What is Visual Worship?

I’ve finally put together some videos trying to demonstrate and explain what I do when mixing visuals.  I’ve previously defined what I mean by the term ‘Christian Visualist‘ which is wider than simply the video or other visuals behind or beside song words during sung worship but includes other elements of the physical space, the meeting is taking place in.  However, it does tend to be during the sung worship that there is a freedom to VJ or mix visuals ‘off the cuff’ or as inspired by the Holy Spirit…  that’s what I’m trying to show here:

Visuals in Children’s work

Just got back from tech’ing for the children’s ministry at CLAN this year.  No time yet to write anything up, but here’s some relevant pics of setup at least…

start of the week didn’t look good – no black out (which we had for the past three years but seems to have been left out this year), smaller fast folds and weeker projectors didn’t fill us with confidence.  It meant we cut some major aspects of our plans straight away and we are all sure we could have had a better program with the ability to use full visuals and lighting, but no point on dwelling on it.

This was taken when the parents come in to see what the program was like.  You can see that some patchy blackout has been added to try to help.  Also, here you can see six TVs around the stage, this is predominantly for the younger (smaller) children along the front for whom the side screens would be difficult to see.  Due to the light levels we used the same image on all screens to avoid confusion (the plan was to throw different images on different screens)

Here is a photo taken during worship, you can see I tried using some lighting to aid excitement and atmosphere but there was no way to overlay words on video as it wasn’t easy to see the words in these conditions.

The last problem we faced was that there just wasn’t enough macs to go around – only three macs between two just isn’t enough :-/

ArKaos Grand VJ Performance troubleshooting tip

[update:30June2009 - see also this info added to the ArKaos blog]

[I'm still learning lots about ArKaos GrandVJ software, so posting notes, tips, etc. for my own memory and that may be of use to others, however I'm no expert and am gathering this here from manuals, forums and hands on experience and expressing it in my own words - if I get anything wrong and you know better please let me know and I'll update as appropriate.]

Keeping an eye on performance…

There are two figures in the bottom Status Bar of Grand VJ ‘Graph‘ and ‘Total‘ AS FAR AS I CAN TELL these work something like this:

Graph is the fps being sent by the GrandVJ engine to the Graphics card / graphics processor
Total is the fps being sent out by the Graphics card / graphics processor

The figures change in real time according to what you are doing in the layers, how many are active, what effects are in place, etc.  It is important to learn what these two numbers are when everything is OK, so that you know what ‘normal’ looks like.  Then when you see a problem on screen with a choppy or stuttering image you can use these figures to tell you if the problem is with the mac or somewhere down the line as follows:

• If TOTAL is in the ‘normal’ range then the problem isn’t with the MAC
• If TOTAL is low but GRAPH is ‘normal’, the most likely problem is computing the image to be output (1)
• If TOTAL is low and GRAPH is low, the most likely problem is pulling video from the HDD and decompressing it (2)

(1) if the problems with the graphics card/processor computing the image can be resolved by reducing the complexity of the output, i.e. the number of visible layers, resolution of footage, effects being applied, etc.

(2) if the problem is pulling video from HDD and decompressing, there isn’t much you can do ‘on-the-fly’ but when you have time try the same setup with the same footage pulled from another location to confirm the problem is HDD access or decompressing.  If it is HDD find a better solution, if the problem is decompressing converting the footage to a better format/codex should help.

Use of Mixed Media in a Labyrinth

As mentioned in previous ‘how to’ post, at St Silas we have set up this large Labyrinth for the past 4 or 5 years as a Good Friday ‘journey’ come ‘meditation’ and it has been well received.  People find it a useful way to take some time out before the holiday weekend to think about the impact and implications of Jesus death before we go on to celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

There are many ways to make a Labyrinth, but as I’ve not come across many groups that use all the elements we do I thought it worth laying out some of the choices we have made in making this happen.  I’m not trying to say this is the only or best way to do this sort of thing, just what we find works and I welcome comments.

