ID-10-T errors

As we move into the fall season, things are changing at Crossroads. Nothing drastic. It is time to take things to the next level. Fall is always a great time for change. School is starting up. The leaves begin to turn. I have to empty my pool. But when we begin to change things in the tech areas, errors are bound to occur.

This weekend we had Nancy Beach from Willow Creek Community Church as our guest speaker. She is a great speaker and delivered a fantastic message. As Milo led worship, you could feel the Holy Spirit moving through the auditorium.

Since my character generator's motherboard died, we had to use DVD and a PC for all the graphics and videos. We also had a video director and a CG operator who hadn't been on for several months as well as 2 new camera ops. With the changes in equipment and new or out of practice personnel, errors occured. Nothing major. Just a few. The audience probably never even noticed. Whenever operator errors occur, I jokingly refer to them as ID-10-T errors. This always gets a laugh and releases the tension. If you aren't familiar with these errors, just remove the dashes... :)

Our services, while technically challenging, are always moving. Even when errors occur, Christ is leading us. If we put our trust in Him, errors can become opportunities. I have a great team of volunteers. As we move into the fall, I look forward to working with them and taking things to the next level...the one without errors.

Technical problems abound

This has been a difficult week for a tech guy. First, I've been dealing with getting our new website working properly. We archive our messages on our site. But, I just found out we only have 2GB of space on the current site. No one seemed to know how we were supposed to save the large number of video and audio files needed for our purpose. I knew that there had to be a plan when the new site was being designed, but no one still involved knew what that plan was. I offered a few ideas, then checked with a friend who was in on the early meetings but is no longer here. Turns out my idea was the plan all along. So now we are waiting on the web designers to get this working properly.

We lost our internet connection on Thursday. Everyone looks to me to fix it, but it was an IT issue. Our IT guy, Dan Seitz, came in and spent several hours getting our firewall back up. It's amazing how much we have all come to depend on the internet to do our jobs!

Then, yesterday, my character generator wouldn't power up. After an hour of trying to figure out the problem, Dan came to rescue again. Unfortunately, I was correct in my diagnosis that the motherboard was toast. We are trying to find a replacement but it looks like we'll be using DVD for the many videos that will be running this weekend.

And, last evening we hosted a live satellite feed for a Beth Moore LivingProofLive conference. A thunderstorm rolled through about an hour before it was to begin and we lost our feed. I was able to get the webcast up as a backup, but the picture quality wasn't nearly as good. After our prayer team jumped into action, we got the satellite feed back, even with the storm in full force! But, we had some really bad audio the rest of the night. I was able to log into a live tech forum and found that many of the other 516 sites that were hosting the conference had the same problem.

By the end of the evening though, even with all the tech problems, it was an amazing experience. Nearly 400 ladies worshiping with a live satellite feed on our screens! It was as though the praise band was in the room with us. God is alive and well in Mansfield, Ohio!

The audio feed was still bad this morning, but with only about 3 minutes left before the conference was to continue this morning, it suddenly cleared up. The worship that started the program this morning was awesome!

We'll continue to have technical problems. That is part of using technology in church. But how we react to those problems is what really matters. As a tech guy, I am learning to trust God and my faith in Jesus Christ. Stop, pray, and let it go. And the Holy Spirit will abound.

Woodstock

It's been 40 years since Woodstock. Say what you will about the 60's and what has happened to the morals of the country, but there is one cool fact about the concert that is pretty cool...the couple in this famous picture are still married. Here is a link to an article about what happened to them...click here.

The New Website

We announced the new website at all 3 services this weekend. I think you'll find the new site easy to navigate and full of information about the church. You can find out who our elders are, who the staff is, including pictures and much more about all the ministries we offer. I encourage you to take a look and let me know if you have any suggestions for future changes we might want to consider.




You can find the site at www.crossroadswired.com

www.crossroadswired.com

The new website launched yesterday afternoon. It is a definite improvement over our previous site. Built entirely in Flash, the old site had a lot of problems that we have hopefully fixed with the new one. Check it out at www.crossroadswired.com. Leave a comment here about your thoughts.

Weekend review

I got back from spending a few days at the lake. It was difficult to take my mind off of things that need done or things that could have been done better. But it was still good to get away and get some pool time and some quiet time at the shore with my wife.

This past weekend, Tim had another fantastic message. This time he focused on Noah and the Ark and how Noah's lessons can be put to use today. There was so much in the service that we went way over on Saturday night. Unfortunately, we had to cut a few things out for Sunday and the video at the beginning of the service was one of the casualties! While I spent a considerable amount of time on the creation of this video, it wasn't an integral part of the overall theme. It was a lead in to the annoucement about baptism. We actually moved the announcements to later in the service and it wouldn't have fit in. Ultimately, the services were better on Sunday with the shortened program.

Look for our website to launch this week! It has been totally overhauled and will be a much improved site. I'll let you know more about it as it launches.

