For churches seeking to make upgrades to their worship space, improving the worship experience is often a top goal.
At Elevate Life Church in Jacksonville, Florida, the church sought to make improvements to their video capabilities last September, with the help of integration firm, AVnew.
In the matter of a couple of weeks that month, rigging on the project was first set up over one week. In the ensuing week, the upgrade work was completed. Over the weekend of September 12-13 last year, the church hosted their first services with the new gear.
Not only was the project completed in a tight time window, no services were cancelled during the work. Just one midweek service was moved to the lobby, working around the scheduled install.
Over the last 14 months, Elevate Life has faced many of the realities other churches have, due to the pandemic. It’s added up to a few thousand of its congregation at home, regularly watching streamed services.
As described by Gil Parente, owner of AVNew, the integration firm that completed the upgrades to the space, “(Elevate Life was) already thinking of upgrading their experience prior to COVID. When it hit, the option was to improve the online experience for the members.”
Dustin Redd, technical director at Elevate Life, agreed with the premise behind the upgrades. In addition, he said, “It also was about the quality of the products and what that meant to the online viewer.”
As part of the upgrades, the church shifted from projection to a mixed LED wall-projection system, while updating its video cameras.
Featured in the full broadcast/video upgrade, as noted by Parente, is a THOR RIDGE 2.5mm panel LED wall. Regarding the church’s choice in LED wall, Redd added, “THOR hadn’t released (the 2.5mm model) to the public just yet, but to improve the online experience, that was our choice.”
Among the best ways the church has incorporated the THOR wall into their service, explained Redd, “Before we used to bring out a TV for Pastor Tim. It works out better, to have him not have to point out a picture on a TV, versus the LED wall.”
During the process of selecting what was ideally suited for the church, Parente said, “There was a lot of urgency. There was also a sense of getting a good quality product, while not breaking the budget.”
As a result of the project, Parente added, “I believe the worship experience has improved. Everyone is more engaged and more excited … not just the membership, but also the team.”
In addition to adding an LED wall, the church also upgraded its cameras, going with five Panasonic EVA1 cinema cameras. The church’s video capabilities also extended by upgrading its projection system in the worship space. Those updates included two Barco UDM-W22 21,000-lumen laser projectors, paired with a Barco S3-4K processor.
By opting for the video and camera upgrades, “(Elevate Life) wanted to go to a cinematic feel. With Panasonic (cameras), they were able to do that, at not a big price,” noted Parente. With the help of the new cameras, “they started to do other things. (Elevate Life) began recording videos and testimonials, to develop more content.”
By adding the THOR LED wall, he added, “It was immediately so dramatic. The video content looks 10 times better.”
The stark improvement after entering the space, Redd explained, “You notice the LED wall once you walk into the room.” The church previously just “had projectors. It was a much lower light source. The LED wall has definitely helped to bring everything more in visually.”
By moving to a Barco projection system in tandem with the LED wall, “You can see the side screens much clearer with the Barco projectors,” Redd added. “And the stage is much more visible with the LED wall.”
With the church’s upgrade to its cameras, Parente stated, “They used to have small camcorder-style cameras. Turning over to the big sensor cameras is a big deal.”
The change to cameras has offered the church highly desired mobility, Redd explained. “We are able to get different angles, with the body packs being used. The cameras aren’t at the back of the auditorium, stuck on tripods.”
To help with the flexibility of the cameras, Elevate Life installed a motorized dolly system from Telemetrix.
“A film team has a controller in the back, and they can run shots over and over,” noted Redd. “They can also control a camera manually, or do another preset shot.”
To Parente, the church has been very creative in its use of the new equipment, particularly with the Telemetrix dolly.
“The coolest thing we have seen coming out from there, is the motorized dolly,” added Parente.
Prior to this project, the church previously was running a projector-only system. Upon installing the LED wall, though, it also upgraded to a pair of Barco 3-chip DLP WUXGA projectors. In the new setup, Elevate Life has implemented them in an IMAG side screen setup.
Having the install go as smoothly and as quickly as it did in Elevate Life was one matter. One challenge that took additional work was getting the staff and volunteers fully ready to work with the new equipment.
“There were a lot of changes in a little amount of time,” noted Redd. “Technology-wise, there was a lot of learning about the different controls for the different systems. Our camera operators had to learn the new cameras, and the Telemetrix dolly system.”
To Parente, among the biggest efforts following the install was in developing procedures, “on how to set up the cameras. Or how to properly train their volunteers on this new system.”
In the learning process about the new gear, “We had to know these systems, before we really went live with them,” Redd added. The end goal by doing that work, would be that the church “would have a distraction-free service.”
In describing the project’s success, “We got the LED wall we wanted. We got the projectors and cameras we wanted,” Redd said. “There was nothing where we felt like, ‘Oh, I wish we would have gotten this …’ with (AVNew).”
After the project, Parente said, “it brought (Elevate Life) up to a level to where other churches are, in terms of quality of the content or of the image.”
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“We had installed the 3.9mm and 3.4 Edge LED wall in churches, and those performed really well,” explained Parente. “When THOR came out with the 2.5mm, we knew it’d be better. The LED wall is so bright and of such good quality, everything looks so good on camera.”
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