Firstly the physical environment.  As described in the previous post we ceate ‘walls’ which are taller than head height.  The start of the walk uses black fabric and later this changes to white.  Around most corners is an installation or ’station’, these vary from simply a sign to play a given mp3 track at this point to videos to watch, and physical props to interact with.

The ‘walls’ as well as the lighting, use of personal mp3 players, etc. are designed to give an environment where each person is isolated from distractions and can emerse themselves in the experience as much as possible.

Audio: MP3 tracks, as mentioned the use of headphones/ear buds helps to isolate the user of the labyrinth and help the immersiveness of the experience.  The tracks themselves have been created specially for the labyrinth by mixing music with readings and instructions.  The pace is carefully planned and the end of each track has been extended following feedback in the first couple of years so that people can remain at any station for longer than instructed and press ‘next’ when they are ready to continue.  Each year we have changed elements of the labyrinth and so each year some of these tracks have been remixed. We also make sure we have some printed transcripts of the audio for any visitors with hearing difficulties.

Also, worth mentioning that even though people have personal headphones on they will still hear ambient sound from outside the labyrinth.  As we offer tea & coffee at the end of the labyrinth and with team members chatting, handing out players, people coming in and out, etc. we simply can’t keep the place silent.  We have tried to address this by playing music as ‘audio camouflage’ and have found that classical music is best, especially nothing with a strong beat.

Installations, most of the ’stations’ have something to watch, look at or interact with in a variety of ways.  Many of these involve simply watching a video loop most of which were specially made and designed to have no (or little) narrative.  This means that people could begin to view the video at any point in the video without necessarily loosing any of the impact.  One, however was effectively a slide show of stills mixed with words from a poem, which is a lot harder to loop and some people did report that this station didn’t work for them.

We also used two still images, a drawing of Jesus stripped naked and a photograph representing Jesus falling.

This year there were three stations that required some sort of interaction and it is hard to know how well these worked:

- the first has a large piece of wood that represents the cross piece of the cross of Christ and the audio track asks people to think about the cross being given to Jesus to carry and invites them to pick it up to feel the weight.  However, very few people tend to do this, I think because it is fairly early on in the labyrinth and people are still finding their way.

- the next example is new this year, where we had a very large cross built and the instruction was much more direct as people were to hammer a nail into the cross representing their individual part in Christ having to be put on the cross.

- lastly, is a bit more subtle.  After listening to the track and watching a video people walk through the screen on which the video is being projected.  By doing that they become part of the image and go through the cross in a physical as well as spiritual way.  I’m not sure how many people notice or get that bit, but it is deliberate.

Multi-Sensory, already mentioned is the use of sight, sound and touch, we also use flowers and strong smelling oils at different stations but as yet haven’t found a way to introduce taste (other than hot cross buns with your coffee at the end).

Accessibility, we have given some thought to this, insofar as we provide a printed alternative to the audio and while a great deal of the labyrinth is visual we think that nothing is missed if only the audio was available.  We could also open up an alternative route for wheelchair users if need be because one part of the labyrinth goes on and off our stage.

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Why am I writing about all this:

The main reason for this blog is to demonstrate and discuss the use of visuals in worship, but the thing to learn from a labyrinth is that video could be used as a stand alone station – run a video on a plasma screen near the entrance or in a quiet corner for meditation, etc.

Video/visuals within worship doesn’t have to be choosing what image or video to put behind words.  As I’ve mentioned previously it could be visuals projected elsewhere on the building or during different parts of the service / meeting / event, not just singing or to transition between parts of the service.

Case Study: St Silas Carol Service 2008

The Carol Service or Carols by Candlelight service at St Silas is always a big event and has had a variety of implications for visuals in past years.   I thought it would be worth making a short case-study from this year’s event as there is a good mixture of different techniques and effects in the use of video, VJing, art and lighting.

