First Baptist Church
Starkville, MS
Project Details
Audio design and installation
Rigging design
Lighting design and installation
iTown Church
iTown Church
Fishers, IN
Project Details
Full AVL design and installation
Clark partnered with iTown Church to design the audio, video and lighting for their new main campus in Fishers, IN. The new installation features a concert-style lighting system, broadcast key lighting, a full video production suite, LED video screens and PA.
Frisco First
Frisco First
HD Camera Upgrade
Frisco, TX
PROJECT DETAILS
HD broadcast system design and installation
Projection install
Lighting re-hang and focus
The Project
Clark partnered with Frisco First to install a new broadcast video system featuring Ross Carbonite Switching and Hitachi HD cameras. In order to get the best image possible, our team helped rehang and refocus Frisco First’s existing lighting fixtures. The result was a huge step forward for the church in the image they can capture and broadcast online.
before and after
North Point Community Church
North Point Community Church - Set Design
Alpharetta, GA
Project Details
Scenic Design
Broadcast Lighting Design
Project Installed: 2019
Truist Park
Truist Park
Splash Pad Lighting
Atlanta, GA
Project Details
Lighting Design/Programming
Custom rigging design/fabrication
Wireless DMX deployment
Custom iPad controls
Truist Park and Clark teamed up to create an exciting light show on the stadium’s Splash Pad, a central feature of the courtyard fans use to enter and exit the park. The weatherproof lighting design uses wireless DMX technology to control lighting fixtures distributed around the courtyard. The entire system can run independently, be controlled from an iPad anywhere in the facility, or triggered from the stadium’s master lighting control.
Church of the Highlands
Church of the Highlands
Birmingham, AL
Project Details
Over 30,000 in attendance weekly
AVL Design and Installation at over 17 locations
When a faith community is born, it's not uncommon to hold services in a local school gymnasium, cafeteria or auditorium or even a neighborhood movie theater or community center. What is uncommon, however, is when that same church grows from 350 to over 30,000 in attendance in 14 years. That's what Birmingham, Alabama's Church of the Highlands (COTH) has done. With a focus on reaching the unchurched and building community through small groups, they've also expanded to 11 satellite campuses. The success they've experienced has positioned them consistently near the top of Outreach Magazine's annual list of the 100 largest and fastest-growing churches in the U.S.
Since completing the design and full integration of COTH's theater at their main campus in 2010, Clark has been the church's partner of choice for capital AVL projects. The initial project included upgrading the cameras in the main auditorium and repurposing the previous ones for the theater.
Multiple Campuses / Many Projects
In 2012, COTH upgraded their first permanent offsite campus - Riverchase. The facility was literally given to them several years earlier by a nearby congregation whose pastor passed away unexpectedly, without a succession plan. Since the auditorium seated around 350, COTH chose to add on a new auditorium, with seating for 1000, and use the previous space for children's ministry. The new facility also included six offices, a couple of small classrooms, and a cafe. They called on Clark to handle all of the AVL for the new auditorium.
COTH's Greystone campus outgrew its space in 2011, only two years after they had begun to meet in a local school gym. The purchase of an existing building - a former data call center - required Clark to adapt the space to ensure people at the back of the long, narrow room would feel engaged and connected in the worship experience. Prior to construction, the team engineered the space "down to inches" to ensure that the video screens had proper clearance and that lights and speakers wouldn't block the sightlines. Using their 3-D design tool, both before and during construction, engineers fought for every inch in the room to ensure each seat had a full audio and video experience.
Within an 18 month period, COTH and Clark partnered on the AVL for three campuses - Riverchase, Greystone and Auburn - an exciting and challenging time for everyone involved in the overlapping, fast-paced projects. The Auburn campus was special in that it was the first new, ground up project Clark did with COTH. The firm was asked to design the AVL for the main room, several theaters, including three children's spaces, and all of the distributed AV. What had begun as a satellite near the Auburn University campus in 2007, continued in 2013 in a permanent place. Clark was able to take everything they had learned on the previous projects with COTH and apply it at the Auburn campus.
