Live Production

A whole new world

I took on the task of leading a live production team at Grace Covenant Church. This church had a large online audience in spite of its older system. When I first took the job there were only 6 people total that worked on the team in total. At a smaller church that would be a great number however this was at a church of 3500 on a weekend. Over the course of a year and a half I took the team from 6 people who didn’t even know each other much less know more than the job they did, to a team of 25 that was cross trained in every position.

Below are a comparison of our live services. One from the most recent weekend as of writing this and the other is a few months prior to my arriving in this position.

The most recent week with a volunteer director

This is a new director coming through our training program and learning the ropes with a 5 camera operator shoot. This was from the weekend of June 13th 2021.

What I inherited with a volunteer director

This is from prior to my arrival. There is only one camera operator. Notice the difference in sound, cut duration, where the cameras are when someone is speaking. and the energy levels.

Notice the changes made in both the visual design as well as in the audio quality. This was all done with the exact same equipment, the only real difference is the intentionality of the team training.

Training is KEY

Due to the high skill level needed in the live video production world along with our high expectation we needed a way for the average volunteer to be able to operate a camera without taking several months. Getting a new volunteer engaged in getting experience is the key in keeping new people. We created a series of videos to give an overview of information to someone who might not have ever touched a camera before. The videos are an introduction to give a base of knowledge for a mentor to cover in person with the new team member, along with a series of tests to ensure comprehension of the information.

These videos were created by my production department apprentice Jada Smith.

Leading a team

When I took the job as the videographer for Grace Covenant, I told them I was going to build them a capable team. I did that through personal relationships with people. Every person on the team I recruited from conversations in passing. Along with recruiting the team I also created a system to train up new people. Video production is a highly technical world where you have to know exactly how things work in order to succeed. Our system takes you from not knowing anything about the video production world, to being able to be contracted out in the course of a year.

My shot at a one shot

When Covid-19 hit, it forced us all to think differently about how we do things. Our team took the opportunity to try to bring a music video vibe to a live camera production. The audio is a live recording and it is a single camera shot through the entire set. We actually cut between the different songs to swap bands from the different campuses. I made the transitions by pointing the camera at a light and using that as a transition into the next song. The entire project was filmed on a single camera on a gimbal with a Segway. This was a fun project and we learned a lot.

Other Projects

Music Work

A storybook season that used videos to hype up a whole town.

Owasso Football