It’s no secret that many houses of worship have gone high-tech in order to amplify their message and provide dazzling services for their congregations. Northview Church in Carmel, IN certainly had that in mind when they built a $16 million auditorium that boasts plenty of cutting edge sound and lighting. What they did not bank on (but can now) was the fact that many Christian music acts would regularly play there, even luring people away from a major secular venue in the Indianapolis area. It seems that the means for delivering their message appeals to others as well.
The Visuals Team
Two months after the room was built, technical director Shaun Miller was brought onboard. He coordinates a staff of seven production people, including two video programmers “who do nothing but create content,” he tells PLSN. “I have a systems guy and a lighting guy, and we have a studio under the stage area where we record in-house tracks. We have a full Pro Tools HD system downstairs.” He adds that the operations keep him and his associates working 50 hours per week.
Miller explains that the state-of-the-art, 2,175-seat auditorium was designed by a Disney Imagineer and is loosely based on the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, home to Celine Dion’s show. It’s a steep, three-level auditorium, and he states that even if you sit in the back row of the second balcony, you will be less than 80 feet from the stage. The intimate space has a curved front stage, allowing audiences to sit in a semicircle around it.
The technological sophistication and production talent found at Northview has made it a notable stop for many concerts — even despite not being set up with proper dressing rooms or showers like in many other venues — and they are actually competition for another Indianapolis venue. “Our city built a performing arts center which opened up two years after this did, and it’s smaller than our auditorium. They spent a jillion dollars on it, and a lot of times we’ll get performances here just because we seat more.”
Northview Church’s auditorium boasts an extensive lighting package, including Vari*Lite VL2500 Spots, Chauvet Professional Legend 412s, more than a hundred Color Kinetics iColor Cove LEDs, more than 150 ETC Source Fours with different lensing and crowd blinders. As far as flat screen monitors, there is only one onstage week to week, “which is the pastor’s TV that rolls out for his sermon notes,” explains Miller. “Throughout the church, there are 50 of them, but in the actual auditorium there is only ever one in weekly use.”
The main house PA is entirely Meyer. Northview has a 36-box M’elodie House Array configured in an L-C-R set-up, specifically 3 12-box arrays that skirt the front of the stage. The room is also outfitted “with a pseudo-surround sound system. It wraps around the sides of the room to give that surrounding feeling as well as under balcony speakers.” Their sound package includes 700 HP ground level subwoofers, 600 HP flown subwoofers, UMP-1P front and balcony fills, UPJ-1J surrounds, and three Galileo 616 audio processors.
The Control Room
As far as their state of the art control room, which is practically located under the stage, “we probably rival a small TV station with our capabilities,” declares Miller. The two-level control room comfortably seats six people, and the lower level houses all of their capture and switching capabilities as well as all the processing equipment for the video, which is located in a separate air-conditioned room closed off by sliding doors to cut down on noise.
The studio is well stocked with gear from Blackmagic Design, including a broadcast video hub with router and smart control along with nine Hyperdecks. They operate a Ross Vision 2M/E switcher and Clear Com communication system use Coolux Pandora’s Box Media Manager and two servers (for the back screen). Computer-wise, they are powered by three Apple Mac Pros, an iMac, two Mac minis, and a custom built Streaming PC.
With regards to music events at Northview, they have opened up to doing Christian tours — “mainly because we don’t sell alcohol, so nobody else wants to be here,” he jokes — and notable artists such as Steven Curtis Chapman, Chris Tomlin, and Third Day have come through.
“We’re one of the hubs for Indianapolis basically. We also do conferences and rent the facility out to organizations because of the seating capacity. A local hospital here will rent out the facility yearly to do a staff meeting.” When asked how often the auditorium is being used on average, Miller replies, “It’s really hard to gauge because it goes in spurts of what we’re doing and what we’ll allow. This summer we’ll do more because as a church we’re doing less.”
A Production-Ready Venue
The TD notes that many road crews pull their semi into Northview’s loading dock, walk in, and are surprised to find it is a church. “There are no windows. It’s got fly space and everything you would need in a theater, but it’s a church. The back of our stage is a Stewart rear projection screen that is 80 feet wide and 30 feet tall, and that’s the focal point of the room. That allows us to do anything you can imagine. We can extend a scenery look back onto it. We show movies on it. It’s kind of like having your own IMAX screen.”
The Northview production team has four Panasonic HD cameras mounted on tripods, one of which can be shoulder mounted. They have a robotic head camera that is usually used for a safety shot, along with two GoPro Hero 2 cameras and two Sony handheld PX1 cameras placed around the stage. For a recent event, one of the cameras was operated on a 15 foot jib arm.
“We rarely use it, because it is a little bit more distracting, but for Christmas there was so much more going on that we needed to be able to get those shots better,” says Miller. “Our services are treated just like any other event. There is a lot of switching going on. We rehearse our transitions down to the second, if you will, so there isn’t dead air and people start squirming.” In other words, church services at Northview will
visually outshine many others because they want to keep it fast-paced and exciting.
“If you take the church side of it out, it really is a big production you would see in any secular world or on TV,” says Miller. “We’re doing it for Jesus instead of NBC. It’s treated the exact same way, and most of our guys have come out of some sort of professional realm. I was a tour manager and sound engineer for years [for country and Christian rock acts], and one of our video guys worked for the Indianapolis Colts. Everyone has some sort of real-life experience past this, so we’re bringing that level of professionalism into the church.”
Weekend services include musical performances from a band that includes a drummer, bassist, one acoustic and two electric guitarists, and vocalists. Occasionally they add a percussionist, violinist, string section, and/or a full horn section. Despite their experience with loud concerts, Miller’s team does not push volume levels during church events.
“In the church, we have a threshold that we don’t go above, 95 dB,” he reports. “We let people know that we’re within OSHA standards. We want to make it enjoyable and allow you to engage, but it’s also not a concert. We’re looking for audience participation, so you want to make it loud enough that people won’t be intimidated to get involved, and at the same time it’s not uncomfortable.”
Given the audiovisual flair that has been brought to Northview and other houses of worship around the country, one wonders if there is a limit to how far Miller and his crew will push a presentation before it becomes too overwhelming or distracting. “That’s a constant battle,” affirms the TD. “We don’t want to be edgy just to be edgy. We don’t want to do something just to do it — it has to have a purpose and a meaning. A lot of times we’ll play a particular song as part of a service, but that element has to have a reason to be there. We’re not here to just play a top 40 hit. The lyrics or something in that has to apply back to something that we’re talking about. We may do a One Republic song or something as long as it ties back into the overall theme or arching message of what that whole weekend is about.”
Northview Church, Carmel, IN
Lighting Gear
1 Janes Vista L5 lighting Console
14 Vari-Lite VL2500 Spots
12 Chauvet Legend 412 units
23 PixelRange PixelPar 44 LED units
13 ETC Selador Lustr fixtures
102 Color Kinetics iColor Cove LED fixtures
155 ETC Source Four PARs (20 10°, 65 26°, 70 19°)
2 High End Systems Color Command fixtures
11 Crowd blinders
Video Gear
2 Sony XD1 cameras
1 Stewart rear projection screen (80×30)
4 Christie Roadster 16K projectors
2 Christie Roadster S+12K HD Projectors
4 Panasonic handheld cameras
2 GoPro Hero 2 cameras
1 Ross Vision 2M/E switcher
1 Clear Com communication system
2 Coolux Pandoras Box servers w/Media Manager
1 Blackmagic Video Hub control system
9 Blackmagic Hyperdecks
3 Apple Mac Pro units
2 Apple Mac mini units
1 Apple iMac
1 Custom built streaming PC
