New Set at Crossroads

This past week, we put up a new set at Crossroads. New backdrop, new band setup, and new lighting setup. Pics will follow, but just in case you're wondering what our lighting gear is, here's a pretty comprehensive list:

Leprecon LP-X48 console

8 2K Fresnels (6 front, 2 rear)

10 PAR 64s (all front)

8 500W Fresnels (all rear)

5 Elation PowerSpot 575s (4 in front movable truss, 1 spare)

8 Elation PowerSpot 250s (4 on stage floor, 4 in various stages of malrepair)

DMX splitter

Elation UNI-BAR DMX switch/dimmer

Reel EFX DF-50 Hazer

OK, so that's how we achieve the "magic." Here are some pics taken yesterday morning. If they don't look great, blame the iPhone, not the lighting designer (me) or the photographer (me again).

We use a different light scheme/moving background video for each song. I try my best to make the two match, both in color and style. Here's the first worship song:

Second worship song:

Third worship song:

Fourth worship song:

 Special music (offertory, which we tape for the local TV broadcast as well as the website):

Finally, the sermon. We're in a series entitled "Inaugural Address," so I wanted to do a patriotic thing with the background.

I'll try to post the sermon intro for "Inaugural Address" sometime this week. Anyway, hope you like our new lighting. I got lots of great comments on it. A little inside story...I programmed all of these scenes Friday, while I was sick. I thought everything was great until I got a text from a friend, Preston Blair, who was sitting in the balcony during the 10:45 service. He told me that the red intels shining back into the crowd were blinding him and others in his section.

Sorry, Preston, a couple of burned retinas is a small price to pay.

(Actually, I moved the light immediately after that service).

Christmas is Over...

...and I'm back to business-as-usual. This week, we finish up our new sermon intro for our new series "Inaugural Address." I may post it once it's done.

We are also working on a new set design that will incorporate some other textures than the normal white-spandex-over-shapes. We'll have some corrugated semi-transparent plastic and some perforated metal panels. I should be able to light behind the plastic, and create some interesting effects. Maybe I'll put up some pics of that too.

Anyway, hope everyone has a great 2009!

2009's Coming...

...And today we plan for it. We'll be in meetings all day, discussing our goals and dreaming together for what God has in store for Crossroads Church in 2009. We'll also do our calendar-clearing marathon, which is always...ahem...interesting. It usually involves our incredibly busy youth department vying for spots against our even-more-incredibly busy children's department. I am more than content to just sit back and watch the carnage!

Crossroads Creative/Crossroads Church Media Dept. 2009 Goals:

- Finish addition of 2 cameras (5 total)

- Better local marketing (TV/radio/print)

- Continued Crossroads Creative distribution

- New Crossroads Church website

- Train and utilize more production & presentation personnel

- More involvement in staff's & volunteers' lives

- Continue streamlining of policies & procedures

- Expand/create relationships in local arts community

- Use majority of equipment budget towards gear in new building

The last one is a direct result of us possibly not having enough money to do everything we want to do technology-wise, so I'm taking most of my equipment budget for 2009 and 2010 and, instead of using it on our current facility, putting it towards new gear in the new building.

Pray for us as we go about our 2009 planning.

One thing I am totally looking forward to is seeing my wife give her premier goals as our new women's ministry director. I'm totally proud of her.

Oh, yeah, by the way, we'll cap off the day with a trip to Baton Rouge to eat at the most beloved P.F. Chang's. It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it!

Dallas Trip, Part 5 of Many

OK, so begins Day Two of my Dallas adventure. After a great breakfast at my hotel, and catching a little of the FOX News coverage of the announcement of my new girlfriend, Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, I was off to Fellowship Bible Dallas, to meet my new friend, Brian Davis.

This was simply one of the coolest places I've ever been. They converted an entertainment complex into their worship facility, and the transformation is amazing!

The first three pics come from the first floor. This is their coffee shop. I'm not sure what this was before, but the result works for me...

This is one of their children's rooms. The entire children's facility was once a laser tag arcade. Nice.

This was once "Club 88" which was owned by Drew Pearson, who played for the Dallas Cowboys from 1937-1983. There was even a big backlit 88 in the dance floor. It had a commercial kitchen, so they decided to make it their fellowship hall.

