The IDEA of IMAG

[Richie]

The IDEA of IMAG

What is IMAG? IMAG is Image Magnification, and it’s being turned on in churches big and small. Projection screens, live cameras, live graphics. Church services are being produced like live sporting events.


The concept of IMAG is simply to enhance the view from the cheap seats. Magnify the images from the stage into the audience. Past 20 rows, the pastor looks like an action figure on a table. Magnifying the image will help bring a large congregation into the face of the service. They can see the emotions, feel the convictions and stay connected with an intimate worship experience even in a large room.

People communicate with more than just audible words, we display emotions and use expressions. We talk with our hands and our posture. From a distance, these communicators may be hard to pick out and you can lose some of the impact of what is being said. Microphones and speakers carry the sound to the ends of the room. IMAG does for your eyes what loudspeakers do for your ears. It brings the visual aspects of communication into a large space.


IMAG is not just restricted to the indoors. Concerts and large outdoor events use IMAG to reach out to massive audiences. Large jumbo-tron screens and LED panels can be several hundred square feet in size. The lumens in these screens can project an image for hundreds of yards. IMAG has become such an important part of large venue events that almost every major touring act includes IMAG in some way. Show designers are placing IMAG screens into the stage and lighting design and making them part of the show.


IMAG can also be used to open more seats in a room. IMAG is used on small televisions that allow seats with blocked views to get the entire picture. Sports stadiums place these kinds of IMAG screens in on the back sides of pillars or balconies that block the view. Again, the idea is to get the best view possible to the worst seat in the house. It keeps the ticket price up and the seat filled.


IMAG assumes a supporting role in the church. Distractions are not hard to come by in a church service. IMAG helps to keep the focus of the congregation on the service. The service puts the focus on worship. Keep in mind that most of the congregation is looking at the IMAG screen more than they are at the stage. So taking the time to understand IMAG and how it can impact an audience can be very helpful.


Keep the MAG in IMAG



IMAG should be like a really nice set of binoculars, in that they only magnify. A common mistake made with IMAG is displaying a wide-angled shot from the audience’s perspective. They can see that view already and for free. If you take that kind of shot you’re just running up the electric bill. Wide angled shots of the audience and the stage are perfect for television and video, but this is IMAG. IMAG is entirely different from television, sure it uses the same equipment and some of the same principles, but the intended audience is different. IMAG plays to a live audience, at the event.


Television and video play to a home-audience. Wide shots give the home viewer an idea of location and context. Awards ceremonies are a good example of television coverage of a live event that is similar to a church service format. You have a large audience, a stage, some songs and a speaker. The wide shots shown through the television of the large room and audience tell you that this is an important event attended by many people. You can watch the emotional recipient walk from one side of the stage to the other, follow her back to her seat and get the ‘reaction’ of her rival a few rows away. Great idea for television, bad idea for IMAG.


Magnify the subject and the communication from the stage into the audience. Stay away from the large shots from the audience’s perspective and for sure don’t take any shots of the audience. All you need is someone nodding off or punishing their kid to distract the entire congregation. Make it a habit and before long you might have local business owners in the pews with posters looking for some air time.


Steady and Sure



IMAG also needs to be slower than television. Watching tv you’ll see a different shot every few seconds. Fast cuts on television keep the story moving, they keep things interesting. In television directing, a two second shot is plenty. With IMAG, double that. IMAG supports the performance, IMAG is not the performance itself.


Maintaining a constant head-on shot of the pastor during the message will put IMAG into the supporting role it is designed for. If IMAG is used during choral songs or when a soloist sings, changing shots with the pace of the music may not be a bad thing. Just try to keep from flashy, fast-paced cuts. In between elements of the service, when television would take a wide angled shot, IMAG takes a break. Have a bail-out shot or graphic ready to go to. Take a close-up of a stained glass window, of the stage decorations or a graphic that has the church logo or the title theme of the service.


Transitions


Many churches utilize several cameras for IMAG. Transitioning between these cameras opens the door for more distractions. Make it a point to select your transitions carefully. IMAG in church should be, for lack of a better word, conservative. Cuts and dissolves. That should do it. I know, I know. The switcher does all these cool wipes and transitions. These effects are fine for producing youth videos but they look cheesy in IMAG, especially between live shots. Wipes and other transitions should be sparingly used when going from a live shot to a static image or graphic. That’s about the only time you can get away with it. Besides, when was the last time you saw an effective page-turning, lens flare effect with a clock wipe and a spinning cube? Yea, the 80s were kinda weird.


Graphics



The majority of churches use IMAG simply to display graphic material. IMAG screens can show promotional slides as people enter, giving them an opportunity to know about upcoming events. IMAG screens can display lyrics to songs as the congregation sings along. The pastor can even show sermon points on the screens during the message. Yes, the IMAG screens can be used without any cameras but they are still supportive of the service itself. Staying supportive of the service means that flashy backgrounds or funky PowerPoint transitions may not be appropriate. Working within the ‘theme’ or idea of the service will again keep the focus on the worship, not the stunning graphic content.


An important thing to remember when using IMAG to display graphics is spelling. If misspelling a word on a piece of paper is bad, try misspelling it on a large screen several feet in the air and in front of hundreds of people. Just make sure it says ‘prostrate’ when it needs to, most other misspellings are easier to get over.


Magnified Mistakes


IMAG makes things bigger. More emotion, more communication and more bigger worse mistakes. Any missed cue, incorrect word or shaky camera shot is magnified to new proportions of distraction and embarrassment. Simply be aware of possible distractions and try to avoid them. IMAG should not be a scary process. With the right steps taken, IMAG can be seamless and helpful to any church service.


Lay the Groundwork


Preparation and planning are essential to IMAG. The choir rehearses, the pastor goes over his notes and the IMAG team should prepare as well. Get a copy of the music for the upcoming service and listen to it. If you are planning to display the lyrics over pictures, select images that might illustrate the song. Get sermon notes from the pastor and prepare them well in advance so you can discuss his cues to reveal the notes to the congregation. Go over the generated graphics for spelling and make sure that the lyrics change from one screen to another with the timing of the song, not in the middle of a line. Plan out live shots of the soloists and musicians where appropriate. Generate a script that follows the lyrics of the songs and communicate the planned events with the camera crew. IMAG should be scripted to a point, but it also needs to be flexible and ready to move. If the song leader wants to sing another verse of ‘O Happy Day’ be ready. If the prayer goes a little long and the next song has to be shortened, be ready.

IMAG is live television without the television. You can’t hide mistakes and you can’t break to commercial. IMAG can be more powerful than television in that it is a part of the overall experience of the live event. When approached with preparation and planning, IMAG can add a new dimension to your church service. Even in a room with thousands of seats IMAG can communicate face to face.

Great article. Thanks for sharing that with us!

[bltpearce]

Now THIS is exactly what I'm looking for in this forum. It's informative. It's authoritative. It's concise. Thank you.

[nevmoor]

You put this article together really well! The info and flow make it a good read for those looking for knowledge. Keep it up!

[Steve G.]

great job dude, hey tim, how much points would one get for something like this.