A storm on Wednesday, February 2, 2011, blanketed Connecticut with a heavy snow, causing well-founded concern over damaging snow and ice loads on a number of roofs. One of the many buildings throughout the state that did collapse was the Calvary Life Family Worship Center in Cheshire, Conn. When the center's roof and three walls collapsed under the winter weight—no one was hurt, fortunately since everyone had been evacuated. The building was a total loss, however, but the leadership of Calvary Life didn't miss a beat—or a Sunday.
“The existing building was only three years old when the roof collapsed; it was definitely a shock,” says Executive Pastor Sam DeFrancesco.
“We became a church on the move,” adds Senior Pastor John Muratori. “The Cheshire school system gave us access to their buildings to have our Sunday service. We were in different schools in the local town each week so our congregation would look online to see in what school we were meeting.”
The same day that the building in Cheshire collapsed, Calvary Life was opening a new satellite facility in Dallas, Texas that would have a streamed service from the main Cheshire facility. Wanting to move forward with the multisite plan even after the collapse, it was decided that Muratori would travel back and forth every other week between Connecticut and Texas and stream to or from the temporary service at the schools. “We absolutely wanted to go ahead with our plans in Dallas. We're called to serve God whether times are good; whether it's trial and tribulation,” he shares.
Multi-site challenges & opportunities
Now being a multi-site ministry, Muratori and his Connecticut congregation chose to seize the opportunity of rebuilding the Cheshire center to enhance and more fully integrate production elements and to expand their control options. “Our vision had grown since the first building,” Muratori says. “So going into rebuilding we knew that we wanted to have theatrical lighting and complete control over all of the lighting in the sanctuary. We also knew that we would need a very large center screen that would address signals being piped in from a different campus, and to make sure that we had quality hi-definition recording for broadcast and for streaming. We wanted to upgrade our systems and became as state-of-the-art as we possibly could.”
For the systems integration of the audio, video and lighting, Calvary Life brought in Advanced Systems & Technologies LLC. Terry McCarthy, designer and chief engineer out of AST's Chicago office, led the project.
“The church desired a contemporary set-up; a commitment to a more practical structure,” explains McCarthy. “They wanted more of a theatre-style sanctuary where they would use a lot of technology. In addition, the church desired a comprehensive sound, video, and lighting systems plan. AST provided a total infrastructure solution including, the technical systems electrical power requirements, conduit schemes, an isolated grounding plan, stage design, tech booth design, photo-metrics and much more. An important aspect to mention is that the Executive Pastor, Sam DeFrancesco, possessed and excellent grasp of all the electrical requirements and did a great job executing the plan. We worked closely together which made the project a huge success." The new main sanctuary seats 700 with full production capabilities. Calvary also has production capabilities in two other spaces—the Loft for youth programs with some theatrical lighting, and there are underground cable trays from the sanctuary booth to the gymnasium so it can be used as an overflow space.
Audio array
To ensure the audio system supplies good coverage for the 700-seat sanctuary, AST installed a high-powered distributed speaker system, which includes the four main iD1 McCauley speakers containing a single 15-inch woofer and a two-inch high frequency compression driver; a delay line with four McCauley iD3s; and two double 18-inch subwoofers—McCauley AC-288s - powered by QSC Audio, PLX Amplifiers, producing 20,000 watts of clean reliable power. “A good sound system is so important to a church. We take great care in achieving intelligibility and high fidelity. The system not only accommodates weekly services and special events, but also has great headroom for a concert-level experience when the room is packed. We also designed and installed eight stage floor pockets that feed the digital snake system,” says McCarthy. "The stage pockets have 60 mic inputs, as well as RJ-45 data connections for personal mixers; DMX for special effects; and monitor speaker connections. Within the stage we added a unique grating system that houses four powered Turbosound Milan M15 stage monitors. This helps to reduce clutter on the stage and allows for speedier set-ups. For the main digital audio console, we re-tasked the church's existing 48-channel Roland M-400 console, which we refurbished and updated with new firmware. We also designed and installed additional digital routing capabilities and added a new Roland M-300 digital mixer and R-1000 digital recorder. This enables the church to have complete independent control, in the recording studio, for mastering and streaming live.”
Muratori elaborates, “We wanted to make sure that we could record live worship conferences, concerts, and other music and dramatic presentations. Our desire is to put out worship albums, so we wanted to have a sanctuary that was almost like a theatre where even other artists could come and record live albums. We designed the sound in the building to be absolutely amazing. We can isolate 48 tracks and take that into a studio and then master it.”
Colored light
Calvary Life's leadership wanted to have a flexible, economical lighting system that would also be simple to maintain. Muratori feels they have exceeded their goals with the lighting: “The space is like what you'd see at a theatre. We have control over everything including the screens. We can do anything; go from a lecture and change the lighting to a concert with hazers all the way to Sunday services. We have the flexibility to have a 150-seat space just by changing the lighting; we can shape the space very easily.”
AST created an innovative houselighting system, using a downlight system with 35 LED luminaires. This allows the seating sections to be washed in colored lighting, sectioned off by different colored lighting or create a more intimate space by dimming down the lighting for the rear seating sections. “We did all of the photometric studies and analyzed the beam angles for a good coverage pattern,” explains McCarthy. “We worked closely with the church to achieve the desired footcandles. We chose to use 35 of the Elation Opti Tri PAR 70W RGB LED luminaires; the houselighting system came out phenomenal. It uses a total of 140 DMX channels for full color control of the houselighting system.” DeFrancesco feels that the choice of using the Elation fixtures for the seating area, “not only allowed us the flexibility to be able to control colors, it also offers tremendous efficiency.”
