Well, so much for posting from Catalyst. We had 4 great, but very long days. Day 1 was load in and setting up the 26 LCD screens we had going around the stage. Day 2 was teching problems and rehearsal, and days 3 and 4 were the actual event. We had 9 main sessions in those 2 days, so it was a total whirlwind.

The conference itself was great…featuring a short bus, live elephant , worship by the Fee band , Kristian Stanfill , and Eddie Kirkland –excellent hosts Lanny Donoho and Reggie Joiner , and great teaching from Jim Collins , Dave Ramsey , Andy Stanley , Steven Furtick , Seth Godin , and many more.

The set was in the round due to the sell out crowd of 12,400. There was a cylinder LED with MiStrip ‘icicles’ below it. Above and surrounding that were the 4 main IMAG screens. The stage resembled the Chevy logo with thrusts going off into each area of the floor–the stage was framed with 22 50" LED screens, and the drum sub was wrapped with 8 50" LED screens. The cylnder and MiStrips could raise up and go down via motor control,and the opener featured a cool reveal of the drummer who was on the drum riser inside of the cylinder and strips.

Our tech set up was pretty intense–I had 3 PVP machines in front of me at FOH, and did my best of keeping everything straight. I had a machine running to the MiStrips, a main playback for the cylider LED and screens, and a master for the 26 LCDs that surrounded the stage. With me in the pit was Brad Weston running screen control through the Big Stuf Indigo, and Sarah running lyrics on ProPresenter.

I think the thing that amazes me most about that event is the depth of talent at every position. I don’t think we could come close to pulling it off with the talented people in every department. We get to work a lot with the guys from Majestic Productions, and they always do a great job getting everything in the air on time, and keeping it up and running. Kudos to Brian Pirkle at Big Stuf who produced the event and managed to keep us on task and not melt down during some pretty stressful moments. Jeff , Brian, and Brad at Catalyst have an almost impossible task of improving this conference every year, but continue to raise the bar.

Below are some pics…the bad ones are from my cell phone, the good ones are courtesy of Michael Henson from Majestic Productions.

Any of you make it to Catalyst?

Tags: CREATIVITY, EVENTS, GENERAL, ProVideoPlayer, TRAVEL, VJ GEAR, backgrounds, catalyst, conferences, video staging by gregdolezal
4 Comments »

this week i’m on tour VJ-ing for LifeWay’s New England Nights tour…where we’re taking the Living Proof Live events to the small yet historic States of the Northeast. each night features beth moore bringing the message & travis cottrell (and team) leading worship.

last night we were in Vermont…tonight we’re in New Hampshire….tomorrow is a day off in NYC…then Thursday we go to Delware. what’s special about this week is that on friday night, in connecticut, LPL celebrates it’s 100th event & it’s 50th State…spanning 10 years in ministry! it’s unbelievable to me that i’m along for the ride…God is WAY too good to me, it really blows my mind. i can’t put into words the experiences we’ve had and the things i’ve seen God do.

i thought i’d let you all in on my world here. the day before (and of) is typically spent customizing the intro video to cater to the city we are in…as well as preparing a motion text video that plays as a transition between travis & beth, featuring the scripture that beth is teaching on that session. and when the house lights go black and the screens are fired up, i VJ. here are some screenshots taken from PVP of some of the songs travis & the team leads.

"Shackles" - loops from Highway Elements & Vibes + a few random loops from various places.

"You Are Good" - loops from iWorship Flexx , ArtBeats , & scenes from Baraka .

"Made Me Glad" - motion lyrics from iWorship Flexx & loops from Radiate Films .

"Lord, You’re Holy" - video from ArtBeats + motion lyrics for each attribute of God made in LiveType .

"In the First Light" - video from ArtBeats , WorshipFilms , StarGaze & IgniterBacks .

"Jesus Saves" - video from VJ Wazungu , WorshipFilms , ArtBeats , GO Motion , Highway & Red Canvas Media .

————————–

take some screenshots of your software and show us what you’re VJ-ing!

Tags: EVENTS, ProVideoPlayer, Software, TRAVEL, VJ-ing, backgrounds, conferences, living proof live, loops by proctor
3 Comments »

another great motion lyric project by Brandon Horner.

to read more on the art of motion lyrics, read my previous post.

have you created any cool motion lyrics? links?

