The way people respond to things always intrigues me. Each person responds in their on unique way when a reaction is possible. Whether that be a response to a critique or praise. A response to someone else’s comment or lack there of. Maybe a response to passing by someone in the hallway or no response at all. Either way, these responses seem to always catch my attention. I begin to think about the indivuals  personality and if that may be there usual response or has something set them off track that day from their typical response.

All that being said, John Maxwell released a book last year titled “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect” and I have began to read it now. After a few chapters into the book I found a particular section on personalities and charisma. Below is a section from the book that I found very true:

John Maxwell, “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect”
pg. 65 – 66

One day he asked, “John, do you know why some people have charisma and others don’t?”

“Personality,” was my immediate response. “Some have a way with people and others don’t.”

“I don’t think so,” Dan responded. “I don’t believe charisma is a function of personality. It’s a function of attitude.” He then explained how people with charisma possess an outward focus instead of an inward one. They pay attention to other people, and they desire to add value to them.

I have come to realize that Dan is right. People with “presence” have an unselfish attitude that causes them to put others first. They possess a positive attitude that prompts them to look for and focus on what’s right instead of what’s wrong. And they possess an unshakable confidence.

For me this makes 100% sense because I have thought this for many years now. Attitude is what gives someone that charisma that we may see in a person. And that attitude and personality can be worked on and changed in a person as well. I have trouble hearing, “oh, thats just their personality” or “thats just they way they are“. Those statements may be concrete truth at that moment, but I believe that is because they have chosen to stay that way. They have made a decision to respond in a angry matter or chosen to be that person that “wakes up on the wrong side of the bed”. Yet we all have a choice to change.

I personally am more of an introvert type of person and at times would rather retreat to a place by myself and read instead of rubbing shoulders at work or with volunteers on Sunday, but I choose to interact. I have to work hard at it each day and it does not come easy. Yet over the years it has become much easier and more of a part of me. I have chosen to change my personality for the betterment of others.

How about yourself. Do you believe that a person can change his “personality” or not? What are your thoughts?

This is the IMAG from our opener for our current series “Decisions, Decisions…”. Written and originally performed by Mutemath. A little more info coming later today about the video.

I found this video today and many may have already seen it, but it hit right at home on some things I need to personally work on. After you watch the video write down the things you may need to work on and keep that list close by. Here is my list:

• Make List: I do this, but not often enough (so here is one to get me started)
• Carry A Notebook with You Everywhere: I do this with Evernote, but often forget it’s there
• Try Free Writing: I have never been good at this, but a few trips to Starbucks and I hope to get better
• Get Away From the Computer: too many teams this thing follows me everywhere
• Go Somewhere New: I often visit the same place for creativity. It may be time to try a few new places that seem unusual.
• Got an Idea. Write It Down: this goes back to a Notebook. I need to start writing everything down.
  “A short pencil is better than  long memory.”

I would like to thank Paschal for asking me to write on some subjects that I believe in. I apologize for my grammar, I write how I talk, so I hope this makes sense.  This post I would like to write about why listening to the songs before Sunday is so important.  At first I will give an overview and then I want to break it down for each current position we have at Port City Community Church, hoping that you might have a position at your church that falls in the same area.

At Port City Community Church, we have IMAG in our Sunday services, along with lighting, Computer Graphics, and Audio; again here in a minute I will go through each position. Our current week goes as follows: band rehearses and records the songs Wednesday night; the music goes online Thursdays, along with our Assistant Director notes. This gives our production team two days to listen to the songs.   So why listen?

First of all, you want to know the style of the song.  Is it fast or slow? Does it have a lot of energy or is it capturing a moment of worship? You want to know where the song is going. Second, the technical; any solos, or major happenings in the song; you want to make sure you are in the correct place at the right time. Finally, and most importantly, is worship.  Even though I believe running tech gear is using a gift and is true worship in and of itself, on Sunday you are concentrating on the shot, on the call. So I believe you can take the days before and spend some personal time worshiping God with the music that you are going to help lead your church in on Sunday. So generally speaking; style, technical, and worship are the 3 reasons to listen to the songs before Sunday.

