Just because you can

[aaron12345]

As more and more churches are upgrading to worship presentation software that has the capability to display words over a video background, I'm noticing that rarely do the backgrounds have any relevancy to the meaning behind the song. Does anyone else find that annoying?

Does anyone have any thoughts as the the appropriateness of background selection? My philosophy has always been that if I couldn't find a video or a graphic that fit the song, I would choose something very subdued and non-distracting. It seems to me that some churches do video backgrounds solely because they have the capability to do so without taking into consideration how it fits into the big picture.

[nathandiehl]

of course that happens sometimes--just like some churches don't use projectors because you should sing out of a hymn book, and projectors are themselves distracting.

i think it comes down to the congregation...some congrergations find any projected image distracting, others wouldn't find anything distracting. But i would say that in any church, a fast, bubbly video bg behind a slow chorus like here i am to worship would be distracting to all...
but really, i think it is subjective to the congregation.

[Elec R. Winner]

Going over the top with the video backgrounds sure could be distracting! The stock video footage that came with my copy of Easyworship is very nature-related, slow looping landscapes with leaves blowing, etc. I don't know if the other worship softwares come with the stock footage, but EW has done a good job of including about a dozen subdued video backgrounds.

[[Admin] PHugger]

I would tend to try to coordinate ALL of the backgrounds and other elements with the theme of the service. This is what the songs should do as well, right?

Here is an example -

The sermon was based on 1Samuel 6 where the Ark had been capture by the Philistines. They were subject to all sorts of horrible punishments from God until they decided to return the Ark to Israel. The main theme was about how God finds a way back to us even when we wander (the hound of heaven).

The Power point theme was somewhat courageous - Cows. Lots of cows. Many people disliked it and it didn't become relevant until the end of the sermon, BUT EVERYONE REMEMBERS IT.

The Philistines sent the Ark back to Israel on a cart pulled by two cows that called out the entire way - Moooooo, the Lord is returning.

I think the main idea is to enhance the message or theme. It worked much better in this case than what we normally do (seasonal nature scenes). I think we could work towards being more provocative, but have people dislike it less........ (c8

Another example is from Len & Jason's Digital Story Tellers. I watched the DVD before I read the book. I had not a single clue how the coffee theme could possibly ever be used. The scripture was about winnowing (Jeremiah 15 maybe). Nobody on the creative team had a clue what that was. They researched and found out it had to do with separating the good from the bad. This lead to coffee. They had coffee videos, coffee PPT and even the MO boys vocal debut (I like Coffee, I like Tea). Brewing coffee around the sanctuary added another sense to the mix. Hidden under each seat was a coffee filter.

When you make coffee, the grounds are separated from the desired coffee. The filter is pretty important. At the end of the service everyone took their filter and wrote on it the things they wanted to be filtered out of their lives and then threw them into a garbage can on the stage. Wow! I'm sure that everyone got that message.

If you can spend the time and get the synapses to fire up the ideas (I wonder if God could help here?), I bet you'll find that theme related visual and other elements will add a great deal to the message.




Best regards,
PCH

I just about NEVER have backgrounds that match the theme of the song. I make more of an effort to have the movement match the feel of the music instead of what the words are saying. I'll speed up or slow down a clip depending on the tempo of the song. Personally I can't stand the nature and scenic backgrounds, so almost all the ones I use are abstract and I think it's less distracting this way. I tend to stay away from anything recognizable, if that makes sense. I also make an effort to make the colors in the background compliment the lighting scheme. (that doesn't necessarily mean they are the same color)

Very Different from most of the people on here, but I recieve a lot of positive feedback on the presentation. Keep in mind most of my work is for college students and young adults.

Here are some pictures from a recent worship service where I provided the presentation. I would like to post them on the thread but I'm not a pro member.

http://www.churchmedia.net/MXC/showg...00&ppuser=3109

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by Elec R. Winner

Going over the top with the video backgrounds sure could be distracting! The stock video footage that came with my copy of Easyworship is very nature-related, slow looping landscapes with leaves blowing, etc. I don't know if the other worship softwares come with the stock footage, but EW has done a good job of including about a dozen subdued video backgrounds.

SongShowPlus comes with a good selection of video loops, again, mostly nature, with some abstract.

