Technology at Hillcrest Covenant Church: 2009

Monday, March 30, 2009

Hillcrest Sermon's Online

Hello all,

It's been about a month since my last post again, and we have been very busy at Hillcrest. This last weekend alone we had three service to record and capture.

So, the new technology has worked out well providing an overflow space led live via video in the Fellowship Hall during the memorial service for Bryan Barrow, and a live event captured for AmeriKids. DVD's can be obtained fairly soon.

In addition, I'm testing a social networking service called mDialog. An embedded video of Mark's first sermon for the Blue Valley site is contained here. Let me know what you think.

Have a great week!

Sandy

Thursday, February 26, 2009

New Tech Teams in Rotation

Well it's been a little over a month since my last post. Sorry for the delay. However, a lot of work has been done since then, and I'm happy with the progress.

We are now well into the launch of our satellite church, Hillcrest Covenant Church Blue Valley. Our initial teams volunteering to help with set-up, tear-down, video and audio have really provided us a great resource to meet all of our technical needs. We appreciate your commitment!

Now it's time at the Prairie Village site to rotate our new teams into that experience as well. Team C, D and E will need to take advantage of the 6:30pm Thursday night Praise Band rehearsal to practice and get a feel for their teams. I will be available to offer training and assistance each Thursday from 6:30 to 8pm.

At the end of March, each team should be at the same experience level. At that time we will begin to try new things, one of which is projecting the worship band during the service and keying lower third song lyrics over the praise band. This adds a level of difficulty and coordination, but is awfully fun to produce for both our teams and the congregation in worship.

Also, starting in April, since we will have 5 teams will be up and running, I am going to ask each team to only commit to one week a month. However, your commitment level will require the work for all three services. Owen and his team provide this commitment, and I think we can provide this as well. This also gives Mark the opportunity to record each service and choose the sermon he feels best for distributing on the web, CD and DVD venues.

In the near future, I plan to bring the teams together to review and critique their work. I will provide lunch or dinner at the occasion and hopefully keep the time short and relaxing. But this will give each of you a chance to see where we make mistakes both technically and stylistically and hope to eliminate those in the future. More details on that later.

Thanks again for everyone's participation! Without your help, none of this could happen!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Upcoming Team Schedule

We had a good turn out for the first weekend of Sunday worship service training with Teams A, B, and E. I was pleased to see the other team members stop in to visit and shadow at their leisure. Please continue to support your fellow team members and learn from them during the practice schedule at 9:30am and 11am services. Those times are your opportunities to get in the control and shadow your positions.

The system is nearly completely installed. We have the edit system connected and able to record and playback into the sanctuary as well. We provided a test run for the council meeting on Tuesday night, and they were excited to see the new Panasonic HD projector exceed their expectations. A good comparison is to view the confidence projection behind the audio booth to see the difference in the two displays. Night and Day!

Well let's get down to business. We are shifting team training this Sunday. Team A and B will cover the 8am sermon for the next 2 months, or at least through the month of February. Team A starts this Sunday at the 8am and continues every other week through February. Team B will record the 8am service starting next week and continue every other week. For the 9:30 service, Team E will continue training through February every Sunday. Team C & D will be able to shadow the 9:30 and 11am service into February. This gives us 2 solid Teams to work with at the start of the launch and a month later I can begin to rotate Team E into the 8am schedule. I expect to rotate Teams C & D into the mix starting in April.

Here's a timeline of the next several weeks to make things clearer:

Jan. 18th - 8am Service - Team A (Live recording becomes my first playback at Blue Valley)