Now the application to each position is very important, I will label each position and give a brief summary of how the role is filled at PC3.   I hope that the descriptions will parallel to some of your production team positions.

Producer: (runs the show) I think this would be obvious, but the producer makes final calls and to know where a song will end to move to the next segment is vital for the flow of a service.

Technical Engineer: (feet on the ground for the producer [fixer of all problems]) Again, with this position of having a general overview of how the service runs, they would need to know when a song is starting or stopping if they needed to work on an issue.

Director: (leader of the video team) Again obvious, this person needs to know when and where to put the cameras, when to run a graphic, when to call a certain shot. It is very important that your director is listening to the music.

Assistant Director: (lets the director know what shots are coming up) even though they have notes in their hands, they could have heard something and pass the info along to the director to make a good shot, spectacular! Also it will make following the notes a whole lot easier.

Technical Director: (the person switching on the console) Knowing your director and the songs is key. Your director might make a call a second early and knowing the person and song,  you actually take where they wanted it. A lot of times your director will cut on the beat of a song, so it is good to know the feel of the song prior to Sunday

Computer Graphics: (running lyrics, messages for parents) If you are running lyrics you should know the songs as well as the people on the stage singing them.  First off, if you have a confidence monitor, you want to make sure you are in the correct place. Second, you are what the crowd is waiting for to know the lyrics, so you want to have the words on the screen early so they know what to sing, but not so early to be a distraction. As far as the messages go, if the director is calling on a fast song it might be a moment before putting the message up, knowing what song you are on and how it goes will help in you asking for the message to be shown.

Camera Operators: (running the camera) Knowing that you cover multiple positions it is vital for you to know how the song goes and the style. Obviously if it is a worship song you will not be doing fast zoom in and outs, but also knowing where to be, if you are covering the worship leader and know a solo is coming up and it is on your side of the stage, the control room might miss that, and because you listened to the songs you know they will need the shot.  You move… we get the shot.

Lighting Engineer: (runs all lighting cues that are pre-programmed) even though there is a “cue sheet”, it is a good idea to know the songs so that the cue sheet makes even more sense. The lighting coordinator is putting the cues in based on listening to the songs, so logically you will be better prepared come Sunday by listening to the songs

Audio Engineer: (runs audio) I won’t even go there!

Stage Manager/Hand: (works back stage to prep, and run things smoothly) You might have a tight set change that works off  a cue in a song, and knowing the song well, will always be helpful.

So in conclusion, listening to the songs will always be beneficial! No matter what role you play in the service, if you are part of a production team you need to know the songs. You are a team, and no one is perfect, but everyone coming in prepared and on the same page will take your ministry to a whole new level. I know, when challenged, people that are Kingdom minded are always up for that challenge and ready to go to that next level!

Does anyone else upload their rehearsal tracks to Planning Center Online or another location for your volunteers to prepare for Sunday? If so, has it helped the team better prepare? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

A few weeks back Nick Warkentien, Paul Trogden and myself sat down for around 40 minutes to record our first of many “Video Commentary” videos. The video format is all three of us sitting down together watching back a single song from a few Sundays back to simply critique it. We have recorded both the IMAG video, ourselves and the audio from both sources.

The purpose behind taking the time to record and post these videos is to help further our volunteers skill set behind their gear. Each week we as a team tend to watch back the video from Sunday and comment on what we like and dislike. We can spend hours discussing what types of shots we are wanting to see and what kind of style we are looking for to be directed. But these conversations never make it out to the entire team in a well communicated form. So that is the reason we decided to begin created these videos.

These videos are created with our volunteers in mind, but I hope that you guys can benefit from them just as much.

Each week I program lighting steps for the upcoming weekend service on a ETC Congo Jr. And when I say that I program the steps, I actually program each and every cue in order for each song. On Wednesday nights our band rehearses and before they finish they record each song to a CD just like (or at least close) to how they will play it on Sunday.