I'm very greatful for them. That's the only way we would have gotten started using video backgrounds.

We tend to match the background to the feel of the song, and try to keep some continuity throughout and trust that the songs match the service.

We will take into account what we can find out about the sermon (sometimes only the title and scripture), especially for the closing song.

[blwells45]

I really haven't launched out into the text over video thing yet.

When we first got into the projection thing, I tried to match an image with each song, but we really found that to be distracting. Since our church is VERY traditional, it was too much change all at once.

So, for awhile what I was doing was trying to come up w/a graphical theme that matched the sermon and then followed it through the service. That really worked well, but was extremely time consuming. Usually I didnt' get the sermon until Fri. evenings at earliest, and Sat. morning -> afternoon was the norm, so, right now I have a generic background that I use to match a blackout slide w/our church logo on it.

Now that I have rambled on, to get to the original question, I would find video behind text distracting if it conflicted with the words or "feel" of the song. Just because you can do it, definately doesn't mean that you should. But, that really goes back to maintaining the balance between media and message. Media shouldn't call attention to itself, but should call attention to the message it's trying to convey. If our media distracts from the message, we've failed.

[Ebroach]

When I am needing a background that is relevant to the sermon or songs that I am showing with EZWorship I use PPT. Okay Okay I do not know how to use Photo Shop. I am a Creative Challenged person.

Here is a PPT sermon file and a Background that I used for Pastors sermon.

http://www.churchmedia.net/MXC/showg...500&ppuser=862

Sermon Title was Thanksgivings Empty Chair.
After surfing the MXC diligently (my first line of search) and googling could not come up with a background that I liked or thought would fit.. So..

Took my trusty Kodak 215 camera (over 10000 pics and now in a box) and took a pic of chair in my dining room with a purplish cloth laying over it..

Loaded the pic in MS Picture IT.. and faded the pic some..

Anyway take a look at the PPT . I then put the sermon title at the bottom of the screen and did a save as a JPG . I then used the JPG as background in Easy Worship for the pastors scriptures in the sermon..

Nothing fancy. Not very creative.. but it worked.

[Karen39]

Wow! I use moving backgrounds all the time with Songshow Plus. Believe it or not, they're prayed over and selected very carefully. At first, I selected a few that were too distracting and my Worship Pastor told me to change them. Now they're rarely distracting. I try to always have them match the song. For instance, this Sunday we're singing, "Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble" so the background is a majestic mountain. SSP also lets me darken up the background a bit so it is easy to see the words. I can blur it too if I want to. Usually I try to have a graphic with the scripture that the song comes from in between songs. If I can do that, then the graphic with the scripture will match the song graphic. For the song, "Standing on the Promises", I use a rainbow background behind it because rainbows always remind me of God's promises. We're also singing, "Hallelujah, Your Love Makes Me Sing" and so behind that one I am using a darker red with a cross on it. I try to blend all the colors so it is easy on the eyes. After the rehearsal on Wednesday night, I realized they didn't blend very well so I changed some of them. I occasionally just use a digital juice moving background too that is plain. There is a really good one of a puddle and I have seen it used on tv. I hope this is helpful to you. We made this change to moving backgrounds fairly slowly. At first, I only used them on choir offertory songs, etc and always left some plain songs in the mix. Now there are never plain ones.

Karen

[sempei13]

I WANT to do theme appropriate backgrounds and when I suggested moving backgrounds that's what I thought we'd be doing. The pastor (apparently) thinks it's distracting. I need to talk to him and cast some vision b/c our media has become less metaphor rich since we went to moving backgrounds. In addition, instead of getting good MPEG 2 backgrounds (or Avi or Quicktime), we have cheap, poorly made backgrounds (one of which looks like a hypnotic spiral). I'd really rather have a static thematic background than a frequently reused motion background.

Paul

[dovprst]

Moving backgrounds were included with Sunday Plud. They have some good ones but we rarely ever use them. We have not moved up to thematic ideas yet.

my question is ... you can't match the theme all the time .... I rarely do, describe a video for awesome god?

I too try to match the tempo and 'fell' ... but not the theme. Especially when most nights i'm doing sound, words and dabblign in lighting lol