Overview:
The carol service takes a traditional pattern of carols and readings with a message towards the end.  Some of the carols are performed by the choir, soloists and band and some include the congregation.  The readings were either presented on video or by two readers (from the church pulpit which isn’t normally used any more, so using church architecture for visual impact).  The talk/sermon/message bit is towards the end of the service, after the ‘main plot’ of the Christmas story has been presented and the song following it usually has a responsive element.

Setup:
Starting with the physical set up of the building, we don’t normally have a choir and this one took up the entire width of our stage so the band were put off to one side.  As historically this service is often busy and some times people have to be turned away, so we squeeze in as many chairs as we can while trying to give people good sight lines.

Above the stage we hung a large triangular canopy, 8m wide and 9.7m to the peak. This canopy was custom made this year by Scenegineering for this service with the idea of using it for lighting and projector effects and to frame the stage in a different way.  We also hung two large pieces of fabric behind the stage on either side of the normal 10’ x 8’ fast fold screen, these sheets were swept back from top to bottom to give a similar effect as the canopy and meaning that we could uplight all this fabric with LED lighting to wash them with different colours.

Other lighting was more functional, to light the choir from the front and back and to provide controllable ‘house-lights’.

Lighting equipment supplied by Great Big Resources:

• 10 LED RGB lights
• 4 Fresnel lights to back light the choir
• 1 Fresnel for the readings from the pulpit
• 2 Par-cans to light the roof spaces for effect
• 6 Fresnels to light the full with of the choir and the rest of the stage (because you never know where the main speaker will speak from or move around).
• 6 Dichroic flood lights (gradated between two colours) pointing at the roof for general ‘house lights’ before and after the service.

As well as lighting we had three projectors ‘painting’ the walls, rafters and canopy with visuals as well as the more usual /functional projector on the usual 10×8 fastfold screen in the center of the stage (and one last projector up in the organ loft for the choir to see their song words).

Control:

Here is most of the ‘tech area’ during the carol service (click on the image link for interactive view).  Roughly from left to right we have…

• Fat Frog lighting desk (operated by Mark)
• St Silas analogue lighting desk for main stage lights (also Mark’s domain)
• Numark DVD01 dual DVD players with distro and monitors
• Panasonic WJ-AVE55 video mixer with preview monitor
• Two domestic DVD players are burried in there somewhere
• Mac Powerbook Pro running arKaos grandVJ, this was driving the three projectors that covered the canopy, walls and roof space.
• (not shown) St Silas PC running Easy Worship to provide song words and powerpoint slides (operated by the EWop Bunny)

(the right hand side of the above image is the PC and desk belonging to ’sound-land’ so not relevant to this post)

Despite apperancies this is a fairly simple setup, there are two outputs – the ‘main screen’ on stage and the ‘rafter projectors’ (three projectors to cover the differnet areas of the church roof and canopy above choir).  The main screen is cotrolled by the Panasonic Video Mixer which can choose from DVD players, EasyWorship feed and the feed from GrandVJ on the Mac.  While the rafter projectors come only from GrandVJ.

Visuals created for and used at this event:
I’ve put together a sample of most of the actual videos and visuals used on the night (note that not all of the audio is from our Carol Service, but it should give you an idea of what was going on).  All these videos created and displayed by DeepRiver with specific credit to Alan who made the ‘John 1′ video.

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The Final Result:

This is edited with my notes of what we used and how this looked during the service.

this video was a quick test of some of the settings we planned to use recorded during the last rehearsal.

Resources

I finally managed to port across most of the relevant links from another site to the Resources page of this site.  I’ve still got some stuff to add in time, but that will do for now.  It is a very distracting task becuase you end up re-visiting sites you haven’t been to for a while, cleaning out dead links and finding new gems.

Links are the back bone of the web so if you have any suggestions for things to add let me know.

