I thought it would be fun to give away a projector, so…I am! Just in time for Christmas.

It’s a Hitachi A300 ultra-short throw projector – you might have seen me rave about it and its awesome features, like being able to project onto a 10′ wide screen from a few feet away!  3000 ANSI Lumens, built-in mirror system, native 1024×768 and can do 16:9 as well.

To enter to win the projector:

***1. Follow Visual Worshiper on Twitter. (http://twitter.com/VisualWorshiper)

(If you are already a follower, there is no need to un-follow and re-follow. Doing so will get you disqualified from the contest, and it doesn’t help your chances; so please don’t. )

***2. Tweet the message you see here:

Win a new Hitachi A300 Ultra-Short Throw projector from @VisualWorshiper! Follow & Re-Tweet to Enter! Info at http://tinyurl.com/ct9gn4j

(There is no advantage to tweeting more than once. There is also no penalty for tweeting more than once, but it doesn’t increase your chances of winning.)

We will keep a record of the tweets and use a random number generator and announce the winner here on this blog and on Twitter on Sunday December 18th. We will even pay for shipping anywhere in the continental US! (If you are outside the US, we ask that you help with any applicable taxes/import fees because they vary so much between countries.)

We hope to be able to bless someone in time for Christmas, so tweet away and tell your friends! Anyone can enter!

Official Rules:
1. You must be at least 18 years old to win.
2. You must be following Visual Worshiper on Twitter: (http://twitter.com/VisualWorshiper)
3. You must send the Tweet EXACTLY as it appears above. Literally all you have to do is copy, paste, Tweet.
4. You may not create multiple Twitter accounts in order to gain more entries. If you do so, you will be disqualified from the contest.
5. You do not have be part of a church in order to win.
6. We will announce the winner on Sunday December 18th in the morning, and ship the projector out that week.
7. The projector will carry the standard manufacturer 3-year warranty and is brand-new in box. Any warranty service issues will be carried out through Shepherd Media.

I want to let you know of a new service we are offering at Visual Worshiper. My heart is to help ALL church communities, so that’s why I’m starting this new off-site and remote consulting/design service where I use pictures of your sanctuary and existing lighting and build a 3D environment where we can literally adjust, focus, and play with lighting options all remotely via video conferencing!

We do this via video conferencing, so you can see just how your new idea, set design, or lighting upgrade will look.

-See and more around YOUR worship space in 3D!
-Accurately see how your current lighting looks.
-See how new gobos, colors, angles, and real-world lighting fixtures will look in your worship space.
-Visualize haze, moving lights, LED fixtures, and even pyro! (I don’t think we’ll be doing much pyro…)
-Explore upgrade possibilities with new lighting fixtures – all real-world, or we can build whatever we need, right within the software, live.

Process:
-You send me pictures of your worship space. (Upload here)
-I send back a quote for the remote design and consulting – it will vary a little based on size of room and modeling detail.
-I then model your worship space and mimic your existing lighting setup using real-world fixtures, colors, gobos, textures and patterns.
-We schedule a video conference call where I share my screen with the 3D software activated, and I walk you through (in real-time and step-by-step) how you could maximize your current lighting by simply adjusting your current lighting.
-We then can add any lighting fixtures we want to see what future upgrades you might want to look into.
-Following the video conference call, I send you screenshots and any details we talked about so you can have a practical guide to adjusting your lights and maximizing their use in your service.

At the end of the day, you see real-world examples in YOUR worship space and gain practical steps to simply re-adjust your current lighting, or what to upgrade in order to bring your lighting, set design, and/or projection to the next level.

It’s super fun and VERY cool!

This weekend I got to be apart of an incredible church with an incredible ministry.  A local church (in Dallas) is quite literally in the inner city and helps people transform their lives away from addiction, poverty and crime into a life led by Christ.

They were remodeling their worship space and wanted to have me in to add an Environmental Projection system, and all the physical work (electrical, mounting, cable pulls) were going to be done by the guys in the program.  I have never met a more dedicated, professional, kind, and passionate group of guys. Thanks to Tony, Desmond, Justin, Will and Tobi, and especially Ken- great job guys!

Seeing them work was refreshing – they paid attention to every little detail and put all of their heart and energy into their work , as into the Lord.

I hope you’ll check out the ministry that these people are apart of – CareCenter Dallas
Oh yeah, and the projection turned out great.

I am totally speaking to myself on this one…

I do a lot of live events and there are times when things are crazy and I’m stressed because I’m trying to get something technical working before doors open, and I still haven’t programmed any visuals/lighting because I’m coming in blind for a one-off event and haven’t even met the other people on the crew yet and we don’t even have a set list.  Whew.