In 2014, the church launched a portable campus in a school auditorium in Huntsville, Alabama. Clark was asked to help design and implement technological changes to the space that would be mutually beneficial to the church and the school. This included permanent infrastructure to enable the church to hang speakers, truss and lights, as well as an upgrade of the audio infrastructure. It was a win-win for everyone. The church received an adjustment to their weekly rent to help offset the cost of the install and volunteers can now accomplish Sunday morning set up in about an hour (down from four hours). Perhaps even more importantly, the installation gave the school access to technology that they would normally not be able to have and flexibility in how they use the space.
Also in 2014, Clark upgraded the video switcher and routing system in the main auditorium. Infrastructure was upgraded as well, including patch panels and tie lines over the stage area.
When COTH began leasing space in the Opelika SportsPlex, in 2015, Clark assisted them with a permanent AVL install, including a sound system, cabling, patch panels and rigging for truss and motors. This simple solution for a portable campus meant the church wouldn't have to rent gear each week and also that they could be out of the space before the center opened for workouts in the afternoon.
Then, in the summer of 2015, Clark once again installed new cameras in the auditorium of the main campus. The previous units will soon find a new home in the theater, replacing cameras which now have very limited functionality.
Since 2007, COTH has had a presence on the University of Alabama's Tuscaloosa campus. By the beginning of 2016, students and families who have been meeting in a conference center will be able to attend services in a new, permanent facility just a few miles from campus. Clark is also partnering with COTH on this project.
The Takeaway
Clark puts a high value on the trust of their church partners. The AVL firm knows they're in it for the long haul. They also realize that the synergy created while working together over multiple projects increases the success of each individual outcome. Justin Firesheets, COTH Production Manager, says it this way: "Clark has the ability to look at an idea that's already out there and say, 'How can we make this better? How can we learn from what we've already done, and try to improve upon this the next time?' Every project we've done with Clark, we've learned something new about how we could change the shape of the room, how we could affect the acoustics, how we could make some adjustments with the video systems, lighting, or audio."
When asked what to look for in a technology services provider, Justin is quick to say, "The number one thing has to be is a relationship. How well do you work with them? How well do they understand you? Do you enjoy the relationship? You can get equipment and install work from anybody, but if you are trying to further your ministry, you need to make sure you're doing it with somebody that you work well with." He adds, "We view Clark as a ministry partner. They understand our vision and what we're trying to accomplish. They have incredibly talented people working with us to help fulfill our vision, so it's natural that we'd want to continue that relationship."
The Legacy Center
The Legacy Center
San Diego, CA
Project Details
Dome Theater
Audio/Projection design and installation
Legacy Theater
Audio/Video/Theatrical Lighting design and installation
Clark guides AV technology at the Legacy International Center on a huge scale
As an AV project, the Legacy International Center has few peers when it comes to scale. The $131-million project, undertaken by the late evangelist Morris Cerullo’s World Evangelism in 2017 and completed in early 2020, is located on an 18-acre site in San Diego, where among its attractions are a $14.5 million, 100-seat theater 4D Theater: an ambitious cross between a cinema fitted with motion seating and immersive sound, and a domed planetarium illuminated by four Christie Boxer 4K30 projectors. Another, the Center’s Legacy Pavilion theater, is a state-of-the-art 500-seat auditorium equipped with Christie projectors and a Dolby IMS3000 integrated media server. Both venues benefited from the expertise of engineers and designers from Clark.
Clark: Experience And Expertise
“Clark was selected by our design-build contractor, Visioneering Studios, of Costa Mesa, California, and they were an excellent choice,” proclaims Jim Penner, Executive Director of the Legacy International Center. “Clark was chosen to put the audio and projection systems into the 4D Theater, and putting a sound system into a domed environment like that is always a challenge. The remarkable thing about that was that we did not use an acoustical consultant for the theater’s sound. We relied on Clark’s experience in putting sound into a space like that, and the result is an amazing-sounding experience for everyone in that theater. The challenge with the projection system was to fill the entire dome with images, and Clark designed a system utilizing four individual Christie projectors to accomplish the task. It turned out fantastic.”