Magic Whiteboard

Not very techy or ‘VJ’ but I have to make a note of this product somewhere:  Some time ago we did a service where we wanted to have people write on the pillars in the church.  To do this we had to wrap the pillars with clingfilm to ensure that the pen didn’t go through onto the paintwork and then wrap paper round.  It was time consuming, and just a lot of hassle although it did work.

At the planning meeting for this month’s Deeper we decided to do something similar (draw a vine on the pillar and have people write on it or stick notes to it).  By chance a couple of days later I caught a product on BBC’s Dragon’s Den which looked like it might be worth getting hold of.   It is called Magic Whiteboard, and is a roll of statically charged plastic sheets (60cmx80cm – the size of a flip chart sheet).  The sheets stick to the wall due to the static, when I say stick the best way I can describe it is like when you start to hang wallpaper and can slide it around on the wall.  We tested it on a pillar for three weeks with no problem.  Next, as well as being able to write on this without the pen coming through in any way you can also stick paper onto the Magic Whiteboard material.  The main thing I was unsure about from the web site and video demonstrations was how it would work onto the curved stone surface of a church pillar rather than a smooth plaster or wall-paper finish in an office setting.  We had no problem at all, we put up a test sheet in a corner of the church and left it for three weeks with the heating coming and going and there was no loss of ’stick’. A fantastic product worth trying out, the only negative I would say is that it seems a little expensive but we found it worth it and have started coming up with more ways of using this.  Now, if only the sister product Magic Blackout came in sizes big enough for stained glass windows…

Video as art ?

Over on my personal blog I posted about an exhibition I had a video installation in.  This is the first time that I’ve done something purely as an art exhibit and not part of a service or event.  It was an interesting process to go through to have to let go of a piece and leave it running in the hope that people will ‘get it’.

The exhibition was themed on ‘Grace’ and was called ‘Stations of Grace’.  The work I put in was created earlier this year for our Good Friday Labyrinth at St Silas.  Because of the layout of the labyrinth the approach to the video was controlled and the conditions were ideal for what I was trying to present.  However as part of an exhibition where people are viewing different art work in various media and where the approach was different and the projection area smaller I had my doubts over how it would work.

Mixing video during an event (live VJing) is vulnerable in one way, but you are in control of what goes up, what works or doesn’t work, you carry the can.  However, this was vulnerable in a different way because I had to put the work on – set is up and leave it.

Life through the Cross:

The video itself is reasonably simple, a slow motion loop showing street scenes around Glasgow with the outline of a cross (the proportions and orientation of which are taken from Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross. Inside this outline (through the cross) the image is clear and normal.  Outwith the cross only the outlines of the image are shown in a monochrome effect.  This in itself works, I think, as the view ‘through the cross’ represents ‘life to the full’ (John 10:10) while outwith the cross it is ‘a poor reflection as in a mirror’ 1 Cor 13:12).  However, what makes this an installation is that it is front projected onto a screen with a split in it.  Therefore the viewer should be standing between the projector and the screen (this didn’t really work in this installation) by doing so their silhouette appears on the image.  Lastly the viewer should pass throug the opening in the screen to move on – therefore going through the cross to move on.  Again, this didn’t always work in the exhibition becuase some people went around which is a much more natural thing to do.

As an installation it seems to have been well received, it fitted the theme of the exhibition well and was very different from the other works presented which were mostly paintings.  I’m glad I got involved because this piece had the interactive and there for ‘installation’ element.  Most of the videos I create don’t have that extra dimension to them so I’m not sure whether I would be involved in something like this again.

Is it art if you just have a video looping?

Getting back into it…

I started this blog in order to keep a record of events and projects as well as ideas and thoughts about the use of visuals within worship.  Unfortunately two very time consuming non-video projects took over my summer so I’ve had very little time to devote to any of ‘my own’ work – including posting here.

It has only been in the past few days that I’ve been able to fire up Final Cut (writing this while I’m waiting for a render) and work on a new video loop and to start to think of a new way of presenting these visuals in the same old space.