Tags: CREATIVITY, VJ COMMUNITY, custom content, motion lyrics by proctor
1 Comment »

There’s a documentary out called “SCRATCH” that I saw; it let’s you in on the underground culture of the hip-hop DJ world. And there was a section on “digging” and how DJs dig for good music & loops to spin.

Digging is basically search & discovery. It’s going out and finding your media (images, loops, movie clips, etc.) One time while growing up in Arkansas, my dad took me on one of the coolest trips ever (and we went everywhere, we did it ALL – and we still do!). But on this trip, we went to the southern part of Arkansas…to the diamond fields. We dug around in the dirt for most of the day, sifting through sand, mud, rocks and water in the heat of the summer, just to try and find a small glimmering rock. We never found one, but we saw many pictures in the visitor’s center that had lucked out.

Searching for media is very much the same, though chances of great discoveries are much more likely and sometimes more rewarding than finding a some shiny rock. All of this to say, it may take some sifting through some dirt and not-so-valuable resources, but that’s usually how you can find some great media for your worship gathering. A great place to start is online. If you don’t have the time to sift through a lot of material to find those amazing pieces, there are a few place that have already sifted everything for you.

Here are two sites that I frequent: VideoForWorship, WorshipHouse Media & the Shoutable Store ; I also recommend subscribing to COLLIDE Magazine …a great new magazine focusing on media & the Church.

What places do you go to dig for media? What’s your process of finding good visual imagery?

- proctor

Tags: VJ-ing, backgrounds, loops by proctor
2 Comments »

This weekend I’ve traveled to Charleston, WV, to fill-in for their VJ and run ProPresenter. Its pretty ironic for me, since I usually spend my time at all-women’s conferences. This had been a good inoculation of testosterone!

I’m here with friends Michael Hocklander (producer) and Darien Koop (LD), and we’ve been having a great time…not to mention hearing great talks on integrity and purpose.

They’ve got an iMac set up with ProPresenter, with everything pre-scripted. So my job had been relatively easy (so far). This morning I brought in my hard drive and juiced it up a bit, adding some stock content (artbeats, stargaze, and iWorship Flexx).
but what’s cool is that PK poured some $$$ into graphics and had original motion lyric content produced for many of the songs.

They’ve got a 3-screen setup…it’s taken everything in me not to break out the tripleHead2Go! I would but they’ve got everything set up a different way, plus things can get tricky when iMAG is involved. But it’s still rockin’!

Here are some pictures taken with my trusty iPhone. (and thanks, Steve Jobs, for the 2.1 FirmWare update…my phone works now!)

- proctor

Tags: Software, TRAVEL, motion lyrics by proctor
3 Comments »

Magnetosphere revisited (audio by Tosca) from flight404 on Vimeo.

our friend and fellow VJ Allan White (aka “Wazungu”) has made what could be a very exciting discovery that has gotten some major media attention in the world of Mac.

he has blogged about & VJ’d some “trippy visuals” from Magnetosphere, and has proclaimed that this could be the new visualizer in iTunes 8, scheduled to release next week at Apple’s Sept 9th event.

MacRumors.com recently had posted a quote from an Apple Exec saying that “the new iTunes 8.0 visualizations are really trippy - there is one with planet like objects wrapping around each other w/stars/light streams”

VJ Wazungu decided to do a little more research…and it resulted in his find being published on MacRumors.com today!

to read more about Allan’s “visual prophecy” check out his blog. He’s a great VJ that I met on the road a few years back when VJ-ing for the Luis Palau Festival in DC, and he is currently working for the Luis Palau organization now. He was one of the first guys to ever comment on this blog and has been a huge encouragement in launching the worship VJ blog. I follow him on Twitter and so can you!

and to be mesmerized by this amazing visualization and soon to be VJ tool of mine, watch this video!

Tags: CREATIVITY, VJ COMMUNITY, VJ-ing, loops by proctor
3 Comments »

the use of “motion lyrics” seems to be gaining popularity. you might have seen these at a Steve Fee concert, the Chris Tomlin tour, or at a Passion conference. Even Integrity Music has overhauled their iWorship videos and are producing them as flexible motion lyric video files.

one of my friends, Brandon Horner, has started creating his own custom motion lyrics for his church in NW Arkansas. Check out his YouTube page where he is posting them. he used Apple’s Motion and Adobe After Effects…and i’m glad to say that he’ll be teaching me some of this next week. Here’s what he created for “God of This City”.

have you seen motion lyrics in use at all? are you creating any for your band/church/etc?

~ proctor

Tags: custom content, motion lyrics by proctor
4 Comments »