Lyman Easter Site 2011

The past few Easters at Northland, we have experienced overflow crowds for our Easter services.  To help with this we decided to setup a temporary site as a direct extension of Northland.  We did simultaneous services with broadcast feeds running in both directions.  There were solos at Lyman (our site) and our full band at our main site (Longwood).  It was a quite impressive.  This is something we have done in the past, but lighting has never been a large part of it.  This year we changed that.  We really wanted to create an atmosphere similar to our main sanctuary.  Below is how we were able to accomplish this.

Lyman High School (our temp site) has a 700 seat auditorium.  As you can see in the pictures, there are some nice reflective panels on the ceiling.  It is a good room with a lot of possibilities.

Our normal Easter services are a large production.  So with our limited staff and limited room availability, we were forced to load-in the day before.  The 4 days before were focused on building and programming our lighting in the main sanctuary. (Below)

So with the limited time and limited crew, we decided to go with a soft set and a 90% moving light rig.  Using the moving lights enabled us to spend less time setting up less lights, and more time getting dynamic and fitting looks through programming.

The theme of our Easter service was a story of redemption.  We used picture frames to show how each of our lives is a picture of a story of redemption.  You can see the full service at http://www.northlandchurch.net/media/easter2011/ .  Below are a few more pictures of the service at Lyman.

To help tie in with our service we built a Cross of picture frames in both buildings.  Below is a picture of the one we built for Lyman.  We spent $35 for all the frames at area thrift stores and attached them to a 2x2 frame that we painted black.

Since Easter is a celebration of Christ's resurrection, we wanted the "set to have a warm feel".  To do this we covered the existing Black drape with a layer of sheer fabric from Rose Brand.  We used the red gold Shimmer Organza, which is an amber sheer with flakes of metallic sparkle in it.  It disappeared when not lit, but took light very well too.  It gave a nice texture to the nearly empty stage.  You can really tell how dynamic the fabric could be used (or not used) in the next few photos.

Almost all of the designs I do rely heavily on lighting (like any good, self-respecting set should).  However, this one did particularly heavily.  We used an assortment of Mac 2000 Profiles, VL2500 Washes, and Mac 101s.  The VL 2500s gave us a good solid color wash for video backlight, the Mac 2ks gave us a lot of great texture and cyc lighting, and the Mac 101s gave us some really great beam looks.

I think it was a pretty amazing feet to setup and program such a versatile rig in 2 days, especially with the previous 3 days being 55 hours of loading-in, setting up, and programming in the main sanctuary.  I will leave you with my 2 favorite pictures.  The start of the load-in and one of my favorite looks.  It is amazing what the Lord can do with your skills if you submit to him.  

You did WHAT! with the front light?

This design is all about front light.  I know for me, this is a game changer.  We used only Par 16's (Birdies) for front light.

We were doing an acoustic service.  The birdie front light gave a real intimate atmosphere.  They were place on DSR and DSL and crossed.  The shadows on the wall made for a feeling like you were in a small room with candle light (with less fire hazard).  We also added some Ikea lamps to give it some thing  in the back.

Screens a-la truss

So, this is a pretty cut and dry set.  We built a box of 12" truss with 2- 10' sticks, 2- 4' sticks and 4 corner blocks per side.  To line the center we hung two layers of Viole Sheer cut to size.  We then lit them with 2 American DJ pars and during certain songs our moving lights.  We also lined the trusses with some Par 56's we have.  A lot of time we used them more as a surface to reflect, than to light anything up.  Simple set that only took about 2 hours to build and looked pretty good.