The production lighting for the sanctuary is a mix of incandescent and LED lighting fixtures including spots, washes, and moving heads. AST designed a signature piece “chandelier” -style truss system, in the center of the sanctuary for the sanctuary that consists of a 10-foot circle truss inside a 20-foot circular truss. “We provided the full layout for all the lighting, which also includes an additional 110 feet of truss providing great flexibility for any event," says McCarthy. "We utilized an F34 box system from Global Truss, who also provided the two circular trusses."
"The dimming system consists of Leviton DS-1212 Modular Racks and provides 48 20-amp circuits. In conjunction with SSRC, we designed a 96-circuit raceway system, providing 48 channels of dimming and 48 additional utility circuits, for connectivity in every truss position," McCarty adds.
“The truss system covers all the angles. We installed rear sections, along with a center truss above the large center screen. The left and right angles are covered, as well as, the upstage and downstage positions,” McCarthy continues. Luminaires include: 20 Technilux Flexi-PAR 575's, 10 Leviton Leo 575's, Ellipsoidals, 16 Elation Professional Pro PAR56's; four Elation Professional Platinum Spot 5Rs; six American DJ Mega TriPAR Profiles for truss warmers; and for effects two Antari HZ350 hazer's."
For lighting control the church selected Jands Vista Byron II Software running on a 21-inch Apple iMac computer. "The new Byron Software is outstanding, expandable, and easy to use, McCarthy says. "We also employed Leviton wall stations and a Leviton wall controller interface for easy “walk-in” access of the houselights. There are two universes of DMX data installed around the space and AST designed an optical data distribution system, with products from Elation Professional, for lighting connectivity in 12 locations.”
Video streams
Video was an important element that AST dealt with, since video streaming between the two campuses is a central element to Calvary Life's ministries, but also because it was important to balance the video experience with the congregation in the actual space. The main visual focus in the Cheshire sanctuary is a 24-foot center screen from Da-Lite. “It's an electric screen that can be retracted and set it multiple positions,” McCarthy explains. “We used two Mitsubishi 6,500-lumen projectors, providing the center edge-blend and HD image. The center screen is 24-feet high by 9-feet wide. There are also three additional 12-foot wide screens—The left and right screens provide additional multi-imaging and the rear screen, behind the FOH control booth, provides a unique stage display feature.”
Muratori notes that the video does indeed enhance and not detract from the worship message. “I think the video projection system is a major highlight in the space and that the large central screen is a pretty captivating element,” says Muratori. “We've done that by design because of moving to multi-site streaming. What we're trying to do is make the projection system—and the quality of the video—really, really good so that it doesn't create an atmosphere where people think that it's a lesser experience than having the speaker stand there. If you attend a service, you will be introduced to the screens very quickly between the worship [and] the motion graphics that we use. The video and screens are very interactive with the experience that you are going to get.”
Controlling the video are two Mac computers. “We installed a Mac G5 as the master, employing Renewed Vision's ProPresenter 5 and a 21-inch iMac as the slave,” explains McCarthy. “The ProPresenter modules control all the graphics including the edge blend, master/slave control and stage view for the rear projector. We can give the minister a discrete look at the stage view.”
The projectors on the side and rear screens were owner-furnished. All of the projectors are run over a shielded CAT5 Ethernet network. “The projectors are all digital and we used Kramer Electronics routers, switchers and converters for all the digital distribution,” says McCarthy. “Everything is designed for full 1080p HD capacity. A volunteer crew, led by staff Audio/Video Technician Adam Zvanovec, controls the production elements.
Live streaming of services and events was a key consideration addressed by the new video system. “I think the church community is at the forefront of streaming,” says Muratori. “When we started this process, we needed a mobile unit, so we went with VBrick Systems, which allowed us to stream from one of the temporary sites in the schools. We needed a system that gave us portable set top boxes that I could travel to Texas and as long as I had Internet, I could send a signal back to Connecticut. Their system is isolated since it goes peer to peer between those two points. We used it in the church and it works fine. VBrick is a local company, based in Wallingford, CT, and they're a leading company in streaming technology. We looked at numerous companies but decided to go with somebody that was in the same area as us so they could easily come in and consult, [and could also] be onsite during the setup.”
The church also supplied the video camera package, upgrading the cameras and controls in the new facility. “We moved to Panasonic AG-AF100 cameras,” says Muratori. “We went with Panasonic cameras that work with DSLR lenses and wanted to have a good depth of field, but we also wanted to have the freedom to use the same camera system to shoot video shorts [and] commercials, and [that would allow us] to do our own movie. We went in a different direction from standard studio cameras; we went for cameras with more flexibility. They can be shoulder-mounted, can have a mattebox added, and they can also be taken out and used in the field. The flexibility of the DSLR lenses is something that we really like. We have a lot of roaming Panasonic GH2 cameras, which also use the DSLR lenses. We like this model because there is unlimited video recording on them; those little handheld cameras are awesome.”
AST installed the entire HD-SDI digital video infrastructure, as well as,the HD-SDI distribution system, and conversion elements. “It takes real teamwork to make it all happen,” says McCarthy. “Many customers have invested in equipment over the years and AST is always accommodating to include existing items in an upgrade or a new design. We bring technical expertise to the table and 30 years of experience. That's our joy, our mission, and our calling.”
Calvary Life has come a long way since that awful day in February 2011. And by taking the opportunity to re-address its technology infrastructure needs, Calvary Life has moved forward. The church now has have two beautiful new facilities in Texas and Connecticut that support its message and help staff realize the goal of streaming services between its two congregations.
