Easter 2012

Our 2012 Easter service was a big departure from previous years.  In previous years, our lighting department has had a larger budget for rental.  Even with this, I think we made a huge impact on the worship environment at Northland.

As you can probably see from the pictures above, we used a lot of set pieces and drape.  

One of our larger elements was some scenic boxes we built.  Below is a picture of the finished product.

Each of our scenic panels was made of 3 2x4s, 1 sheet of black Coroplast, 1 sheet of white Coroplast, and 3 1x4s for trim.  We built our scenic frames by making 2"x4" frames that measured 4'x8.  We painted the boards black first then assembled the frames with drywall screws (see below).  You can also see Mike and James helping with the painting craziness. :)

Above are the finished frames.  We attached our cut black coroplast to these frames.  We cut the black coroplast into 1.5 - 2.5 inch strips.  You can see some of the attached strips below. 

We attached strips in criss crossing patterns.  First on the top then on the bottom like below.

I think the opposing strips give some awesome depth.  Once we were at this point we added a full sheet of white Coroplast on the back, like below.  We used 12mm Staples to attach the coroplast and razors to trim off the excess material.

Above is one of the frames finished (except for the trim).  We nearly left them without the trim.  They look nice and pretty clean even without trim.  For the trim, we cut 1x4's at a 45 degree angle and painted them with a Oak stain.  Unfortunately I don't have any nice close ups, however you can catch the idea from the picture at the top.

We lit the scenic panels with 3 cell strip lights from the back and Colorblasts from the front on an angle.

Here is a link to order Coroplast if you are trying this.  You can also pick it up at a local sign shop, for cheaper.  Everything else can be picked up at a local hardware store.

We also rented some Molten Lava fabric from Dazian Fabrics.  Below is a close up picture of it.  It takes light amazingly, especially when lit from multiple angles.

We rented some Colorblaze 72's to light the bottom of the fabric, and side lit the fabric with 10 of our Colorblast 12s.  Below are a few of the wonderful looks George made. 

We also did environmental projection this year.  We setup 4 DL-3s at FOH and projected on the walls that surround the sanctuary.  The main purpose however for these projectors was to project a scripture we had on the Kabuki in front of the stage for the opening.  Below are some pictures.

For Easter this year, we opened with a video telling of Mary coming to find the tomb empty.  We hung 10'w x 34'h White fabric from 6 kabuki selenoids.  After the video finished we drop the fabric in black.  It revealed our Easter set.

Below are some more pictures from Easter.  Hope this helps you in your desire to serve the lord.

Metal Concert 2-17-2012

 Last month we hosted a Heavy Metal Rock show.  It was intensely amazing.

We used the Mega Lite leds we bought for Christmas.  George was kind enough to construct an amazing frame system which made setup for a breeze.  Each frame has 8 leds with 16 pixels each.  It is great, we use them like a low res LED wall.  We control them with Madrix.  It is one of the coolest LED programs I have ever seen.

Anthony ran the console for part of the show too.  He did an awesome job.

We did some pretty cool things.  We controlled the Madrix computer VIA a dmx in from the MA.  So all my intensities and color mastsers were controlled from handles on the MA.  We also had an audio input into the Madrix computer.  Our amazing audio friend Zach set us up with a Mackie mixer with the stereo mix, guitars, and kick drum.  We then un-muted what we wanted and fed it into the Madrix.  The madrix, then gave us some amazing EQ effects based on the Audio input.  Below you can see the crowded lighting setup.

We also added 6 Mac 2ks on the floor for the show (you cant have a good metal show without some good blinding).  It was a fun show.  Enjoy.

Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year we really challenged ourselves to do something great.  Instead of spending a large amount of money on rentals, we committed to spending that money on purchasing something we could use far into the future.  We landed on purchasing some LEDs, and renting a few Clay Paky Sharpys

For the past few years we have been trying to recreate the look of Versa Tubes.  We have used PVC with some success, but have not been able to get quite the dynamic.  In our research for something like the Versa tube, we came across the Mega Light Bright Stripe.  It is a 4' LED tube with 16 segments of LEDs.  The coolest thing about them, is that they don't need anything external.  They take a 3pin DMX input and can daisy chain power.
















We used a Madrix basic system to control them. Madrix is designed as a pixel mapping and content building tool for LED systems. We built all of our content in Madrix in a very short amount of time.

We built a massive structure to support the LEDS.  The structure used gas pipe, uni strut, and various connectors.  We then clamped the LEDs to the pipe.  The structure was built in 10 sections, each of which had its own DMX Universe.  There were 10 universes of LEDs ran from Madrix.

We also rented a circle truss (covered in garland and Christmas lights) and 16 Clay Paky Sharpys.  We really strive to make each service an environment for worship.  I think we really did a great job with this one.