The Pandemic Accelerates Plans for a Lighting and Video Upgrade
Southbridge Fellowship Church (Raleigh, NC) had already been planning a video and lighting system upgrade to improve their streaming and in-person experiences for their congregation. When the pandemic shutdown stretched for months, it was clear that when in-person services became possible again, a significant portion of the congregation would likely continue to watch online. The church decided it was critical to move up the timeline for the planned renovations to be able to offer a significantly better online experience once in-person services resumed.
Overview
“Our goal was to basically invest wisely in upgrades to allow us time to respond to the Covid-19 environment, recognizing that resources and mission were continuously shifting because of the pandemic,” states Allin Foulkrod, president of Creative Visions strategic event company in Raleigh and church lay leader providing direction and oversight to the project. “We wanted to be cautious, buying tools that we knew we needed now, given there was no predicting the future. We had an outside firm come in with big proposal, but it was expensive and overly heavy towards video. My goal was more along the lines of raising the level of all areas of production, including lighting, video, sound, processes and infrastructure. We decided to handle the project internally, bringing in local audio, video, and lighting freelancers to build out a video broadcast suite and install lighting upgrades.”
The church had been in their facility for two years and had performed a major overhaul of the audio and lighting systems when they acquired it. Online streaming was not an area they had invested heavily in. “We had two years of experience with our existing gear and used that experience to guide what we wanted to do now,” says Foulkrod.
Prior, the church’s online streaming was accomplished through limited cameras and a simple switching system, and audio was taken from a secondary mix bus off the Yamaha FOH console. Tops on the list of upgrades was to take a storage area adjacent to the sanctuary and outfit it as a broadcast video suite, enabling control and switching of numerous camera feeds, and creating a dedicated broadcast audio mix.
Lighting System Upgrades
Jennifer Sherrod, owner of Focal Point Lighting, also based in Raleigh, was brought in to recommend equipment for enhancing the lighting. Southbridge decided to replace the MA dot2 console, which had been discontinued. Four of the six production volunteers that served prior to the pandemic were not comfortable coming back at the time of restarting indoor services, and therefore, an entirely new team needed to be recruited. It made sense to have the new lighting team start with a console that would serve the church for years.
“I have a lot of experience with the ETC Eos line of consoles and know their support is excellent,” states Sherrod. “We already had an ETC infrastructure with sACN gateways, relay panels, and a Unison Echo architectural control system, so we replaced the dot2 with an ETC Ion Xe 20 console. This model provides 20 faders, which makes it easier for volunteers to operate, and the Eos magic sheets concept also lets us configure the console in a way that makes the most sense for our system and volunteer base.”
The lighting rig was also expanded to give the church more flexibility and visual impact for both in-person and online attendees. “We looked for fixtures that had good punch for the price,” describes Sherrod. “The ETC HES SolaFrame 1000 provided all the features we were looking for, and they worked for our budget. It’s a very reliable unit, has an excellent bright white light, very smooth movement, an extensive shutter system, and lots of other features. These provide the bulk of our visual texture on stage. For a stage wash, we bought 12 Chauvet Rogue R2X moving head washes. They sit at a great price point, and the intensity is great. With just 12 units, they are the best ‘bang for your buck’ currently.”
Adding haze to the environment to enable painting the air made sense, and a Reel EFX DF-50 hazer was spec’d. “I prefer the type of particles oil-based hazers produce,” she states. “The oil produces a finer particle, and it disperses more evenly and longer than water-based products.”
Video Broadcast System
Jeff Dooley Video Services, based in Garner, NC, was brought in to design and install the video side of the broadcast suite. “The church already owned a Blackmagic Design (BMD) 1ME ATEM switcher,” describes Dooley. “BMD switchers are good at working with embedded audio in the SDI signals, whereas many switchers are not. The fact that BMD can handle two channels of audio, so you can use aux sends and other means of routing where the audio goes with the video, was a plus. We decided to stay with the BMD/ATEM product line for the value you get for the investment.
“We needed to get the broadcast video suite up and running as best possible by the first indoor service on October 11,” continues Dooley. “With the pandemic playing havoc with gear availability, we needed to put together a system using whatever gear had arrived by that point, and then install the remaining gear to complete the project as it arrived. The bulk of the gear, plus the racks to house them, didn’t arrive until the week after the first service. It was an intense schedule, but it worked out.”
“We had already chosen and received two BMD studio cameras,” says Foulkrod, “using them for the pre-produced, studio-style services we shot for online distribution throughout the summer. However, we found this inadequate for working with longer shots in the auditorium and replaced them with BMD URSA Mini cameras. These better meet our needs and were easier for the volunteers to operate.”
“In addition to the two BMD cameras,” adds Dooley, “we purchased several Panasonic AW-HE42 PTZ cameras. These enable us to put fully-controllable remote cameras in locations where a camera operator would have been intrusive on the congregation.
“The 1ME switcher limited us with input count, so we upgraded to the 2ME ATEM switcher,” Dooley continues. “For ease of operation, we added the BMD 1ME Advanced Panel control surface to the ATEM switcher. As we only use the second ME when we do I-Mag for baptisms, the 1ME panel works fine for the church. And you can still work with the second ME via the 1ME panel—it’s just not as simple as having that second ME right on the surface.”
For managing inputs and outputs from the ATEM switcher, Dooley also spec’d a BMD Smart Videohub 40×40 router. BMD Smartscope Duos serve as engineering monitors, and recording capabilities are provided by an Atmos Shogun Studio.
“For streaming,” Dooley says, “OBS (Open Broadcast Software) running on a custom Windows PC built by Drake Hymen, the church’s production director, encodes the video and audio from the switcher and sends it to Restream.io, which then distributes it to both Facebook and YouTube.
“A really nice thing about this project is that the church’s leadership understands production, and what it means to do live events,” adds Dooley. “It greatly simplified the decision-making process. They didn’t want to waste money, but they also understand that obtaining quality means investing in gear that will obtain the desired end-result.”
“It would have been nice to have more time to invest in upfront design and engineering drawings,” says Foulkrod. “However, we’ve gotten to where we needed to be, and were able to respond to the ever-changing circumstances of the pandemic in a timely fashion. We also grew in our understanding and respect of the virtual audience and learned a lot about building up a volunteer production team in a short amount of time.”
Jim Kumorek is the owner of Spreading Flames Media, providing video production, photography and writing services. He can be contacted at james@spreadingflamesmedia.com.
