“Around 8,000 people attend our church every week, including our online audience," says Walter Williams, production manager at Church Unlimited. “Probably 70% of those people, whether at a physical location or online, are watching through a screen. So, we have more people that see our sermon and hear the word of God through a screen than ever do in person.”
Sometimes it takes seeing the potential of what “better” looks like before you realize an improvement is necessary. This is what happened to one church during COVID lockdowns. While so many churches scrambled to add streaming or get new cameras to start recording services, Church Unlimited was already equipped for both. But what they learned from the lockdown was they were not prepared to go back to streaming live, after so many months of prerecording services.
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Church Unlimited is a non-denominational evangelical multi-site church, primarily centered around Corpus Christi, Texas with one campus in San Antonio. Before COVID the tech team at Church Unlimited had been sending the main campus IMAG feed to their online audience. Once live services disappeared, online worship and messages had to be pre-recorded using cameras and lenses from the film team. Production Director Walter Wilson says that’s when they noticed the big difference between what they had been live streaming before COVID, and the video quality of the new recorded services during the lockdown.
"...we're not competing with the church down the street. We're competing with the movie theater that they went to last night.” - Production Director Walter Wilson, Church Unlimited, Corpus Christi, Texas
“Around 8,000 people attend our church every week, including our online audience, he explains. “Probably 70% of those people, whether at a physical location or online, are watching through a screen. So, we have more people that see our sermon and hear the word of God through a screen than ever do in person.”
We looked at some other cameras, but the thing that we really love about Sony is they're really simple to use,” Williams explains. “You have all this power and flexibility in the back end, but for a user who is actually operating the camera, they're really, really simple and they're really effective.”
“The quality of the lenses, and the quality of the cameras we were using during those prerecorded shoots just looked better than what we had previously be producing in our live services. And so that was just a function of us having older broadcast-style equipment [in our auditorium],” Wilson says. “It had been about seven, eight years since they had been updated. And the prerecorded video content was so high quality that we knew we didn't want to go back to a lower quality coming out of quarantine.”
Wilson says this prompted a major upgrade to the church’s live cameras and video production systems. He says no one doubted it was a good investment. “We knew coming out of our quarantine season that online was just going be a part of how church was done. We had been doing online previously, but we really wanted to expand that ministry. So we upgraded all of our streaming systems, all of our camera systems, all of our switching systems to ensure that we were bringing the best possible quality we could every weekend,” he explains.
Even though the church isn’t producing 4K content yet, it was important to have that capability ready and available. The new HDC-3500L cameras simply require licensing to make 4K available.
The church worked with Messenger Media of Conyers, Georgia to design and install a new live video production system featuring five of Sony's HDC-3500L 4K CMOS HD Studio Cameras along with Sony's XVS-7000 switcher.
“We used Sony before. We looked at some other cameras, but the thing that we really love about Sony is they're really simple to use,” Wilson explains. “You have all this power and flexibility in the back end, but for a user who is actually operating the camera, they're really, really simple and they're really effective.”
Even though the church isn’t producing 4K content yet, it was important to have that capability ready and available. The new HDC-3500L cameras simply require licensing to make 4K available. “We really liked the look and feel of the 2/3 sensor from the 3500 on our broadcast, Wilson adds. “Plus, being able to upgrade to 4K down the road was really important to us. This camera just requires a software license to go from 1080p to 4K.”
Church Unlimited live streams to six satellite locations, plus an online audience. While the church was live streaming before COVID, lessons learned during the lockdown moved the church to place a greater priority on the online audience resulting in an entirely new mind set to doing video and, thus, a new video infrastructure.
“These cameras are also able to capture a higher frame rate than some other cameras would. And so now, when we do these fast pans, we don't get stuttering in the image, especially with the faster lighting. I love our lighting designer,” he continues. “She has an incredible talent. And one of the things she does is some very fast, almost pop star kind of scenes. So, they're very, very fast transitions. With our old cameras, we would sometimes we get stepping in the coloring as she's fading between one scene to another really quick.”
The lockdown revelations prompted more changes than just the gear used for Church Unlimited’s live stream. Wilson says they learned quickly from pre-recording their online services during COVID that they could address the online audience specifically, creating content just for them instead of letting them simply peek into church at another location. This completely changed how the online feed is directed and handled.
"...the prerecorded video content was so high quality that we knew we didn't want to go back to a lower quality coming out of quarantine.” - Production Director Walter Wilson, Church Unlimited, Corpus Christi, Texas
Wilson explains, “So coming out of quarantine, and once we got the new system, we actually set up a separate video control room that is just for online. They're receiving a program feed from our main control room, but they can supplement that feed with isolated content – different camera angles, etc --- specifically for the online audience. That way we can speak to the online audience as a campus and as a destination, not as an extension of another physical location.”
Photo courtesy of Johanne Gonzalez
The online and primary control rooms are actually operating from the same switcher --- the church’s new Sony XVS7000. Because it has the flexibility to add or remove M/Es (mix/effects) as needed, they can actually operate two control rooms and two control surfaces off the same switcher hub.
The online and primary control rooms are actually operating from the same switcher --- the church’s new Sony XVS7000. Because it has the flexibility to add or remove M/Es (mix/effects) as needed, they can actually operate two control rooms and two control surfaces off the same switcher hub. So, they don't have to have two sets of inputs, two sets of SDI routers, etc; everything can come to one singular brain and be operated from two rooms that can create multiple feeds. “This allows the online audience to be treated as its own campus, and that’s flexibility we didn’t have before,” Wilson adds.
“We actually shoot our cameras during the worship set specifically oriented to an online audience. So, a little bit different shots than we would for a traditional IMAG in the room,” he says. “We want to make sure it's engaging. So, we are a little bit faster-paced on the way we cut. We're taking some mid to wide shots, just more of an engaging music style of directing, as opposed to simply seeing one person.”
And he says some shots are specifically avoided.
“We actually don't do shots of the room. Our mindset here is that we don't want this to feel like you're looking into somebody else's church. So, everything is from the orientation of, ‘I am at home watching through my screen and this is church. Like I am at my community.’ We also have a really active chat, so we are connecting with them online. We never want it to feel like, ‘Oh, I'm looking at somebody else going to church.’ More like, ‘I am at church.’”
It all comes down to knowing your audience and whom you want to reach. Wilson says, “We're trying to get somebody who has never been to church and has no idea what church is. We want to make sure that message is easy for them to receive --- that there are no distractions. And that demands high quality because we're not competing with the church down the street. We're competing with the movie theater that they went to last night.”
“Flexibility, he says, isn’t just about whims. It’s based on the belief we are following the Holy Spirit’s lead,” Wilson says. “We don't let our systems dictate the vision of how we can operate service. We receive the vision. We believe that God is speaking through our lead pastor and that we create systems that can support that. So we never want to be in a situation where we say, ‘Sorry, we can't do that,’ because we weren't set up or we weren't flexible. We want to make sure that we can accommodate whatever vision to the best ability possible.”
“We worked with a lot of integrators before that were really about product and selling. And one of the things we learned about Messenger AVL was they were really about the vision and ensuring that whatever the product was, it was matching the vision, Wilson adds.
And now with all the pieces in place, Wilson says he’s confident they’ve made the right choices, especially in the equipment they now have in place to keep the church’s mission moving forward. “We wanted to make sure that whatever investment we made today would work for the next 10 years,” Wilson concludes. “There are other great brands out there, but I know Sony is going to work.”
