Blog – Page 2 – Motion Worship – Video Loops, Countdowns, & Moving Backgrounds for the Christian Church

Buying Church Media Assets: How to Convince “The Boss”

Aside from a few larger churches where everyone has a departmental budget, most church media teams need to convince their pastor to purchase any piece of gear or new media assets. If you’ve been left with that role, you know the anxiety that comes before “the pitch.” He’s going to ask why you need it, how much it costs, probably stall for a second, and then ask you why you don’t consi...

5 Tips for Making the Most of Your Church Tech Budget

I’m convinced that nobody - absolutely nobody - would be capable of spending a six or seven-figure budget as fast as a church tech director. While I joke, the truth is that everything in that world is expensive, and there is always a better version of whatever it is you’re buying. Cameras, computers, light boards, lights, sound boards, stage designs, audio systems, music gear, software… U...

4 Indisputable Qualities of Church Tech Directors

Being a church tech director is not an easy job, and everyone knows it. While they may never be in the spotlight like the pastor, worship leader, or musicians, they are always arriving earlier and leaving later than anyone else. They’re setting everything up, organizing, running the slides, planning lights, and doing everything else related to Sunday morning production. And just like the band, t...

Effective Feedback Management as a Service Producer

Working as a service producer at a church is tough work. You’re always right in the middle of everything. You’re responsible for everything going as planned, but the actual execution of everything is often in the hands of others - the worship pastor, the sound engineer, lighting people, other volunteers, etc. Naturally, you’re put in a predominantly managerial role. You get to decide on s...

5 Tips for Being Efficient at Church Media Production

There are so many moving parts in church media production. As a media director, you’re constantly doing things on the fly – changing song setlists, replacing lyrics, reordering songs, switching backgrounds out, importing and adjusting sermon notes, etc. You know the story. That’s why it’s so incredibly important to have a good grasp on ways you can make your work more efficient. The quicke...

3 Ways to Make Sermon Slides Look Better

Accompanying a sermon with visuals helps to clarify and drive home the message exponentially. That’s what sermon slides are for. It’s meant to reinforce the message and give an easy-to-digest summary of the main points of the sermon. But sermon slides aren’t always helpful. In fact, in many instances they can detract from the message. Bad design, poor font choice, improperly sized text, t...

Healthy Church Tech Director to Worship Pastor Communication Tips

Communication is everything in ministry. Good communication practices can help a ministry to operate ats fullest potential, while poor communication (or a complete lack of communication altogether) can cause a ministry to crumble. The same is absolutely true for worship ministries. More specifically, the communication practices between a tech director/media director and the worship pastor are s...

How to Plan Ahead as a Church Tech Director

You’re the first one to band rehearsal and often the last one to leave. You may frequently be in charge of setup and teardown in addition to all the work you have to do during rehearsal and on Sunday morning for all services. Being a church tech director is a lot of work. We understand! Most church tech directors will agree that the most valuable thing to them is “time”. You need time ...

Where to Find Great Affordable Church Media

The modern church relies heavily on media for worship music, lyric and sermon slides, sermon videos, livestreams, and social media. The reason is simple - media can aid in communicating a message clearly. Audio and visuals accompany messages to make them “stick” with people. Whether it’s premade and purchased videos and mini-movies, or separate media components for in-house video producti...

3 Crucial Church Snare Drum Mixing and EQ Tips

Mixing drums in live worship music can be really difficult. Not only are you battling the mix of the entire band – the room you’re in has limitations regardless of how small or big of a space it is. On top of that, the mics used, sound equipment installed, and mixing board will all play a role in the final sound of your mix. However, there are a few concrete “principals” that can be applie...

Church Media Directors: Where to Get Design Feedback

Church media and tech directors are certainly never short of stage design inspiration. Between various Facebook groups, referencing other church’s livestreams, finding Instagram posts, and looking at church stage design Pinterest pins, chances are you have more ideas than you even know what to do with. But when it comes to design feedback, most church tech directors don’t know where to get ...

Making Church Drum Mics Sound Good: The Ultimate Guide

Drums are a doozie for tech directors and sound engineers. So many mics, so many cables… so much sound. And don’t even get us started on drummers (an article for a later point in time.) Micing a drum kit can get a bit confusing if you’re not completely informed on what you should be doing. Here are just a few frequently asked questions we’ve gotten from church tech directors: “Do I...

Media Production: Getting Sermon Notes and Lyrics on Time

Everyone has a different responsibility at church, and the general philosophy is that “as long as I get my work done when I need it done, Sunday will go fine.” And most the time, that’s kind of a true statement. In a sense, the thought is that it doesn’t matter if you practice the songs 2 weeks before rehearsal or 2 hours before rehearsal – as long as you know them by the rehearsal or Su...

Part-Time Church Tech Directors: Organization Tips

Church tech directors carry a ton of responsibility. Any time someone has tech related issues or questions, the ability to get it fixed and keep moving all hinges on the expertise and involvement of the church director and/or tech team. But having that much responsibility comes with an unfortunate caveat – you have to keep it all organized. Whether it be lights, worship backgrounds, worship l...

Using Powerpoint with Video Backgrounds

In this tutorial, Chris talks about the challenges and pitfalls of trying to use motion backgrounds across multiple slides in PowerPoint. Although PowerPoint is great for placing text on video for a single slide, problems occur when trying to loop a video and change the text. Instead, we recommend worship presentation software such as the those listed on our homepage.

How to Shorten a Countdown Video

This is a quick tip on how to make a worship countdown video shorter, e.g. taking a 5 or 10 minute countdown and bringing the length down to 3 minutes or 1 minute. It involves starting the video later, or setting the "in" point of the video to a later time This can be done using just about any worship presentation software, but for demonstration purposes I used Media Shout (MediaShout) and...

Placing Text on Motion Backgrounds

This is a brief tutorial on placing text over video in worship presentation software. These techniques can be used in most any software (except Powerpoint), but for demonstration purposes I used MediaShout (Media Shout). I cover ways to make text show up clearly on most backgrounds, and how to position text so that it compliments art and imagery instead of fighting for attention. I also sho...