Clark also installed the theatrical lighting systems in the Legacy Pavilion theater, including the main truss over the seating area and three light bars above the stage, as well as the programming for the MA Lighting International grandMA3 lighting console. But they didn’t stop there. When it came time for a challenging ceiling install of a Christie CP2220 Digital Cinema projector and a Christie DHD1075-GS DLP laser projector in this venue, the Legacy International Center asked Clark’s technicians for advice and they ended up doing the actual installation of the projectors, as well. “Clark’s technicians were totally professional, ready to take on any challenge that came up and able to solve them,” recalls Michael Harris, Chief Engineer at the Legacy International Center. The two Christie projectors were installed for two specific missions: one for the auditorium’s main cinema screen and the second for a smaller drop-down lecture screen.
A Dynamic Experience
Kraftwerk Living Technologies, of Wels, Austria, was retained to create the complex control system for the seven-tiered, domed theater’s dynamic motion seats. These can rock side to side and back and forth and are able to simulate wind blasts, the scent of salt air, and the sensation of mist in the face. For instance, when Moses parts the sea in one of the theater’s initial features, “Walk Through the Bible,” theatergoers will smell the salt air, see and feel the mist, and their seats will rumble as the waves part. The 4K theater also has a QSC Cinema surround-sound system managed using a QSC Core 110f processor. Visitors are immersed in a 7.1 soundfield, which features some amazing low end: five dual-18-inch subwoofers buttressed by a pair of 21-inch subs.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic hit just before the final programming of the system was scheduled to be undertaken. “No one was able to fly out for that, so Clark’s technicians took on that role, essentially acting as the eyes and ears on site for Kraftwerk’s own engineers remotely, doing any troubleshooting that was needed,” explains Penner. “Clark’s attitude throughout the project was always, ‘What do you need? We can do it.’ If a solution had a budget concern, they found ways to resolve that, too. It’s very hard to find technical contractors of that level of quality and that are willing to always do whatever it takes.”
Precision Installation Reduces Costs
“The combination of the 4K Christie projectors, a QSC sound system in a Dolby Atmos immersive speaker configuration, and those amazing Kraftwerk seats that can move in several different ways and incorporate features like pneumatics and leg ticklers make the 4D Theater a very unique project,” observes Alex Stave, a design consultant at Clark who worked on the projection systems in both theaters at the Legacy International Center. He says the main challenge in that theater was positioning the projectors precisely, in order to illuminate the domed projection area. That involved close consulting with Christie technicians to carefully study and map the entire space, determining the best locations from the 3D model they constructed from the map, and then developing custom rigging to secure the projectors. Ultimately, two projectors were placed on two different parts of the floor aimed upward, and two more share a space in the upper part of the room, and as a result viewers’ field of vision is completely immersed beneath the dome. “We had to take a number of other things into consideration beyond just the positions and the aiming, such as how to keep the projectors cool during operation,” says Stave, who also worked on helping coordinate the Kraftwerk dynamic seating systems.
The four projectors create a visual synergy that goes beyond 4K, says Clark Design Engineer Jake Austel. “Each individual projector is 4K, but the density of pixels you get when you combine several of them like this produces very, very high resolution — pixel for pixel, it’s much higher that what would be considered 4K,” he says.
In fact, he adds, the early stages of the projection-system design called for six 4K projectors, but Clark’s team was able to achieve the desired high degrees of luminosity and coverage with four, producing a significant cost savings on the theater’s hardware budget.
Positioning the projectors is critical, and adroit use of software programming assured that the four projectors’ images seamlessly blend across a precise tangent line — the floor-mounted units cover the mid left and right quadrants of the dome from the audiences perspective and the other two illuminate the upper and lower center part from positions above and behind the seating. But getting something with this degree of resolution also requires an understanding of how the eye and the brain perceive what they see. “You look at the way light refracts across certain objects and you have to assess what it looks like versus the way people’s eye perceive it,” he explains. “For instance, even black regions in a projected image are still projecting light. While this is widely accepted when using overlapping projectors, the design needs to meet the restraints set by how the eye can perceive it, because the human eye is constantly white balancing.
“A lot of what goes into commissioning a multi-projector 4K installation like this is perceptual and sometimes even highly subjective, so it takes a lot of expertise and experience to get an installation like this right,” Austel adds. “Clark has the unique resources needed to make that happen.”
