Is it necessary?

[MrTerje]

Hey guys! Figured out I wanted to join the community to discuss a bit around live video at services. I would also like to say that I'm Norwegian, and my spelling might not be 100% correct.

I am the media manager (or what ever you would like to call it) in my church's youth ministry. And I'm also in the team that is going to plan the new years conference. They gave me some technical responsibility, e.g. to find out what we need to rent for the conference (PA system, lights etc.). It lasts four days, we are expecting around 200-250 people between 13 and 25 years, and we're having two services per day (morning and evening), plus a huge "party" on New Year's Eve.

So then I was thinking. Why not take the whole production a step forward and do a live video coverage of the services? Not to publish on the internet or something, but only so that the audience can watch better and we can do some cool effects and stuff.

I have a lot of experience with filming and multicam editing from school. I know it's possible to implement, and I know about 3-4 people from the church who could help me out. But the questions are: Is it really necessary? Will the effect of it be good enough since we can't exaggerate too mutch? because we're not.. Hillsong or something. Does anyone know if it's expensive to rent some cameras, cables and a video mixer thing?

Also, someone may move this if I posted wrong.

[tdangelo]

MrTerje,

Hello and welcome!

It’s great news about your Youth New Year’s Eve Conference. Sounds like fun. Do you ever see the New Year’s Eve ball-drop from Times Square New York City on TV? Anyway, if you do you are seeing the work of the company I work for. We do the pool-feed from NYC each New Year’s eve as well as many of the other shows originating from Times Square. Anyway, I was just curious as I know the feed goes world-wide.

Regarding your questions (and not wanting to discourage you), I think that if the goal was solely I-mag (projected camera signals creating “Image Magnification”) I would question the usefulness in a room that seats 300. In many 300 seat rooms the audience is close enough (in person, live) to the content that putting the same on screens will be of limited impact.

You could use screens in other-ways (justifying using I-mag from time to time during the conference):

(1) Some type of environmental projection of various New Year’s Eve themed graphics may be cool.
(2) Graphics with or without lyrics during worship or musical performances
(3) Graphics supporting any presenters speeches
(4) Playback of pre-produced video packages supporting the content of the conference
Or …
(5) How about going to live-feeds (or tape delay) of other New Year’s celebrations

The equipment can be rented inexpensively. If you want to do this “on the cheap” you may want to think about borrowing cameras (many people own consumer models) and just figure out ways to connect them to a self-synchronizing-production-switcher. I as well as others here on this website can explain how to do the signal plumbing once we know what toys you will have to work with.

[daver2]

Welcome to CMN.

Don't worry about your English spelling! I had my honeymoon in Norway many years ago and was extremely impressed by the language skills of most Norwegians I met. I am only saddened by the fact that some of our 'English' schoolchildren can't speak English as a first language as well as some of your Norwegian children as a second language (or third come to that)!

Dave

[Paris MkVI]

Greetings brother! I would start with these questions. . .

What are the goals of this event? (This should be items both specific and measureable.)

Do I HAVE to have technology for any of these goals? If so, what?

Can technology make reaching these some of the goals easier? If so, how?

Then you can build a list of what you must have. With that in hand first, then you can start thinking about what you might add on top.

Then ask. . .

Is what I am adding going to interfere with anything I know I need?

Can I budget for it or arrange it?

Can I accomplish it with excellence?