I begin programming and try to finish 90% of the cues before Thursday morning. I then take the rehearsal CD and begin to clean up the lighting cues on Thursday morning. I spend time making sure that the timing is correct in regards to the builds and drops as well as how the dynamic effects feel actually in the room with the music through the PA. Once I finish with all the cues and add in the band lights of each step I set-up a camera to record the entire show.

I currently just simply record SD (720×480) out of a HPX-200 firewire out into my Macbook Pro into a program created for screen capture presentations called Screen Flow. Screen Flow is a great program that we also use to record our IMAG Commentary videos. It does not allow for HD video to import just yet because it is mainly used for screen capturing, but I still use it because it will capture the computer audio at the same time as video. This means I do not have to edit any audio with the video. I simply hit record and start the tracks from iTunes. Screen Flow captures both the wide shot from the camera as well as the iTunes audio and lines them up right there in the program.

Once I finish the export I upload it to our Vimeo page and password protect the video until after Sunday. I want to keep some things unknown for Sunday which is why the password. This is where our team heads over to www.pc3production.org on Thursday evenings and are able to watch the lighting cues. This is becoming a key resource for our Directors, AD’s, Camera Ops and Lighting Engineers.

In the past our Directors have written down ideas and notes before they arrive on Sunday, but each weekend up changing things once they see the lighting. Unfortunately even on Sunday they do not have time to just sit in the room and watch while taking notes. This is why we have began recording the cues ahead of time. This allows the team to watch the cues and take notes without having to leave their own home or coffee shop.

So far the team has loved it and we hope it continues to work. Below you can watch one of our previous weeks.

You may have noticed over the last five weeks we have had a different type of haze filling the room. Other than the new hazer sitting on the floor now instead of two mounted in the air is the hang time and look of the new haze. We have purchased a used Reel EFX DF-50 Hazer to replace our two Unique 2 haze machines. There are some pros and cons to this change and we wanted to share those real quick with you guys.

PROS

CONS

DF-50

Unique 2

So that is the update on our new hazer. We hope to soon build a box to contain the DF-50 to cut down on the noise. But until then we will def. not be using it during any service Live.

Two years ago I purchased a new book titled The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family written by possibly my favorite author, Mr. Patrick Lencioni. I absolutely love how Lencioni writes by taking around three-fourths of the book and telling a “fable” and then taking the rest to layout the principles taught in the “fable”. The concept is only used by him from my personal knowledge and that is why I love it so much.

In this book Lencioni takes one foot out of his typical business book box and enters a new realm of investing in your most important organization… FAMILY. After picking up this book and reading it in one sitting I asked Kirsten to read it and develop a plan that is discussed within the book. The problem is that two days after reading it I left for Atlanta to shoot photography for Catalyst and ended up giving the book to a new friend there after we spent hours discussing the topic. We have sense bought a new copy and created our “Rally Cry” as of last night!

Here is a brief description of why Lenchioni wrote the book:

Last week I posted Producer Gear List Pt. 1 | Lighting where I tried to answer a lot of questions that come in about the type of gear that we used specifically at Port City Community Church. Today I have put together an extensive list of our Video gear located in our main auditorium. This list does not include everything, but it does include the large pieces of our gear that helps us pull off each week at PC3.

Once again we have added a link to each piece of gear that will take you to its particular website. If you have any questions or comments please leave a comment on this post and we will try to answer any questions you may have.

Displays

Cameras

Lenses

Tripods

Analog to SDI Converters

Switcher

Matrixes

Computer Graphics

Software

Clear Com (Intercom)

Main Stations & Accessories

Beltpacks & Headsets

Wireless Intercom

TV Distribution (UTP)

At PC3 we have the great privilege of working with some great production gear each week. And often we receive emails or phone calls asking about specific pieces of that gear. So I have started to compile a list of our current gear and decided to start with our lighting department. I have added a link to each piece of gear as well so that it will take you to its particular website.

Hazers

Intelligent Fixtures

Conventional Fixtures

Control & Dimming

Rigging