Victory Church - Norcross Campus
Victory Church
Norcross Campus
Project Details
1,600 seat auditorium
Two broadcast video control rooms
Audio, video, and lighting design and installation
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE & VISION IS WHAT MAKES CLARK DIFFERENT
Thirty years ago, Pastors Dennis and Colleen Rouse held the first service in their small apartment in Norcross, Georgia, with just six people attending. Since then, Victory Church has grown into a multicampus house of worship that welcomes more than 16,000 worshippers each weekend. Listed 57th in 2010 by Outreach Magazine's 100 Largest Churches in America, the ministry has expanded beyond its main Norcross campus, with its 1,600 seats and 1,000-seat overflow areas to encompass Victory@Hamilton Mill in Buford, which has a 600-seat auditorium, and the Midtown Atlanta location, a portable church currently meeting at a temporary site.
One constant for Victory Church has been an association with Clark, which most recently designed and integrated the video systems for the Norcross church’s newly launched online virtual campus. Control Room B, built in August, 2019 in the Norcross location, utilizes the same core platforms that serve Control Room A there, which was also designed and integrated by Clark, in 2015. That installation brought the church’s video into the HD realm, when Clark specified and integrated Ross Video Acuity video switchers, a Grass Valley Nvision router, and Ross Video Tria video servers, as well as Hitachi SK-HD1000 and SK-HD1800 cameras. Control Room B relies on those same core Ross, Grass Valley and Hitachi systems, with separate control and work surfaces that allow the online campus director to create unique, custom programming that’s streamed before, during and after the main Sunday services, whose in-church video and audio and broadcasts are managed from Control Room A. Clark’s designs offered the church significant cost savings by letting these core platforms service both control rooms.
“We’re a very technically aware church — we do a lot of our own lighting and rigging, and we’re also very dynamic — our services can go from high energy one minute to a single voice speaking the next,” observes Nathan Williams, who has been the church’s Senior Technical Director for the last 15 years. “We needed an integrator who can be a partner, not just a vendor, and that’s what Clark has been for us.”
In fact, Clark and Victory Church came first came together in 2008 when the integrator came to the church’s aid in the wake of a fire at a church building. “They were not the AV integrator we had been using at the time but Clark stepped up and helped us get back on our feet and ready for the next weekend’s service,” Williams recalls. “And within a year or so they were our regular go-to integration partner.”
Flexibility For Services
The newest control room is now part of a production suite in Norcross, with an ergonomic design that encourages collaboration and ensures a smooth live-service experience for churchgoers. This includes high-energy music through the auditorium’s sound system and video across three large LED screens, for which Clark did the cabling and programming, as well as over 300 moving-head light fixtures, installed and programmed by the church’s staff, which add visceral excitement to the worship service.
“A Victory Church service is going to vary from week to week, so we needed technology and a control-room design that gave us a lot of flexibility,” Williams explains. “Clark’s product choices, programming, and room-workflow designs made all the difference, such as the Ross Acuity switchers, which let us send different content to different screens in the room, as well as to the displays at our satellite campuses and over the internet. We’re not constantly thinking about which image goes to which screen’s middle or lower third — it frees us up to be creative. And that lets the service be much more engaging.”
That extends to audio, as well. A new Digico SD11 console in Control Room B, installed and commissioned by Clark, mixes the sound for the online pre-, mid-, and post-show production, taking a feed of the mix of the actual worship and message from the SD5 broadcast console located in Control Room A. The new console in Control Room B also manages the matrix for the church’s Clear-Com Eclipse intercom and IFB system.
Control Room B has added new dimensions to the online services. “The announcements made in the church aren’t of interest to someone watching over the web in, say, Chicago,” says Williams. “Now we can use those moments to create new content that better communicates our message. It’s using the same core technology platforms as Control Room A, but it has its own workflow. It can create a whole new show.”
Mike Paschal, Victory Church’s Live Video Director, says Control Room B has only become more important during the pandemic, as it’s used to connect with other online applications such as chat rooms and social media. “That room came about because we wanted to grow our online audience, but it had to happen within a certain budget and not interfere with services or other events,” he explains noting that two major conferences at the church took place during the installation. “The goal was also to patch into the existing system, so Clark also had to run additional fiber to the Hitachi cameras and other drops. They did it all within the budget and we never missed a beat in terms of scheduling.”
