Know Video Team members

Video is a very powerful medium, and while it can be used to good effect, it can also be used against you.



I'm sure a lot of you heard of the church video that was posted on the internet showing ministers casting out a sexual spirit from a young man. Why a christian would want to post such media on the internet, I have no idea, but is important that you know those that work amongst you, and as a pastor you need to be aware of what you say during recordings. If there is any thing you don't want in the public domain, then stop all recording both audio and video.

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Selecting a church video camera system.

Directing Church Video

Being a church video director is not just a matter of pressing a few buttons on your video mixer, and you will have a professionally looking recording of your service on DVD to sell or give to homebound congregation members.

One of the most common mistakes made by many people starting a new TV ministry, is they spend some money on the equipment, put them in the hands of someone with no studio or tv directing experience (they might claim to have an egineering degree), get a couple of camera operators together and begin to pump out programmes for local TV stations, satellite or the internet! The recordings lack quality, and you begin to wonder why if they could spend money on equipment, they can't get the crew trained and wait till they got to a standard that could be used on TV.



There are a few attributes that you need in order to be able to effectively direct a camera crew, and these require training and time to develop and perfect.

A church video director needs to be a good camera operator. For you to effectively direct a camera crew and the staff of a TV studio gallery (vision mixers, VT operators, CCU, etc) you need to have worked and excelled at operating a camera for a few reasons. First you would know what are good and correctly composed shots. Secondly you might need to troubleshoot or adjust the church camera for a trainee or novice cameraman.

You need to know how to correctly switch between shots and create good live programmes. The correct techniques involved in live video camera switching or mixing has to be learnt, as the shots are not random. For example when you have 2 camera shots of the church pastor, they must no be of the same shot size when you are cutting between them, even if they are from different angles.

A church video director will have to switch between music beats for the images to flow smoothly during praise and worship or music concerts.

You need to know what good tv looks like in order to create good video, and this requires industry insider knowledge which can only be gained by training,

These are just some tips on being a good video director if involved in a church's media department, but the key thing is that you need some training and time to get good at it. As you know anything in the video industry is not cheap, so a good starting point would be reading the book Basic Studio Directing by Rod Fairweather.
I got my TV video directing skills from a BBC trained studio director with over 20 years experience, who used this book as a manual, and I can say that you will learn a lot from Rod's knowledge and while it alone will not teach you everything you need to know in a day or two, it is better than not taking any training at all.


If you are in the UK and are interested in one on one or church group training for video directing or any other video production techniques (editing, single camera directing, etc), then feel feel to contact me via email, details are on the sidebar.

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Directing William McDowell's London Worship Experience
Our mobile studio production unit the Datavideo HS-2000.

Using professionals to record church video

If you have just started, or are thinking about starting a church video ministry, you might be considering the option of initially buying the video equipment and hiring in professionals to operate and record the church services.



While professional camera operators and a video director will be able to do their job properly, and get all the action recorded on to tape or DVD, unless they are christians, then there are a few points that you might need to bear in mind before committing to this way of producing your church video media.

Knowing the Pastor's way of ministering. Personally I think it is important that the church video director in particular and all members of the crew are familiar with the way the church leader operates. This gives them an idea of what to expect and thus have a better chance of capturing it in the heat of a church service.

Sensitive to congregation member's feelings. While the ministry's bishop might have made an annoucement that video equipment is being introduced to record services, it is still important that camera operators and the director is sensitive to people's feelings, and don't think that the only thing that matters is producing a nice product on DVD. Not everyone wants to be a TV star, nor is eveyone that comes to church a regular member (some might be unsaved and visiting for the first time), and it would not be right if someone is forced to leave the congregation because a camera keeps being shoved in their 'pretty' face every service despite them showing that they are not comfortable. I think a person's soul is worth more than that.

Appropriate shots. While it might be acceptable to show a lady's cleverage popping out of a tight top in a secular concert, you don't want to be seeing that on your church videos, and a secular professional media operator might not see the harm that this could do to a ministry's image.

Depending on your ministry's individual circumstances, there is obviously a particular image or message that you might want to portray to the TV watchers, and without having sat under the teachings of the resident pastors, this might be hard to convey across to your professional director and crew, so you need to consider carefully if this is the route that you want to take for growing or establishing your church video ministry.

Additional Reading
church video cameras.