I’ve found that when I don’t take the time to pause…and breathe…and pray…and be thankful…

…none of that cool technology or visuals or ‘moments’ really matter.  When I DON’T pause…the worship time stops being worship, and starts being a chore.

You need to ask yourself where you are in your heart before you start leading others in worship (musically…visually…etc).   Are you dealing with anger or frustration?  Do you REALLY want to be here doing this?  I’ve been in that place many times…and it stinks.  I don’t want to be here because X, Y, Z is happening at home, or in my heart, and I almost stop caring what I show, which can be dangerous.

I’ve also been on the other side and seen leaders be downright mean and rude to crew/band members while setting up or backstage, but then get ON stage in front of the congregation and sing about love.  It just irks me either way.

So, as we get into Christmas and all the craziness starts happening; I just think it’s important to pause.  Check your heart.   Check your motives.  God doesn’t NEED any of this STUFF we’re trying to project or light or mic anyway, so don’t stain your relationships or your home life or your heart for it.  I think God cares more about that first…

Below I posted about my top three favorite worship colors, and mentioned something called dichroic glass.

This is from Rosco, describing their Permacolor dichroic glass:
Dichroic filters are durable glass color filters that transmit only certain wavelengths of light, reflecting the rest of the spectrum, rather than absorbing it. Since virtually no energy is absorbed by the filter, light transmission is significantly higher than traditional gels and will never burn out or fade. Rosco Permacolor filters are made with the highest quality coatings, designed not to fade or shift color. In addition, Rosco’s sophisticated manufacturing process allows for precise color consistency batch to batch to a degree that is unprecedented in other dichroic coatings. Permacolor filters are manufactured in five standard sizes on durable borafloat glass 1.75mm (.069″) thick or can be custom cut in any size up to 13.5″ in diameter.

So, in short: Gel ABSORBS all other wavelengths of light, which glass REFLECTS.  This means more light output and longer life of the color media.  To me, it’s the best accessory to add to your conventional lighting fixtures to get the most bang for buck out of them.  Instead of using 4-8 1000watt PAR64 with blue gel, you can use 2-4 575watt ETC PARs with blue dichroic glass, and it would look close to the same, if not better.

Of my top three worship colors (red, blue, amber) I actually only use glass for the blue; the red and amber are intense enough that the glass didn’t make THAT much of a difference.  Plus, you factor in that the warm color temperature of the lamp (HPL, in a Source4 leko) is warm to begin with, so the red and amber gel works fine.  Blue, however, as you know is a cool color so the warm color of the naked lamp just eats up the blue gel.

I like Rosco Permacolor R80 – it’s primary blue, but what I’ve found is that as the light is left on, the deeper the color gets.  It starts off clean, primary blue, but eventually shifts to a deep saturated blue.

Intelligent lights/moving heads use dichroic glass inside the fixture to create color because of the intense, focused light coming through that housing would literally burn through any kind of gel within seconds.  It’s a great way to get better color, intensity and life out of your conventional color fixtures!

I’m excited to be starting something new for churches who just want to rent a complete “Environmental Projection package” for an event, Christmas/Easter production or youth weekend!

Packages include:
-Projectors (Standard throw or ultra-short throw, 3000-5000 lumens)
-Cable (VGA)
-Matrox Graphic Modules (TripleHead2Go or DualHead2Go)
-Computer (MacBookPro)
-Software (ProPresenter4)
-Content

…you don’t need anything else but some blank walls or screens to project on!

Add-On Services:
-Visuals/Media playlist building
(I will help you build your visual and media playlists for your service/event)

-On-site Setup
(I will come out and setup the gear, mask/pixel-block the projection, and conduct an in-depth training session)

Because every event and worship space is different, we will put together a custom package for you based on your needs, so Email Camron for a quote! And yes, we will ship gear anywhere in the United States.

I frequently have churches ask me what colors I would choose for lighting if I had to pick only a few.  Generally I get asked this from churches who have only white light and are ready to spend a few dollars to add some gel and bring some color mood into the room.  So, if you’re wondering how to take the first step to adding color; here are my suggestions:

Red

Good Friday

Passion, blood, sacrament, love, and even a metaphor for sin.

*I’ll pick on Rosco for a bit.  In their standard gel color list, they only offer about 4 shades of RED.  Gam and Lee, on the hand, have a lot more shades.  If you’re using Rosco, I like Rosco 26 (R26), but it can sometimes be the tiniest pink when used with something like a 1000w PAR64.

