Foldback - Sunday August 17th

Comments and reflections on the worship services for Sunday, August 17th

First of all, thank you all who helped get everything set up and dialed in before the AM service - especially Melissa, Lionel and Jonathan who showed up extra early to make sure everything was ready. I was running later than expected, it was a great feeling (but weird) to walk into the building as the service was starting and have everything up and running smoothly (or at least the appearance of smooth!) Thank you!

Changes - Setup, Sound-check and Call Times

There have been a lot of little changes and some big changes in the way we do services, and to keep up with all of it we need to change the way we do things as a team. We also have had problems each week that should be avoidable, and these changes address those also. One of the first changes we are making is with call times and our pre-service schedules.

AM Schedule

8:30am - 9:00am - Setup stage, turn on systems.
9:00 - 9:20 - Line check (that is verify each microphone and instrument input) and sound check (verify levels on DVDs \ CDs and any instrumentalist who show up early)
9:20-9:30 - Prayer and Service Rundown - instead of praying after everything has gone wrong during rehearsal, we are going to ALL gather at 9:20 to pray, then run thru any special service notes or comments.
9:30-10:15 - Rehearsal, Everyone needs to be at their post and running their systems thru as much rehearsing as possible. This means putting on your headsets and working thru all the words, camera shots, graphics, transistions, lighting cues, solos, etc.
10:15 - 10:25 - Get into pre-service mode, then you have a few minutes to do whatever you need to do.
10:25 - everyone to their post for services

PM will be similar
4:15-5:00 - Setup
4:50 - 5:00 - Line check and sound check
5:20 - 5:30 - Prayer and Service Rundown
5:00 - 6:00 - Rehearsal
service

So, who needs to be there when? IF you look at the crew schedule Melissa sent out this week, it has call times broken down by what position you are serving in.

8:30 am - Audio Leads / those who can help set up - recommend FOH, MON and A4V if you are able to.

9:00 am and 4:15 pm- FOH, MON, Producer(s)

9:00 am and 4:45 pm - Lights, Video Director, A4V

9:20 am and 5:00 pm - EVERYONE ELSE - Camera Operators, Graphic Operators.

We will meet in the media room at 9:20 and 5:20 for prayer and to quickly go over anything special for the service, then join rehearsal by 5:30.

A few notes:

- during rehearsals, leave the house lighting on rehearsal so the musicians, praise team and Robert can see, we want to run thru the lighting cues to check and make sure the right areas of the platform are lit, and try out any changes necessary.

- We will try this for a month and re-evaluate how it is going and make changes as necessary.

Other

I don't have many notes on the services themselves as I was too tired or preoccupied to make very many mental notes. So the few that I have:

Audio:
PM- Monitor mixer, don't forget to unmute your worship team leader at the end of the service - it is hard to lead the worship if no-one can hear you :-) (sorry David, I couldn't resist!)

Everyone did a great job with our guest speaker, making sure his testimony and such did not leave the room, thank you!

PM - I thought the music mixes sounded really good - a great variety of "style" and instruments featured.

The lighting felt good both AM and PM, good job.

Thanks team. Feel free to leave your comments below using the comment feature - always interested in what you noticed, your thoughts, and opinions.

Foldback - Sunday August 10

August is flying by - with so much going on, I want to make sure we slow down and review how everything is going often enough, and make changes as we need too. I have lots of notes, comments and observations from this weekend's services, but overall they went very smooth, everyone did a great job, and it was a pleasure to worship with y'all.

Problems: Seems we always have some problems we are dealing with. Luckily y'all kept these under control and very few people (if anyone) knew we were having issues.

