Where is your operator?

[snlgraham]

I don't think anyone else is doing this. Maybe I'm wrong. It seems totally backwards to me the way that my church operates our projection system. At the same time there are some good reasons for it.
Let me explain.
My church runs two computers for the projection system.
The first computer is a PC located in the front pew. The PP operator sits there and runs the slides for the songs and the anouncments. The pastor has a wireless presenter mouse that he uses to advance his own sermon slides. The pastor creates his own slides for the sermon. If there is a hang up, which there often is, he can get help from the operator that is just a few feet away. Often he can just glance in her direction and she is able to see his cue and then correct the problem. Also, when there are changes that happen on the fly during worship, the worship leader can easily communicate that to the operator without the congregation's knowelege.

The second computer is located 75ft away at the back of the room inbetween the light and the sound boards. This computer is a mac and runs propresenter. We use this computer to play video announcments, countdown timers, and any audio tracks. The lighting operator is usually the one to run these elements.

The two computers as well as a dvd player are connected to a switch which is also located at the back of the room. We have not wanted to spend money on a seamless switcher so we have to endure a pause and sometimes a flash while the projector rescales when we change between sources.

Now we have been wanting to run moving backgrounds for our slides which is something PP will not do well. So the obvious choice would be to do this from the propresenter machine in the back of the room. However, to do this would mean giving up the control that having a close operator affords us.

Is anyone doing anything similar to this?
Anybody have suggestions/solutions to offer?

[[Admin] osborn4]

Our computer operator is in the back of the room with next to the sound board. We run the slides for the pastor and any changes during worship are communicated vocally by the worship leader either by verse part or by saying a key phrase from the part he wants to jump to.

With worship software, such as ProPresenter (and all the rest), it's very easy to jump from verse to verse (to bridge to chorus) and song to song. So it doesn't take much to get the right words on the slide.

Our previous worship pastor had consistent hand signals for the band, that I (as computer operator) was able to follow as well. That worked out quite well.

Most of our current worship leaders play guitar, so that doesn't work out as well.

[Dan Rector]

If both systems are networked, then you could use some type of remote access program such as windows remote desktop (not sure about the Mac support for that) or something like VNC. This would let you see and control the computer at the back.

I have done this although with two Windows based systems although not for a service. I have done it during practice several times. Our reason is that the sound board is in the main room while the computer is upstairs in the "booth". I did this most recently for rehearsal for our upcoming Children's Christmas Program. It allowed me to run sound and run slides both. Now I wouldn't likely do that on a Sunday morning with full band and several singers, this practice was mainly adjusting volume level for several CD tracks being used to accompany the kids.

[sempei13]

I prefer to have operators working intently on what they do and pastors and worship leaders doing what they do. Advancing his own slides distracts a pastor from what he's best at--teaching. Creating slides is also a distraction that a pastor shouldn't have to deal with.

At Quest, we have producers that carry the weight of the production so the worship leaders and pastors don't have to. Our video team is in a totally different room. We communicate via headset and practice a ton. Stuff rarely goes wrong in a way that people notice.

I think I'd move the operator and try and offload leadership responsibilities for the tech from the pastor and worship leader to someone else.

Paul

[petereit]

Using ProPresenter to its fullest is the solution to your issues.

If you ran your song service from ProPresenter, you wouldn't need to switch video signals between PCs. If you ripped your DVD clips to .MOV files, you could simply add them to ProPresenter's schedule, eliminating another switch. ProPresenter can also easily handle your pastor's sermon slides. And if he insists on advancing his slides himself, "there's an app for that!" He can control ProPresenter from an iPhone or iPad. There wouldn't be any "issues" so he wouldn't need the assistant to bail him out.

[snlgraham]

Thanks guys for the quick and thoughtfull replies.

Paul, taking slide creation from our pastor is not a battle I want to start. Unless leadership decides that someone else should be doing that we will have to support what is currently going on. I will however, metion to my pastor that many other churches have people that create slides for their pastor.

Dan, I like the idea of networking the two computers and controling remotely. Maybe if we got another mac in place of the pc upfront, and then got PP for the mac we could make that work. I just noticed that the latest propresenter update has a way to control PP from inside propresenter. You create a slide and place it in the presentation. To start the PP you just click on that slide. Not sure how well that would work.

Shawn

[snlgraham]

Man you guys are fast.
Mark, you posted while I was typing my last response.

I love the iphone idea!
You said that propresenter will handle the pastors pp slides. Never tried it. Don't I need pp for the mac first?

[waynehoskins]

I agree that two computers, of any kind, unnecessarily complicates things and avoids addressing problems.

I love the approach Paul suggests. The pastor is responsible for the teaching, and only that, while the graphic design people are responsible for the visuals (both appearance and content), and the operator only has to press Go. Unfortunately, that is easier to do at a larger church, where not only is there a larger pool of people to draw from, but also budget to hire creative artists and a progressive attitude toward the creative arts.

Having a graphic designer create the visual content would likely meet with resistance from your pastor; if he's anything like mine, his sermon isn't finished until the end of the week, and that doesn't leave enough time for a designer to create visuals. But the pastor, who usually is not a graphic designer, can make his own slides and run them himself: problem solved! -- except that with most pastors who make their own Powerpoint, the slides suck, and the preparation issue still isn't addressed.

We recently added a Saturday night service. Our pastors decided to add it, but they were amazed how it forced them to work differently: no more finishing the sermon on Saturday evening. Now that they have to finish earlier, they actually communicate with our music minister during the week so he can plan a setlist, because that can't happen on Sunday mornings any more. But you know, if we'd asked them to work a day ahead without having a Saturday night service, fat chance of that happening.

So, operator belongs in one of, as applicable: projection control room, production control room, sound/light/video booth. Run only one computer. Buy an ipad for your podium if you have to.

[waynehoskins]

Originally Posted by snlgraham

You said that propresenter will handle the pastors pp slides. Never tried it. Don't I need pp for the mac first?

I think Mark was talking about creating the screen content entirely from within Propresenter. I like this approach best.

On the other hand, some programs are able to read and display a Powerpoint file. This would be option two, the drawback being that there's no guarantee that the Powerpoint comes out looking like it went in.

[Esoteric]

Yeah, all the churches I work with are entirely ProPresenter. I still have one holdover trying to do ProPresenter and Power Point. I am still working on them. The ONLY reason to keep doing Power Point (or Keynote) is for the transitions. They are tied to fancy transitions between slides. *sigh*

Mike

[snlgraham]

The transitions are not the only reason to continue to do power point. The biggest reason I can see for us is that it is a standard. Our head pastor only teaches 2 or 3 times a month and the other weeks it is an associate pastor, a member or a visiting missionary. Most everyone knows powerpoint enough to use it. I work at a college and power point is required for most every student presentation. We also get people that bring in PP presentations for funerals and weddings. No way to get rid of it even though I personally dispise PP.

[[Admin] osborn4]

You mean Powerpoint has better transitions than ProPresenter? That seems odd.

One option is if there aren't animations in Powerpoint is to save it as a series of jpegs and cue those up.