DYS and "On the Cheap" Stories

As a media professional, I know the "right way" to do most things. Not everything, though. I do have a weakness. I've always gone to a small church (smallest being 15, largest being 1500). These churches are always budget-challenged. I've always been budget challenged. Most of us are and have had to come up with solutions to needs that aren't always the "right way", but get the job done. In my opinion, these do-it-yourselfers are my heroes. They make things work no matter what the obstacles. They think outside the box. That's what media people are supposed to do anyway, right? Hey, even big movie productions occasionally use wacky techniques to make things happen (cue-tips for crowd miniatures in Star Wars, etc. -- watch plenty of behind-the-scenes DVD docs and you'll see how "primitive" some of the production techniques have been).

So, I'd like to hear your stories -- without apologies --- without embarrassment. Give us details like what software you used or how you pulled off your job with creativity despite the lack of funding. Attach pics if you can. Amaze and astound us with your ingenuity! I'll be looking forward to it!

oh...me first...me first....

This is about that video countdown timer that was discussed earlier. Someone said it could be done with Final Cut Pro and another said it could be done with After Effects.

Well....I didn't know Final Cut Pro at the time, but I did know Premiere 6.0. Soooo....I created 45 minutes of black and rendered a full quality file in Premiere. I brought the 45-minute black video into FCP and applied the Time Code print. For some reason I couldn't get a sequence to be longer then 2 minutes in FCP. Sooo....I applied the Time Code print, rendered another 45 minute file, and imported it all back into Premiere. I couldn't get the reverse effect to work in FCP, so the only thing I could think of was to reverse the video in Premiere....yes....another 45 minute file.

I love working under pressure

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

We wanted to occasionally do some IMAG for children's sermons and other "special" occasions. The only camera my church has is a Sony DV8 (340 model) we bought "open box" from Best Buy last year. Rather than go "all out" I went to Radio Shack and bought 2 30 foot composite video cables and some female adapters to connect them. Then I used the mini out composite cable from the Camera connected it to the cables and plugged it into the switcher we have wired to our projector that we were using to switch from computer feed to VCR. As I told our Minister of Music. it was a $30 solution to a $10,000+ problem.

[Nathan J]

We had a production last year and as we don't have any REAL spotlights (or the funds for them), I set to work making do on my own. I took two car spotlights (750,000 CP that plug into a car's cigarette lighter) that were around $10 from Wal-Mart, attached a long wire between them, connected that to an even longer wire going out a window of the sanctuary, and connected it to you guessed it, my dad's car in the parking lot They worked out really well too. When the scene needed a reddish color, the operators (who were standing on ladders since we don't have a balcony) simply held up red (Rosco, of course ) gels in front of the lights!

There did not seem to be anything wireless commercially available for a reasonable cost that would work dependably over the needed distance

Here is a very inexpensive solution....less than $100 Cdn...that I came up with for our setup. The computer is about 100 ft from the platform at the back of the auditorium, and we use Songshowplus which is advanced/ reversed using the +/- keys on the keyboard.

!) Logitech cordless (non optical) mouse with a PS2 interface, ball and scroll wheel removed for the platform.....$30 Cdn

2) 100 ft PS2 extension cable......$45 Cd

3) USB Logitech mouse (can't be Microsoft) at the computer....$15 Cdn

To make this deal work you install Microsoft Intellimouse software (download from Microsoft) which can then be programmed to assign keyboard keys on the left/right clicks on the platform mouseThe non microsoft mouse at the computer is not recognized by the Intellimouse software, but still operates as a normal mouse with left/right clicks on the computer. ( Don't install Logitech software for it) An interesting outcome of this is that the cordless Logitech at the platform would normally only have a range of about 6 feet at a computer but ends up having a range of about 25 feet on the platform. With the Intellimouse software, the platform mouse can either duplicate the computer mouse or be separately programmed to whatever keyboard keys are needed. It has worked flawlessly so far.

I was kind of proud of myself for coming up with this setup on my own, with my limited knowledge and experience, but the reality is God gave me the the insight for this and I give Him all the credit for the results.

Gaffers tape has got to be my major livesaver. I've used it for about everything. From shorted wires, to holding things in place, to taping down wires, or once, about an hour before we were having an event outside, the wind died down enough to set up the screen... found out, we were missing the locks that held the screen and screen frame onto the legs (this was a 10 by 10" portable screen) - I used an entire roll of tape taping the frame onto the legs. It wasnt the most sane way to do it, but no time for a hardware store run.