OK, that was all on the first floor. On the second floor was a movie theater complex. There were four rooms on one side and three on the other. One side comprises their youth facility, and the other is a chapel and their auditorium. Their auditorium is actually three movie theaters all combined into one large, yet surprisingly intimate worship space.

 The third floor was just workspace for the projector rooms, plus catwalk for the complex. They took out the ceilings and converted it all into usable space. Their media facility is actually in two of the old projection rooms. How cool is that? This is the view of the second floor from one of those now-exposed catwalks.

And here I am with Brian. He's a really talented guy, and a great new friend.

Fellowship Bible was a really cool place. It was neat to see how they retrofitted their design into the space that was there before them. Great job!

OK, tomorrow, I'll post about meeting the two main guys from (and my tour of) Worship House Media.

Dallas Trip, Part 4 of Many

OK, on to the next part of my Dallas trip.  Thursday evening, we went over to Watermark Community Church to visit my new friend Ryan Howell. We got there in time to check out their tech rehearsal. All of his guys were very accommodating, and we all learned a lot from them.

Watermark's building is absolutely gorgeous. They used raw materials in a very elegant way, resulting in an unusual but beautiful worship center.

OK, the first pic. Notice the striations at the back of the room. Those are actually 2X4s separated by empty spaces all in front of insulation painted black. Oh, yeah, the 2X4s aren't sealed, so when you get to the last couple of rows, you smell the raw wood! So very cool.

This is their band rehearsing. The huge images on ether side of the stage aren't screens. Those images are projected on the walls (and they're running through their lighting console). Awesome.

Here are the sound deflection panels hanging from the ceiling. They're finish grade plywood (maple, I think) and thick-chipped OSB, hung sporadically around the room. I think there is sound treatment on top of them. So cool.

And here's Ryan. What a great guy. He's one of those dudes that, if you don't like him, it's because you have a problem!

I just can't stress enough how great each of these guys were, and Ryan was certainly no exception.

Tomorrow, and amazing transformation as a church takes over an entertainment/movie theatre/night club/laser tag complex. We'll look at Fellowship Bible Dallas and Brian Davis.

Dallas Trip, Part 2 of Many

The last week of August, I flew up to Dallas to check out some large churches there, because Crossroads Church is building a 1500-seat auditorium. I got to make some great new friends.

My first stop was at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, where Greg Atkinson serves as the Director of Technical Arts. Greg is a highly influential and well-connected guy, and I'm sure he had plenty of things he could have been doing, other than giving me the tour of their truly awesome facility.

Here are the pics...

This is their baptistry in the foyer. This photo doesn't do it justice... 

This is their coffee shop. really cool...

Here's a shot of their auditorium...

And here I am with the man...

(By the way, I'm 6 feet tall. Greg is like 9'47").

Their facility is simply beautiful, and extremely (and tastefully) well-done. We capped off our visit with a trip to La Hacienda. If you've read his blog, you've heard of it. Thanks again, Greg, for your hospitality.

Tomorrow, Fellowship Church.

Introducing the New and Improved Crossroads Creative

Well, it's finally here:  the new and improved Crossroads Creative site. It's been a long time coming, but we did it (finally). No new logo as of yet, but I got tired of waiting for us all to make up our minds. Logos are hard!!

Anyway, we have 114 pieces, some of which are actually packages, plus an interactive search. We have four product categories:

- Countdowns

- Sermon Starters (with PowerPoint title and background slides)

- Sermon Illustrations

- Video Announcements (with full-res Quick Time movies for customization)

 Check it out here and let me know what you think!

Next up on the horizon is a 50,000-piece email blast, which will start going out this week.

More Accidental Progress...