Blue

Christmas Night

Calm, serenity, peacefulness, and in some contexts: cold, solitude.

*Contrary to ‘reds’ in gel-world, there are about a million shades and hues of blue, which I like because I’m a huge fan of using blues because there are lots of subtle emotions within the color blue itself.  I like a deep saturated blue normally, but a cyan can be a little more fun while a pale blue can be cold and brittle.  I like R83 for a rich blue, but it’s so dark that light just gets sucked up resulting in very little light output even from a 1000 watt PAR.  I recommend using dichroic glass for at least any blue colors you use, like Rosco’s Permacolor, and use R80.  The glass won’t burn through, and you will get a VERY significant increase in light output from your light fixture when using this.

Amber

Easter Morning

Joyful, fun, celebration

*To be more precise, amber/yellow.  I tend to use yellow for Easter, and amber for a candlelight mood in the room.  Usually you can get both from a light/medium amber though; run the light at 100% for more “yellow” and dim the light for more of an “amber” color.  I like R16 for a light amber and R321 for a medium amber.

Also with these three colors, you get purple/magenta (blue+red) and a deep orange (red+amber).  I love using blue and orange for a sunset look; and again, you’ve only used 3 colors.

You can use all gel if you want, but I highly recommend using the dichroic glass for the blue color – you just need to tell your lighting company (Barbizon…Norcostco) what fixture you’re using it in, and be sure to get the safety grid if you’re putting the glass out in front of the fixture.  (For a PAR64 example, you have to have the glass out in front.  But, for a ETC Source 4 leko, you can get a smaller-sized glass that fits in the gobo slot, which is safer to me having the glass inside the housing.)

Quick thought going into this week for all of you involved in planning your church’s worship service…

Make sure you are including your visual/media/lighting team in the planning process; they can add a lot of ideas and creativity!  If they aren’t part of your staff day-to-day and work a full-time job elsewhere, grab coffee with them one evening after your meetings and let them start thinking and dreaming up ways to be visually creative in your space.

So many times I see churches who simply tell their media people what to show, what to light, or what to present; but I just want to challenge and encourage you as leaders to let others voice their thoughts and creativity, and within reason, allow them to follow through with those plans when it’s appropriate.

I was allowed the freedom to do that at my church, and it was an incredible blessing to get to experiment and try new things visually, but within the boundaries set by my leaders.  Often times I would fail in one way or another, and that’s OK- actually I encourage it – but make that happen during the week when you’re only prepping for Sunday, not during an actual service where something can be a distraction.  With that said, I think failing at something pushes you past the fear of ‘messing up’ and towards more and better creativity.

You’re visual media person/team is just as important as someone on stage and they should be treated as such!  Take them to lunch or buy them coffee, listen to them, and when you can, let them do something.

If you don’t know, I’m a lighting nut.  I’m actually a lighting nut more than I am a projection nut.   I’m usually controlling moving light rigs with a real physical console, but I wanted to finally get this setup going for me personally to use on smaller shows/events/worship nights.

This runs on your Windows computer.  This plugs into your lights.  And go!

You could go get a full-sized High End/Barco Road Hog/Full Boar for $10-13k, or…you can do this for under $1000.

Now if you know me, I need physical faders because I run most of my events and lighting shows semi-on-the-fly – I build palletes and moves and things like that and ‘build’ each look and transition with each song/worship element.  In those cases, I want a physical console, and/or fader playback wings that simply plug in via USB.

So is this setup right for your church?  Maybe.  The first thing to ask yourself is “are we using moving lights?” If you’re just using conventionals and LED fixtures right now, you don’t need this.  Just get a real console.

However, once you jump into moving light world, the game changes with consoles.  The Wholehog software is really good at moving lights (as are other higher-end console – Martin’s, GrandMA..etc.) so this could be a cheap option for you IF…..you’re are actually taking the time to program out your services and/or you’re doing very very simple scene changes.

Pretty snazzy!

Oh, and if you want to know my favorite site to get cool lighting gear: LightBroker

I’m excited to be speaking again at ChurchMediaU! We’ll be covering everything from projectors, media content, building presentations, presentation software, cameras, Environmental Projection…and more!

Check out the promo video and see if we’re coming to a city near you – I would love to connect.

Madison – Oct 4

St. Louis – Oct 5

Twin Cities, MN – Oct 6

Cleveland – Oct 17

Pittsburgh – Oct 18

Grapevine – Oct 25

Little Rock – Oct 26

Denver – Nov 2