Look Who's Listening

I hooked up with the Drama Team at Crossroads this week to shoot a drama on video. We purchased it from Willowcreek. Look Who's Listening was written by Donna Lagerquist. The shoot took about 3 hours. I should have tried harder to find some volunteers to help. I ended up directing the video (with input from each drama team member), running a single camera using several angles, and monitoring sound. The most difficult task was making sure each angle I shot from had continuity. I used a lapel mic for the audio since I didn't have anyone to run a boom. As you watch the video, see if you can tell where I hid the mic. The audio came out pretty well considering I had to move the mic to each actor as they did their lines. The one actor I didn't use the mic on is Charlie, who plays the boss. I ended having him come in so I could re-record his lines and dubbed them in. Total time for shoot: 3 hours shooting, 6 hours editing.

Gimme Sympathy (Behind the Scenes)

Some of you at Crossroads may remember some of our more creative walk in slide presentations from last year when we used staff members to present information on the screens as people arrived for service. One in particular was a continuous shot from in front of my office through our office cubicle area, the town square, past the children's and youth areas, through the auditorium and ending back by my office area. This was accomplished with a camera mounted on a dolly and shot as one continuous scene. We needed a few takes but it turned out pretty good. Jon used AfterEffects to get the text to bounce with the person walking. I put some Satriani on for effect, but we used a playlist of Christian music as people entered before the service began.

Staff Circle Walkins from Steve Browning on Vimeo.

I was reminded of this shoot when I saw this video posted on another tech guy blog. It is amazing in the planning and personnel needed to pull it off! One side you'll see the actual music video. On the other, you'll see how they put it all together. Watch it a couple of times. You'll see all the planing that had to go into it!

Fried Fowl Foils Formula

Yesterday, I came in early to finish up some last minute details for Saturday service. I arrived at 2pm and by 2:05 I'm trying to track down why emergency lights are on and has any damage been done. By 3pm, Ohio Edison has been notified that we are without power (one phase at least) and we have service so it needs to be an emergency call. I finally get the chance to finish what I came in early to work on, but...no power means no server. Guess where all my files are to work on for the service? Yep, on the network which I can't access without the server. Now, I have a system in place to have everything ready for service by Friday morning. But this week, a lot of extras have kept me from my formula.

So, it's time to go to backup plan number 1...recreate slides for the pastor from scratch. Luckily I had some templates sitting on my mac so I open up PhotoShop and get to work creating a new lower third graphic. Stop. Pray. Back to work. By 3:50, Ohio Edison get the power back on. Hooray for them! They responded quickly and efficiently. So I go ask the guy what caused the problem. We seem to have brown outs at least once every few months. He says, "a bird landed on the wire and tripped the switch at the box." A bird. With all the technology we have these days to make things work, a bird caused me to lose the time I expected to have when I came in early to work. A bird.

So, power is back on. I get the server back on. My volunteers begin to show up and power up for the service. Sound can't get the board to connect. Shut down, start over, it powers up! Video can't get the center projector on. Still need to replace the podium with a different one. 2 cameras are still in my office from a training session I did on Thursday. Get them back to their positions and can't get a picture on either one. Recheck the connections, recheck the power supply, they work! Still working on the center projector.

No AC in the youth rooms, elementary or nursery. I'll get to that problem when I can. 3 phone calls from volunteers. "I'm running late, but I'll be there." At least I know they'll be here. Still working on the center projector.

Pastor comes in for sound check. His signal is too hot. "Steve, can you check his pack and the transmitter and see if they can be turned down?" Ok, got that problem fixed! One of the slides is wrong. Back to PhotoShop. Easy fix. Got the manual out for the projector. Could it be the lamp? No, I should still have power. Nice view of the praise team from up here.

Check the outlet. No problem, power is good. Change out the power cord. Hey! I've got power. Try the original power cord. Now it works fine too! That's weird, but least I've got it working. On to the AC.

Johnson Controls. Jump start the units. Nope. It sure is getting warm in my office...80 degrees. I guess we have another unit not operating. Up on the roof. Several calls to Greg, our maintenance guy. He's at a wedding. Whispered answers to my questions. I feel bad bothering him but I can't help but smile at the mental picture of him discussing options with me while the wedding is in progress. Several trips to the roof and no luck with the AC.

I've missed the tech run through and service is about to begin. I better get back on a headset and be available in case something else needs to be done. Service begins and all is well. Lori is calling cues and everyone is here. Good service. Great worship! Great message! No more technical problems. In fact, someone thanks me for fixing the AC in the elementary room...??? I check Johnson Controls since I knew I had left it in "unoccupied mode." Sure enough, the air is running. Oh, it's because it got so warm that it reached the set point for the unoccupied setting. I switch it back to occupied and the temp starts to go down. Why didn't it work when I checked it 20 minutes ago?

Through all this, I'm thinking, it would be easy to get mad and complain, but I chose to go to God in prayer as I waited for Ohio Edison. I knew it was in his hands, not mine. I remembered what God has chosen me to do. I remained calm, even though I was rushed. But as I told Scott, my video director, with all the problems we're having now, service will go well. Sure enough. Thank you God. And to think, this all started with His sending a bird. Was he sending a message. Did I listen? I hope so.