Prestonwood Baptist Church’s Show is an Annual Marvel
Originally founded in 1977, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas now draws more than 40,000 parishioners from all over North Texas. Bound together through a common purpose, the church has also become known throughout the country for their annual Christmas celebration entitled “The Gift of Christmas.”
With a build-out that rivals many of the most well-orchestrated Broadway productions, the annual production is led by Michael Neale, worship pastor; Andy Pearson, Prestonwood’s director of creative production; and production designer Matt Webb of the New York-based design firm UVLD. They rely heavily on Dallas-based Gemini Light Sound & Video to bring the 13-performance production run to life. Leading the charge for putting a show of this size into an unconventional performance space is technical director Gregory Norgeot also from UVLD.
“I actually grew up attending Prestonwood and first became involved in the production as the lighting designer about six years ago. That evolved into being the full production designer for the last three years,” began Webb. “The church has a long history of putting on great Christmas events and it’s always been a very theatrical production. But now it has grown into a three-act hybrid production with a ton of lighting, video, pyrotechnics and even flying elements. In the first year I was involved it is was really just me and Nick Deel from Gemini working together with a couple of LED techs, working with the church’s team but now we a have a full production team with over 20 show technicians, and I honestly don’t know of another church anywhere in the country who is doing a Christmas production on the same scale as Prestonwood.”
As the production begins to take shape each year, the production process begins the moment the previous year’s production begins. Wanting to add another layer of creativity each year, Webb, Pearson and the rest of the creative team work year-round to make the show an event like no other.
Webb continued, “We usually start our production conversations for the next year’s design shortly after we open the previous show, where Andy and I try to start figuring out how to enhance the production even further. We then begin our full production meetings around March and by June we are heavy into the design and developing the full production with music. By this time, we are also laying out our full lighting and video design and by August we like to have all the production elements locked down so that we can coordinate with Gemini on both the gear and crew needed.”
“Gemini has been involved with the Christmas production at Prestonwood for a number of years, but we really bring in a lot of gear now and that really started when Matt came on board as the production designer,” admitted Gemini account rep Nick Deel, who also serves as the master electrician for the production. “In the beginning, it used to be a bare bones skeleton crew, but the production has evolved and incorporated more moving parts. The production team now includes Pyrotecnico FX for the pyrotechnics and lasers, three video techs, a production carpenter, several crew members managing all of the flying and automation from ZFX, and even days where we have 60-80 local techs on a work call.”
Pyrotecnico provided three 12 watt RGB A/S lasers and three 20 watt RGB lasers for some fancy beam vectors. Pyro elements included eight double barrel confetti cannons along with 630 pieces of pyro including air bursts, tracer comets and silver gerbs.
The Load-In
With so many production elements all in place, the load-in schedule for the production is a work of art in itself. As the church needs to hold its regular worship services prior to the opening of the production, Deel must orchestrate a load-in process that works for both Gemini and the production as well. Working closely with Greg Norgeot to stage what elements of the lighting system can be installed when.
“Knowing that the church needs to have their normal worship services in the weeks leading up to the opening of the Christmas production, there are a lot of trucks from Gemini that have to move back and forth with gear,” said Deel. “We typically start the load-in on a Monday with a pre-rig of all the rigging elements and the flying angel trusses that reach out into the house. The church understands that a lot of the show elements will need to be in the room while we build the production, but we do have to keep a level of cleanliness and organization as it’s a solid two-week load-in. Matt is very good about getting me the full inventory requests early in the process so we know which gear we need to hold at Gemini, but with so many elements that have to be loaded in a sequential order, if we don’t have the right pieces ready when needed, it can become a lot more work on the backend.”
As the load-in continues and it’s time to start putting the full design together, “The Gift of Christmas” is a production presented in three acts. Act One takes the show into a winter wonderland complete with Santa Claus, his reindeer and tons of elves. Act Two is highlighted by a chorale performance filled with pre-recorded video narrations, flying drummers, and a soloist performing in a 65-foot dress covered in projection. Then finally, Act Three completes the production with the traditional nativity scene. With so many variations throughout the night, the production design must be able to transform the sanctuary into many different locations and that’s where the design really starts to shine.
“Layer one of the production design starts with the scenic elements. We install a 150-foot wide show deck that covers, raises and extends the stage of the church, which is all trimmed out with about 300 meters of LED tape,” explained Webb. “We then have 16 front projection video panels installed that are all about 10 feet wide by 34 feet tall, with 14 of them built onto a ZFX automation system. The panels can then move in pairs so that we can really get creative and close down the stage to create a show curtain, or we can open only a particular segment. The decking and scenic is built by CommuniLux Productions, with Dan Kirsch as the show’s production carpenter.