• IMAGVT is crashing and having the network problems again. It spontaneously rebooted a couple times before the AM service. My first guess is power supply, or motherboard issues. I disabled the network and unplugged the control surface and it ran fine thru both services. I put it on the list to look into this week.
• For the Facility team, the HVAC, bookstore unit, it not coming on properly in the AM. I shut off the disconnect outside and turned it back on, and it started up.... Speaking of HVAC, please help me remember to turn back up the sanctuary setpoints after the music part of worship.
• Wireless - the Blue wireless mic switch is acting up - we need to see if we can fix it, if not ship back. I swapped mic bodies with the extra (Robert's old one), so it is the spare in the drawer that needs looked at.
  

General Comments:
Please remember to worship and study with us as a body. The media room, while a "working environment" is also a worship environment. Let's keep in a worshipful attitude, let's watch our pride, and let's make sure we always defer to Truth in Love. I want to make sure we are worship with the congegation as a part of the body, not just worship thru our service (or worse yet, just "working").

Thank you all those who are helping with the lighting. It looked SO MUCH BETTER this week with the lights working!

Audio

• Blessed Be Your Name sounded very distorted - not sure why, as it was not excessively loud, but the mix just didn't work. We were hitting the limiters on the processors, but only hitting 92-93db. My only suggestion is start listening for what it sticking out, and pull it back, then start pulling back on instruments and vocals that are not being "featured" on that song. It just felt like there was TOO much. So Pull back the keyboard, the orchestra instruments that aren't up front in the song, make sure we have a solid bass line and there aren't multiple instruments fighting for the bass line.
• PM, Loved the changeup, felt good to do something a little different, it was refeshing. The Mix sounded great, especially on "Blessed is the one" and We fall down - both were excellent!
• PM, the first couple songs the praise team was a little too soft behind the music - was this a mix problem or perhaps were they having trouble hearing themselves because of the new location?
  
• PM, I noticed Juan's mic was a little low on his face during the prayer time, that is why I think it sounded airy. Sounded better by sermon time as I think he adjusted it.
  

Video

• Camera 4 Operators - make sure you are clear of the aisle / walkways at corporate prayer time (and children's time and other times people are moving). Directors, help watch for this and make sure they are not on and free to move before these times. If necessary remind them to move.
• PM -I liked the background with Juan lower - the empty choir steps behind him were a nice texture with a little bit of 3D elements
• Camera 4 Operators - hate to pick on you this weekend, but we need to make a little change in how things are done. At sermon time, Camera 4 operators - DON'T LEAVE the CAMERA until the director gives you the OKAY that the shot is good. DIRECTORS! this means you have to remember to set up the camera 4 shot and release the operators.
  

A4V

• Word of God Speak mix was perfect! Good job!
• remember to check your mix multiple places, just to get a feel for it - @ master control, halls, headphones. At first, I know the praise team was buried, it sounded fine in the control room but you could really hear the difference at master control. I adjusted the monitors a little to try to make it easier to mix well for the other situations, let me notice if you can tell a difference.
• PM - mixes sounded good. On Open the eyes of my heart the low frequencies were building up a lot, but I think we got it cleaned up by the next song.
  

IMAG

• titles were very good this week, up there long enough to read, but then went away before the scripture was read or people prayed.
• What do you think about the words on the screen while the soloist are singing? Word of God Speak went well, except the screen that Robert wanted the congregation to come in on was late. Also the "Word of God Speak" tag probably should have been on a separate screen
• I liked having the new members names on screen when they are introduced. Melissa suggested next time having all the names on one screen, I think that would work too.
• one PM change, we will not include welcome screens in the worship, but we may start putting them up behind Matt as he welcomes us to worship.
  

Lighting

• Again, Wow, what a difference having working lights makes! The video looked so much better, the musicians could see to read their music and the congegation knew that there were actually people on the stage! Thanks guys for all the help, let's keep working and get the rest of them done!
• AM Perfect timing on intro / scripture. It made it very smooth starting of the service.
• Remember to do the lighting cues in the order shown on the sheet - typically Stage cue first, then house lighting. Also remember on the house lights you can hit ENTER again and speed up the change, hitting ENTER a third time makes the change instantaneous.
  