And, of course, we had work lights sitting around at church, that we put into our lighting system, and used to illuminate the back wall. Didnt work as well as cyc lights, I wouldnt try it.

[David H.]

Wow! I feel whole lot better about things now that I have heard some of your stories. By the way down here in Georgia we call duct tape Alabama Chrome (no offense to you Alabamians),
and it is a God send. No stories yet though, got to hear some more before I get brave enough.

Could my stories have something to do with Alabama chrome? HMMM...................................

[[Director] drew ryan]

I had to do a Talking Head interview and wanted good sound quality. Took the talent to the little studio control room that was plastered with black sonex. Took an incadescent work light and clamped it to the ceiling for the key light. Used a large piece of white card stock and hung it at an angle behind the talent above his head for back light. Of the videos that we produced at the church whith church gear, it turned out the best.

[Travis Kensil]

Our associate pastor was in California, and we wanted our congregation to be able to do a live phone interview with him via his cell phone. We took the headphones from our sound board and duct-taped (love duct tape) them to the microphone on our sound booth phone, and set a microphone next to the speaker of the phone. Our MC for the event was wearing a wireless lapel, which we previewed on the board, so when he talked it would go through the headphones and into the mic of the phone, and when our pastor talked, it would go into the mic.......this was a LONG time ago, and not very technical, but suprisingly it worked perfect


To make a count-down timer for a Youth Service, I created a master slide for the timer, and copied it as many times as I wanted the timer for (10 minute, 10 slides). I changed each slide so it counted down (10, 9, 8, etc) and gave each slide a (1) minute transition time. Yes, it did take a long time, but was really cool and worked perfect. (Side note: only showed the mintues counting down, couldn't imagine how long a minute:second one would have taken)

Before our church purchased a scaling/switching device for our projection system, we used Belkin boxes. (The kind that allows the controlling of 2 pc using only one monitor/keyboard/mouse). We had 2 pcs, 1 VCR, and 1 DVD feed that we needed to be able to switch among 4 projectors (1 in middle of stage, 2 on the sides, and one confidence projector in the back). We bought two belkin boxes, and daisy chained them together. On one Belkin box, we plugged our VCR/DVD players into (which was routed through a scaler/switch), and the other input was from the other Belkin. The other Belkin we plugged our 2 computers into, with the output of that feeding into the other Belkin. The video Belkin's output was sent to a VGA distribution amp then to the projectors. This solution worked well for a little while, until we began to need the ability to send multiple signals to multiple outputs. But it did work well, and was affordable.

Those are some of the techniques and ideas we used in the "early" days. We don't use any of these methods now, but back in the beginning, they worked well for us, and most of all, were affordable!

I made a bass guitar strap out of duct tape...it worked great.

this was about 10 years ago, before projection was cheap. the church i was attending used 35mm slides for the chorus lyrics. the minister of music used his laser printer and printed onto transparency - very small font.

another trick he used for a spot light was to use a slide projector with a black slide with a small hole cut in it.

[kerwin kanago]

I did one of those 'DIY Spotlights' similar to NGJones that we used several years.

The main sanctuary was almost ALL non-dimable-florescent lighting but for Maunday Thursday (includes 13 guys posing as DaVinci's Last Supper) we wanted *some* light, softer, in the back, plus a spotlight on the cross in front.

Flood lights, flood light sockets, plywood, AC plugs and lamp cord from Home Depot gave me a couple of floods that I put up in the soffets.

For the Cross, I did the same, but added a piece of round furnace duct work, sprayed black on the outside to "control the beam width". This was actually set in place on top of a monitor speaker up in the choir area and pointed up and across at the cross so that when the rest of the room was dark, it cast a very severe shadow.

I added a handy box and wall-type-dimmer control in series with the lamp cord and we could then bring this light up slowly at the right time. Since the dimmer was up on the stage, the guy who played Simon (the one on the right in the last supper) had the dimmer hidden under his right hand, behind some grapes on his plate, and VERY SLOWLY brought the light up.

...

Work-in-progress on a couple more DIY stories as we speek, but I think I want to finish them before I spill the stories