Broadcast Video

Fascinated by IMAG

I was twelve when I attended a Billy Graham event in the Grugahalle in Essen in 1993. 7,000 people, and IMAG (Image MAGnification) video, something I had never seen before. Captivated by the novelty, I distinctly recall spending as much or more time looking at the massive projection screens than looking at the stage directly. I knew right then that I wanted to learn all about live video production and hopefully get hands-on experience one day.

In my late teens the opportunity to do so materialized in the form of a volunteer role with an awesome video team that did IMAG for Lothar Kosse’s Cologne Worship Night events and other concerts in the German Christian scene, including visits from Third Day and Michael W. Smith.

King Road Church

Years later at King Road Church, long before their auditorium renovation, I talked leadership into renting a full broadcast system for a Christmas Eve service titled “Good News for a Bad News World”, which had been modeled after a news show. It was a huge success and later I worked with Sapphire Sound to design and install a permanent system. My favourite part was that I got to design the control room, and the design was inspired by what I had seen at Willow Creek Community Church during an internship there in 2007. I then trained the volunteer crew that ran broadcast and the rest of the production systems; no less than ten of them were working in the background for Together We Sing in 2015.

Tenth Church and Covid

When I started at Tenth Church in 2018 they still had analog audio and no video at all. Then Covid hit, and getting the church onto a live broadcast ASAP was on me.

For the first few months we had to aggressively improvise. At first we asked volunteers who owned cameras to bring them, recorded to the cameras and then edited in post. Audio was 2-track for the first few weeks, we didn’t have the workflow and manpower for multitrack mixing yet.

While this was better than nothing the quality was poor, and after a few weeks we were able to source a Blackmagic Atem Mini switcher and a ClearCom system and moved to live directing and cutting down the time spent on video-post. Audio improved, too, as we started to multitrack.

Still this was no long-term solution and after about half a year we partnered with Sapphire Sound again, on more than $200k of equipment, for a permanent broadcast system installation. Again I got to design the control room and trained volunteers for every position, plus a small group of staff. When all was done we were capable of running seven cameras, two ProPresenter feeds (in-house graphics and broadcast graphics were separate), and fully independent audio mixes for FoH and broadcast.

Other broadcast work

On the side I shot and directed for TFSEtv at the Langley Events Centre for some years — basketball, volleyball, hockey, lacrosse — and show jumping at Thunderbird Show Park.

I also did some other contracting jobs, such as streaming charity events from the John Fluevog Shoes store in Gastown (Vancouver).

While just about anything I have done has been rewarding I feel that nothing quite matches the feeling of going live with an IMAG team for a big show, be it sports or a stage event. As for the various kinds of events I feel most drawn to music, because of the additional challenge of producing the video to support the style and arrangement of the music - which may involve reading scores, or at least knowing the material well, and constantly being on your feet to get the next shot set up in time.