OK, since our service from Hades last Friday, a couple of things have happened:

1. ProPresenter's update is out, with the fix for the problem we had with the videos.  Great job, guys!

2. We have a new lighting console on the way. We decided to get a new one after the following occurred:

The console that was (and still is) wigging out is actually a rental for our regular console that was having the same issues. During our staff meeting Tuesday, my pastor asked when I was taking the console out to be repaired, and when I informed him that it was out, and that the faulty one was actually the rental, he gave me a funny look. I then explained that I had just got the info for the return authorization, and that it should be all good once we had the board repaired. At that point, our youth pastor spoke up and said that even thought they had theirs repaired, it was still giving them issues (the same ones, BTW). With that bit of info out there, my pastor looked at me and simply said, "Let's just get a new one."

Fine with me, but here's the kicker:  he then says, "Turn something in for my board meeting tomorrow night."

OK, so, to say that I know nothing about lighting consoles is giving me too much credit! So, I sent out text messages, emails, and made some calls. I was surprised to get so many replies, but in a way, it made matters worse, since NO TWO PEOPLE had the same suggestion. The guy from whom we buy almost all of our gear gave me some suggestions, and I finally settled on a Lecprecon LP-X48. It's more than enough for what we need, and it'll be here soon.

BTW, the three wiggy consoles were all Zero88 FROG consoles. Ours are both FAT FROGs, and the rental is a Leap FROG (pictured).

0 for 3 from Zero88, which is a shame, because I've really enjoyed programming on our FAT FROG. It's kind of a sentimental thing, I guess. It's the first (and only) console I've ever done ANYTHING on. Hopefully whoever buys mine after it's repaired will have better luck, and I hope my Leprecon does the same for me (pun fully intended!).

I Hate Sprint

Okay, so last night, I get a text message from my boss. It was regarding a meeting I had with our worship pastor and our lead PA engineer at Crossroads Church. He simply wanted to know how the meeting went.  I sent a reply, but I got the ever-so-increasingly-familiar "The network is not responding now" message after I hit SEND. That was around 8:30 last night.

This is me at 9:00 pm, a half-hour after the first message...

...and this is me at 10:35 pm, two hours after the failed text chat...

...and this is me this morning at 9:59 am, 13 1/2 hours after my boss should have had contact from me, answering his simple question...

The culprit? My house's metal roof. It's aluminum, made to look like cedar shakes. Five years ago, during Hurricane Lili, other roofs in the neighborhood were pretty badly damaged, but not mine. Here's a pic of the roof right above my front door. Pay close attention to the white stucco wall just to the left of the doorstep area. I'll get to that in a minute...

Here is the only place in my house that my phone works.  When I get a call, I have to go sit in my kitchen. We have this little solarium area that overlooks my goldfish pond. Notice the wall and overhang on the left side of the pic? That's my front door area...

OK, so you might be saying, "Well, doesn't your metal roof kill all cell phones, regardless of the carrier?" and "once you try to send a text, if it doesn't go through, it's too late. Try re-sending it." I'm glad you asked, and I know that already. Here's a pic of me with my wife's phone. She has AT&T. Go back and look at the lack of bars on my phone then notice all those bars on hers...

So, where am I going with this, and what does it have to do with the relevant use of media in a church setting? I've been desperately trying to get my boss/pastor to switch us to AT&T. I successfully got him and our executive pastor to switch to Mac, so why not AT&T and the iPhone? And, if we're going to be relevant, shouldn't we have stuff that works?

I'll keep you updated. What about you? Which carrier are you on, and how's your service? Am I alone in this? Where are the devoted Sprint-ers?

The End of an Era

OK, remember a while back, I blogged about our PAS cluster horns blowing? Well, as of 11:09 am CST, they're gone. A local audio company has worked us a deal on replacing them with a NEXO rig.  Paul McCasland and his guys came over this morning, and within an hour, we had these suckers down (by means of two hand cranks located above the ceiling - yikes!), apart, and on the truck. In a couple of weeks, the NEXO PS15s will be in place and we'll be a rockin'! We currently have a pair of PS15s and a Pair of PS8s temped in, and we're running full stereo (the way God intended).

This change represents the official end of all the gear of the previous regime, all the (old and antiquated) gear I inherited when I got this job. We how have all new QSC amps (3 years ago), Shure PSM-600 wireless in-ear monitors, a new Yamaha LS9 console, and the NEXOs are on their way. We're also about to do some major stuff with our TV audio, but that's a post for a later day...

Progress. Nothin' like it.