This Sunday, we start a new season of monthly Deeper services and because I’ve only just cleared something else I’ve not been able to give it any thought till now.  But looking at the outline of the talk for this week and where we are taking it over the next six or seven months I’m really excited to get going again.  Practically this means that I don’t have much new footage for bacground loops, and I’m not going to try to knock myself out to produce stuff for the sake of it becuase I don’t think the outcome will be good enough.

So my plan is one new loop, a new layout of screens (hopefully) and a new use of music.  Also this is a team effort and someone else has put together an opening video that will be used for the series (and should grow over the months) and Gordon (who is speaking) has put together some key visuals and chosen some stuff we have used elsewhere.  So all in there will be enough of a new feel to the event.

Worship, eyes closed or eyes open

[I have already posted this elsewhere, but I think it fits here better, so sorry for the cross posting]

I’ve been to two large Christian events recently. Worship Central’s visit to Glasgow and the CWW National Gathering.

Unfortunately in both cases I wasn’t able to get to the whole thing – life has just been too annoying lately with the amount of stuff that gets in the way – so I didn’t want to post too much about either, but one thing I’ve been going over since Worship Central is how much the total lack of visual stimulus distracted me from worship.  How can the lack of something distract me?

If there were awards for worship services (please don’t tell me there are), then the one at Worship Central would have won across the board as it ticks all the ‘right’ boxes.  Great worship leaders, good band, fantastic mix of songs well arranged and structured across the set and a ‘congregation’ of worship leaders and musicians who had waited for this sold out event, queued outside, anticipated and were ready to go.  So a win-win situation, what could possibly go wrong.  Me, apparently.

Yes, I did ‘enjoy’ the worship if you are aloud to say that sort of thing, and yes it did help me to focus on, think about and I suppose ‘meet with’ God, which I guess is the point.  But I just got so bored of staring at white text on a black background.  The church we met in had some banners up – these were all just text – and there was a nice big stained glass window (which had three characters in it that I have no idea who they were, it wasn’t obvious to me).  I got so bored I realised that I was looking around (while singing) looking for something that pointed to God and I couldn’t find it.

Jump forward two weeks – Church Without Walls National Gathering at Ingliston.  Again, I could only make part of the last day and I know there were lots of different styles of worship, singing, praying, service, etc. all going on but I only managed to get to two (more or less).   Sunday evening’s closing session for the national gathering was in the program as “Worship with Jonny Baker, Praise with Stuart Townend” which was interesting because we often use the words ‘Worship’ and ‘Praise’ to mean the same thing – singing.

Jonny Baker has posted here about what he did in that hour with an outline of the order things happened and links to resources.  Very useful if you were there but it doesn’t give the feel of what happened and neither can I. What I can say is that the visual stimulus which matched the music style and almost ancient chanting style of singing I found really helpful to quickly focus, become still and be with God.  Some of the visuals were specific to match what was being said, sung or read others less so but even on this scale (2-3000 people in a large venue with a stage fit for a rock concert) there was still an intimacy and sense of interaction.  This style of led worship with mixes of readings, liturgy, stories, etc. included asking for our physical participation in response to what was being said, it included a time to reflect what we wanted prayed for and to take away something to pray for a stranger – it was in other words, very well structured and rounded time of worship (not just singing songs)

Following this I stayed for the first song or two in the “Praise by Stuart Townend’ section, but I was too distracted, had a headache and wasn’t able to focus at all on it.  When I realised I was just singing the words for no good reason I left to go and think more about what had happened earlier.

So, are these the two extremes of contemporary worship – a guitar based band, leading song after song with the aim of getting us to think about God (presumably) and a bloke with a Mac using chilled music, singing, visuals and written words.  Perhaps it’s not just a visual thing as I had in mind when I started this post, not simply a case of eyes opened or eyes closed – perhaps it is that I’ve got a short attention span and prefer to have multiple things happening (visuals to look at, words to think about, music to listen to) and not just look at the band playing their instruments.