How Houses of Worship Can Take Advantage of the Age of Volumes

BY DAVE HOFFMAN

Technology has come a long way in a short time when it comes to houses of worship and disseminating their messages to their congregations. What used to be unheard of is now possible and affordable – high quality video technology is available to the masses, no longer something reserved for the Hollywood or broadcast elite.

The pandemic accelerated this development, disrupting the vast majority of industries and forcing people to think outside the box to accomplish their goals. Houses of worship began to adjust their workflows and invest in technologies to continue to ensure that constituents could access the worship services they relied on and stay connected as a community. Over the past few years, many houses of worship have implemented substantial live production, streaming and remote collaboration workflows, and for those that haven’t already, it is easier than ever before to create them.

Not only have houses of worship been able to capitalize on technology advancements for basic worship services, from IMAG to multi-cam to streaming to Zoom, but those producing their own faith-based content, such as educational programming and even filmmaking, have had to factor major technology advancements into their new workflows as well. Technology waits for no one, so it’s always a good time to consider what’s next and how houses of worship can continue to capitalize on new and different technologies that have become readily available.

We are now living in the age of volumes, and included among these new technologies are virtual sets, which allow you to manipulate a digital background in real time, and virtual production, which allows you to combine physical and digital environments, blurring the line between production and post and creating much more flexibility in where the production is shot.

It may be intimidating to think of virtual sets and virtual production at first, as many think of national news broadcasts and the latest Hollywood blockbusters. However, while they do require the proper planning and tools ahead of time, professional virtual sets are very achievable for houses of worship, and virtual production is very accessible with LED volumes catering to independent and smaller productions popping up left and right thanks to the democratization of the technology. Be it a more dynamic service, film, holiday concert, fundraiser, educational event, or other content you produce, or may want to produce, for your congregation, with the technology that is available today it is now easier than ever to place your pastor or other on-screen subjects virtually anywhere or in front of any background without burdening your budget with a slew of new gear or an on-location shoot.

Imagine, for example, taking your live Christmas nativity scene for your holiday fundraiser to the next level. Using a green screen and a high quality keyer – some of which have a smaller price tag than you may think – you can go well beyond what’s possible with a physical set design. In fact, you may even save on your budget by replacing multiple physical sets throughout the year with just one green screen that you can virtually redesign over and over based on your changing needs, while also delivering a more dynamic and engaging production to your audience.

Content like youth presentations, ministry announcements or PSAs can be taken to the next level by creating fixed camera virtual sets, even in small spaces or a church basement. Connecting a keyer to each camera and loading pre-rendered still frames will provide a more realistic look. The possibilities are endless when it comes to opening up new avenues of growth, content creation and most importantly, engaging with your congregation.

This technology has become so advanced that the processing automatically generates internal mattes, so different parts of the image are processed separately based on the colors in each area. With this, you get fine edge detail where it’s needed most, such hair and edges, which may have looked blurry against a green screen in the past, and smoother transitions between colors or other objects in the scene. Imperfections look cleaner and the overall picture looks more natural and organic. A more professional-looking product will always engage viewers more.

Being able to work quickly in live production is key, so look for technology that includes automatic scene analysis. Setting yourself up for success with this includes ensuring your scene is well lit and that the cameras are properly white balanced. From there you simply activate the auto key and let the machine to the work for you, allowing you to focus on the program.

There are many advantages to virtual sets and virtual production, spanning industries from film and TV to live streaming and events – and now to worship. With unprecedented access to the same tools used in Hollywood and broadcast, houses of worship can harness the power of virtual sets and virtual production to be much more dynamic and versatile with their content, going further than ever to disseminate their message, engage constituents and provide them with an even more exciting worship experience.

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David Hoffman’s career spans over 25 years in visual arts and media production. Starting as a documentary filmmaker, he saw new and exciting prospects to visual storytelling through the emerging computer aided production technologies in the mid 1990’s. In the early 2000’s David was the project lead on the implementation of real-time graphics technology at CNBC and later NBCU, before establishing his own technology and production company in 2010. He continued to innovate techniques and technologies in the virtual production market leading up to his current role with Blackmagic Design where he leads the efforts to expand the use of the creative tools for visual media production as Business Development Manager for the Americas.