The B-Team

Do you remember the old TV show the A-Team? When the world was in trouble and the regular guys couldn't handle the situation, the A-Team would be called in. They would do their thing and by the end of the episode they would have saved the day. They actually made an A-Team movie this year. I haven't seen the new movie yet, but I loved that show as a kid!

Did you ever wonder if there was a B-Team? Does your media ministry have a B-Team?

In our church, we run media for worship services in our main Worship Center (1500 people), our Fellowship Hall (500 people) and our Children's Praise Room (200 kids) simultaneously on Sunday mornings. Because of the size difference in the services it would be easy to feel like you are on the B-Team if you're serving in the Children's Praise Room or even the Fellowship Hall.

But, we don't have a B-Team...our volunteers are all on the A-Team! Without them serving in every area, we would miss the opportunity to serve people in all of our worship services. The kids hearing the Gospel in the Praise Room is equally as important as the senior adults hearing it in Classic Worship or the young adults hearing it in Modern Worship.

By planning to work together as a unified team (even if you're serving in different rooms) you'll have the opportunity to use media as a tool to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with people throughout your congregation. And as Hannibal would always say on the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Subtractive EQ

Have you ever been mixing for a worship service or band and the more you tweak it, the more it sounds like mud? I sure have.

This week at Yamaha's Audioversity (their new training event), one of the trainers said something that will completely change the way I mix from now on. It's actually quite a simple, yet genius concept.

Think of your mix as a room. As you start adding items (instruments, vocalists, etc.) to your room, they begin to stack on top of each other. Eventualy, your room is so cluttered that you can't hear anything clearly. If you'll move each item a separate space within that room, you'll begin to hear each one individually. So how do you do that? Subtractive EQ.

Listen to each instrument and determine where it belongs dynamically. For instance, a bass guitar naturally lives at the low end of your mix. So, scoop out the high frequencies and that will open up the high end for another instrument. By doing this for each instrument, you'll eventually create a mix in which everything has its own space and you can hear it all clearly.

Try it for yourself. I think you'll be amazed at how removing the right frequencies from an instrument will make it sound so much cleaner.

Mic Janitors?

My friend Doug Stancil says that people in the church think of Media Ministers as mic janitors. If people think that Media Ministers set up mics or make videos just because it sounds like a cool job, they're not getting the full picture.

Yes, Media Ministry is about audio, video, lighting and many other technical and creative things. But, there's so much more to it than that!

Media Ministry is about using those tools to share the love of Jesus. Using lights to enhance the mood of the worship service. Using video to drive home a sermon point. Using audio for the choir to sing about God's love for us.

Media Ministers serve. They serve the other ministries of the church by providing the technical and creative support they need to share the Gospel. They serve the community as it uses our facilities for meetings, banquets, etc. They serve every member of the congregation that hears the pastor preach or the choir sing. They serve the middle school and high school students who participate in high-energy worship services each Wednesday. They serve the children who attend Children's Worship on Sunday mornings.

Media Ministry is about people. It's about encouraging and discipling those who serve in their ministry. It's about counseling a volunteer when they don't understand why they lost their job. It's about visiting with them when a family member is hospitalized or when they lose a loved one. It's about being there in their time of need.

Media Ministry is about ministry.

That's why we do what we do.

Depth of Field

My friend Chris Forte (stereocanvas.com) came to me this afternoon to ask about getting a specific shot with his new toy..I mean camera. He wanted to achieve one of those amazing cinematic shots where a person or object close to the camera is in focus and the background is completely out of focus. This is done by having a shallow depth of field.

Many people get frustrated by not being able to pull off great depth of field shots, but it's really not that hard to do. In fact, there's a formula to follow.

Large depth of field = short focal length (wide angle) + small aperture + high light level

Shallow depth of field = long focal length (narrow angle) + large aperture + low light level

Only a few minutes after seeing the formula and adjusting his camera, Chris was getting some really nice shots with a shallow depth of field. And you can do the same!