Got Any comments? Questions? Use the comment link below to leave comments or questions or observations.

** a heads up, this coming week we have a guest speaker that we must stop all recording and broadcast for. Pay attention!

Foldback - Sunday, August 3, 2008

What a wonderful time of worship. Thank you to all the team members who served so faithfully this weekend, your efforts are what makes these services flow so smooth, allowing us all to worship without distraction!

A few notes, observations and comments from the services

General

• Lots of little equipment issues, most relatively unnoticed, but means more work for all of us!
• The network card in the IMAG VT seems to have died.... I can get it connected, but as soon as we try to move a large file, the connection drops and comes back limited.... It is a motherboard based card, so we need to disable it and replace it with an internal card.
• VT IMAG locked up right after service
• Webcast computer decided to crash right at the end of the service. Lock up. Need to look into this?
• Cell phone noise thru the sound system - a really loud (on stage anyways) cell phone interference sound during the closing by Pastor Juan. I stepped away from the mixer and it didn't go away, not sure where it was coming from, but a good reminder that we need to be careful how close to the equipment we allow our cell phones to come to the media equipment.
  

Audio

• AM Sounded good and tight on the platform. Bass was clean and everything stayed together most of the service.
• We need to get another "stomp box" for Matt's vocal mic - there was times he wanted off that it was still on, and the one we have for the mandolin has proven to be very helpful!
• PM, Sanctuary mix felt good.
  

IMAG

• AM IMAG - leave B&W announcement loop running til the countdown hits 0:00 - then go to black screen until Elder walks up, then name....
• IMAG director - countdown played back on DDR3 using DSK (I will get this working....) instead of switching to it - this way it overlays the scripture and countdown over the B&W announcement loop. We are going to try it this way for a while and see how it works.
• AM - what happened with the scripture? (it appeared early, then went off and took a while to come on when Robert needed it.) On things like that, take it off after the congregation reads it. I think Robert finished reading the whole passage.
• PM - WHERE DID THE BUMPER GO???? (okay, I know, I was sitting right there and didn't make it over there in time either.)
• Thirds (Names, song only titles, etc) should only be on screen for ~20 seconds unless noted otherwise - then go to the background. It feels weird and distracting when someone's name is on the screen while they are reading scripture or praying. [of course, that might just be me?]
• Timing was great on almost everything today- song screns transitions timing was good, things came up on time, etc - and when Robert asked for something else, it was up there right and quick.
  

A4V

• PM - Noticed buzz on some Vocal praise team mic - not sure what it was, but make sure to turn off any mics that are not being used, especially during the sermon.
• AM - The pre-service music started off loud in the halls - I called down stairs and Paul corrected it - but this seems to be an regular issue and I am wondering how we can address it.
  
• PM - Likewise, the sermon was too loud in the halls.
• Any ideas on how we can establish and monitor the proper level for the halls? I know am part of the problem was the foyer speakers never got turned back up.
  

Lights

• AM - Light cues were timed well - the only thing I thought was a little late was at the very beginning, we really want to go to the first cue (Cue 4?) then the countdown hits 0:05 (five seconds left)
• AM - where were the Narrator lights during communion? Oh, yeah, they are labeled DRAMA.... but you should have been able to read my mind, right? (to be fair, John says he did use them....)
• PM - I didn't notice anything, so it must have been good!
• The lift is here this week, so let's get replacing bulbs!
  

Video

• PM - no napping on the camera!
  
• Directors, pay attention to the live shot during transitions - I have noticed this is where we all tend to be stareing at the preview monitor setting up the next shot when the shot goes bad on the main monitor and we don't notice it.
• Camera Operators, likewise, if you are the hot shot, and the shot is bad / wrong, do what you can to softly and smoothly correct it. For example, if you are tight on the pulpit and someone is praying, they say Amen and walk off, slowly start zooming out for a wideshot of the stage as they walk away - especially if you think your camera is still live!
  