Video Setup
The rest of the production design is made up of video elements. Far upstage, there is an 80-foot by 19-foot LED video wall, and downstage there are two 40-foot by 8-foot LED walls that are split by a stairway leading into the choir loft. Lastly on each side of the stage there are another three strips of smaller LED walls. The tiles consisted of Radiant MC7, Absen 6mm and PixLED F11z tiles rented from PRG.
The projection on the panels is handled by three Christie 30K 4K boxer projectors (from Media Solutions) driven off Pandoras Box media servers (from DWS). The LED video walls are running off a full Pandora system as well. Two additional Christie 30Ks are double-stacked to project onto the dress in Act 2. Another UVLD partner, Cameron Yeary, oversees all of the video system and handles all of the video programming for the show. Taking advantage of Pandora’s widget designer Cameron created custom code to take the automation tracking data from ZFX’s system and have Pandora use it to map video the moving panels in real time.”
Once the projection and LED video elements are in place, the Prestonwood then enlists the talents of video designer Jordan Monk to bring the predominantly video set to life.
“In Act One, the content is very scenic, where we are creating Santa’s toy shop, the Christmas town, and a bedroom for the toy soldiers, most of which is 3D content that Jordan has modeled out and it looks incredible,” added Webb. “Going into Act Two, there are five video narrations that are pre-recorded footage shot with an actor with four songs in between each one. This is more the type of content you might see in a TV production where its motion graphics and animation that goes with each song. In the Third Act with the nativity scene, the content reverts to more scenic support with such biblical items as the donkey carrying Mary and Joseph in the desert that tracks across the stage. Jordan is certainly one of the heroes of this production along with Cameron bringing it all to life in the room.”
Turning their attention to the lighting elements within the design, Webb has created an extensive lighting plot that now incorporates over 200 automated luminaires. He explains further, “The ‘meat’ of the lighting design is a lot of MAC Vipers and DX Wash luminaires, along with VL3500 Spots and Claypaky Mythos that are all driven off a grandMA console. We try to previz as much as we can because it’s a very quick turnaround with about 900 cues. We use the full gamut of the lighting capabilities; with gobos, strobes and color changes, but there are also a lot of theatrical moments.”
“We use the VL3500 Spots for our front and side light, then over the stage we use the DX Wash fixtures for our main color backlight and wash system.” Webb continues. “The Viper profiles provide us with the texture and movement on stage and then the Mythos does all the fun effects that layer on top of everything else. This is a very busy lighting show and it would not be possible without the work of associate lighting designer & programmer David Seitz who really makes it all mesh together.”
Flying Effects
In addition to the scenic automation, several of the most exciting elements of the show are the multitude of flying effects, handled by ZFX Flying effects. Brian Owens is the ZFX flying director for the show.
Webb talks about that, “There is a ton of flying automation in the show made up of six ‘Angel’ tracks that fly all over the stage. Santa’s sleigh flies in and out, plus we have six points out in the house that fly drummers. There is another flying point upstage for the nativity Angel. ZFX brings a level of creativity as well as a commitment to safety in a show with a ton of moving parts that is second to none.”
As the production elements are all now in place, it comes time to turn the production back over to creative director Andy Pearson to begin the technical rehearsal process with all actors and the show’s running crew.
“During the load-in, we have a full production crew that one would expect to see on most touring productions,” admitted Webb. “While the show is loaded-in and installed by an experienced production crew of local stagehands and riggers from Gemini, and the automation is handled by ZFX, the backstage running crew is mostly volunteers from the church who do an amazing job of juggling tons of props and scenery. We turn the stage over to Andy and his team to start rehearsing with volunteer actors and dancers on a Saturday and then we open on the following Saturday, so it’s very fast-paced process. There’s always a learning curve of how to get 100 elves on stage. We usually get about three days of blocking rehearsals, followed by two days of run-throughs, then a Thursday and Friday night dress rehearsal before we open.”
An Inspirational Gift
With the full production in place and the show ready to open, “The Gift of Christmas” is enjoyed annually by thousands of families traveling from all over North Texas. Looking back on the full production process, both Webb and Deel are excited each year to see the reactions on the faces in the audience as they showcase the message of Christmas on a grand scale.
“The thing that always get me about the show once I get to take my headset off and enjoy the production is the scale of it all,” said Webb. “I don’t know of any church anywhere that is telling this story at this size, and we really have a great team that puts it all together. I love working with Nick and the team at Gemini because of the grace and calm with which they handle everything to help create a very cohesive and outstanding production.”
“The one thing about the show that I always enjoy is that you look at the families that come to see it and it has something to offer for everybody,” concluded Deel. “To the bigger picture the show definitely has a spiritual message that it wishes to convey and it does so through content and production elements that everyone can enjoy. It’s not just a show for the kids or for the adults, but is has a high level of production value and it’s brings the true message of Christmas to the entire family.”
