have been what they once were, the show was good – and the visuals were terrific! I always enjoy seeing what they can come up with for the Super Bowl, since there is a specific set of challenges with the halftime show. If you haven’t gotten to see it apart from the game, take a look on YouTube before reading on.
Bold Simple Arrows
Clearly they have a large budget, but there’s one non-negotiable to all of it. The halftime break is a set amount of time, and they have to set up and tear down the stage and everything on the field within that time. Yes, there’s an army of workers, and some high-tech gear, but even though it’s a different scale, it’s much the same constraints we face with the church scene. Time is a constant we cannot avoid. I remember a couple years ago reading about the halftime show being 90 seconds out and there was no power to the stage…something about a stagehand holding two cables together for the 12 minute show…sound familiar?
This year, even though it had its over-worked and frantic moments, the show was one of the better in terms of total design concept and execution. UK-based LD Al Gurdon did a great job of using new-school tech (LED stage floor, anyone?) with an old-school feel with the lasers and some monochrome looks that worked really well.
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GLU 2010 is coming. The Bargeheights team is working on a production design (lighting, scenic and video) for an upcoming city-wide youth gathering. @CG___ has been hard at work cranking out drawings of the stage plot.
Our goal is to create a high impact, intense visual landscape on a modest budget. Everything must ground stack, and we’re not bringing in a power distro….the same type of design challenges we all face in lighting and visuals for worship.
We’ll be using a Bargeheights 37.5 LED screen for some unique visuals, making good use of the transparent nature of loose pixel led screens. To light the band, we’re planning to use a mix of moving head and fixed LEDs along with our favorite BAR-252’s for uplighting backline. We’re also beta testing some brand new Bargeheights LED moving head washes! As a grand experiment, we’ll be running the whole show from ChamSys MagicQ and a USB dongle. Yup. Free software. No fancy chain motors and a lighting rig that runs on a handful of 15amp outlets. Sound familiar?
Here’s a preview:
If you’re a youth leader anywhere near Lexington, KY, you HAVE to get to this city-wide conference. It will be incredible!
Hello! It’s time for my obligatory first-post, even if it’s slightly overdue. As Matt mentioned a few posts ago, he and I have joined forces, and I’m super excited about what we’re working on. Here’s just a bit about me and where I’ve come from:
Lighting is a passion for me. I grew up in a family of musicians, artists, and theatre folks who loved to use their talents in the local church. I began my lighting education at my local church, where the lighting designer graciously allowed me to empty trash and sit over his shoulder for a long time – asking questions and soaking up as much about how to work with people as how to light the space.
Fast forward 20+ years, add in a degree in lighting design, tons of practical experience and a great friend and you end up here - Matt, me, and this Bargeheights endeavor. I love to see the local church guys have ‘aha’ moments when the art and the technology all come together to make something amazing.
More to come…