Thank you for all you do. Got any comments, observations or need to defend your actions? (:-)' Comment below!

Useful Software and Webware

Just a quick post - a couple very helpful and useful tools.

Need to take and organize notes? Several different people all suggested Evernote to me recently, so I signed up and wow, I really like it - very handy. It is software / webware / pdaware enabled and seems to go a great job keeping everything in sync!

And love drawing and organizing in Visio but can't afford it? Check out Dia (sorry, not available for mac at this time..... still looking for a free alternative)

thank you to all who passed along these great programs to me!

wow, what a week

Yes, I am still here, still going to post. It has been a busy few weeks.

Last weekend my family and I headed to Memphis for my wife's 20th year class reunion. The children had a great time with their grandparents, and Amy and I had too much fun enjoying time together and with her old class mates - but that's another story! Then I headed to WorshipGod08....

I do what to praise God for this past week though. A lot has gone on, and I have seen Him work in some awesome ways. A little background. Pastor Juan had suggested that we, the staff leadership should attend this conference together back some time ago. We had made our reservations and our wonderful travel planner had booked our flights. I was excited as this was to be the first time we as a staff had gone together to any of these conferences and knew it was going to be an awesome time.

It was only after the plane tickets had been booked that I found out we would be flying thru Memphis on the way to Gaithersburg, MD.... yes, Memphis, where my wife's class reunion would be taking place. Well, that seems awful silly of me to drive back to Austin on a Monday so I could fly back to Memphis (on the way to Maryland) on Tuesday..... why don't I just plan on catching up with them at the Memphis airport on Tuesday and let my family stay in Memphis for the week? Great Idea.... or at least I thought so.

I tried to change my ticket, but it was going to cost $450, almost twice the price of the original ticket. So after talking to a few people I decided I would check in on line for my flight, "miss" my flight from Austin, and "catch up" in Memphis.... after all, the airlines I usally fly always seemed to help me get to my final destination, right? BAD IDEA. First, this wasn't the airlines I usally fly. Second, well, read on.

I check in online Tuesday AM, and I notice a little disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying if you don't notify the airlines before the missing the first leg of your flight the travel ticket is null and void..... so I call the airline to let them know what I am going to do, and am told I can't do that. I am told that my ticket will be cancelled if I do, and it is going to cost me $1680 to change my ticket. Thanks, but no thanks. So I start praying. I know I am suppose to be there. We have others start praying. I know I need to try everything I can. So Amy takes me to the airport (memphis) - sure enought, I don't have a reservation anymore (the plane had already left Austin at this point, Matt tells me later they came on the plane right before shutting the door asking if Jeffrey Jones was anywhere on the plane....) BUT, what's this? I can still check my luggage? Okay, I wasn't planning on it, but yes, one bag to Baltimore!

So I go thru secuity (yes, I had my boarding pass that I had printed earlier, yes they questioned me about being there before my flight had arrived...) and go back to the gate. I ask the gate agent to check my seat assignment while I prayed furvently. No sir, you are not listed in that seat..... infact sir, you are not listed in any seat.... here let me take care of that for you.... Praise you Jesus!

Now I admit, I was nervous as anything till the plane took off from Memphis, but I did meet up with the pastors and we got on the plane and left on time. So I made it..... BUT.

Brenda, who arranges our travel (THANKYOU!) called to confirm my return trip, and sure enough, my ticket was cancelled. The airlines said there was NO WAY I should have been allowed on the flight there, and there was NO WAY I would be allowed on the flights home. I started thinking about what I was going to do on my extended stay in D.C...... But Brenda was able to work out a return trip for me after begging and pleading with the suppervisors at the airlines, who assured her this was the ONLY exception they have or will EVER make, they reinstaited my ticket for only a $100 change fee. PRAISE GOD.

Meantime it has been an AWESOME conference, I will post more about that later.