A Dedicated Online Campus
Where many churches use streaming to simply extend their regular services online, Control Room B is designed to allow Victory Church to build an entirely new virtual campus, using the same technology platforms to create unique content for online worshippers. It’s an approach that deepens engagement, says Bob Nahrstadt, the system designer for Clark for several projects at Victory Church. “Many churches use webcasting as an adjunct to physical services, as basically ‘overflow’ from the auditorium,” he says. “Victory Church is using it strategically, to build an online campus, and with specific, unique content for it.”
Where many churches use streaming to simply extend their regular services online, Control Room B is designed to allow Victory Church to build an entirely new virtual campus, using the same technology platforms to create unique content for online worshippers
Interestingly, the seeds for Control Room B were planted back in 2015, when Clark Productions was working with Williams and Mike Paschal, the church’s video director, on the original Control Room A. “At the time, none of us had any idea what the church would be doing several years in the future when it came to streaming, but we all felt that it was important that the space and the technology be able to accommodate that future,” says Nahrstadt. For instance, the Acuity switcher was chosen in part because it allowed for an expanded number of multi-effects (ME) busses: the original three on board has since expanded to six MEs, able to incorporate media such as scrolling Twitter feeds. Meanwhile, he adds, “The Nvision router’s 288 X 576 matrix potential capacity seemed like overkill at the time, since only half that was loaded initially. But today it’s operating at over 90-percent capacity, with numerous destination feeds.”
Understanding the Client’s Culture
That kind of collaboration with a client’s vision goes far deeper than technical specifications. It requires that the integrator understand the client’s culture. Nahrstadt points to the sanctuary’s Meyer Milo sound system, which Clark also designed and installed nearly a decade ago, and which is considered one of the first and one of the leading touring-level systems adapted for installed applications.
“Victory Church is unique in a lot of ways, including that they were a multicultural congregation very early on,” he explains. “At a time when most churches that had contemporary worship-music styles were playing pop styles, Victory Church was incorporating hip-hop into its music. What we did around that was not only choose a sound system that was well-suited to that style of music” — the system design included eleven Meyer 700HP subwoofers — “but we also calibrated the system for both the music they play and for the nuances of the rooms they play it in. Ed Crippen, our calibration specialist, is able to match a sound system to a room in a way that few can, and you can hear that in Victory Church. He really understands how speakers interact with the environments they’re used in.”
Williams describes Victory Church’s relationship with Clark as perfect for AV in a church.
“We have a very good idea of what we want our AV technology to do, and Clark is the one we turn to to tell us what we’ll need to make that happen,” he says
“What I especially like about them is that they work often with large churches, so their ideas are already tested at the kind of scale we work with. At the same time, their attention to detail, right down to color-coding cables, is excellent. It’s a great combination.”
Woodlands Church - Plover, WI
Woodlands Church
Plover, wi
Project Details
1,120-seat auditorium
Acoustic Design
AVL Design/Installation
The Technology Of Worship Is Complex But Clark Productions Is Helping Woodlands Church Keep Sunday Simple
Houses of worship look to audio and video technology for a variety of purposes, for instance, to project a sense of tech-savviness. But Woodlands Church in Plover, Wisconsin had a more down-to-earth reason behind the new AV systems installed in the recent addition to their building. As they put it in their website’s FAQ page, “People in America still prefer to come to church on Sunday mornings.”
That simple sentence underscores the $8.2 million, 41,000-plus-square-foot building expansion that opened in late 2020, a welcoming new worship environment with new ancillary spaces such as a nursery and foyer surrounding the jewel of the project: a new 1,120-seat auditorium that’s been fitted with a d&b audiotechnik sound system and two 160-square-foot video walls, used for image magnification.
“Clark Productions was instrumental in making the new building as good as it is,” says Rick Satterthwaite, Woodlands’ Director of Technical Arts. “They designed and implemented not only the audio and video in the auditorium, and designed and installed the theatrical lighting and oversaw the installation of the house lighting. They were involved in every aspect of the audio and video systems in this expansion, and made it an engaging and comfortable place to come on Sunday morning.”
Included in that was the building of the church’s first permanent control room, from which video switching and routing is managed for the two 16.4-foot-by-9.8-foot Road Ready 3.9-mm LED displays flanking the stage, and which is used for streaming services, which became even more critical during the COVID pandemic. Clark lighting designer Paul Green also worked with the building’s architects to create a setback in the walls that would accommodate not only his custom-designed mounts for the LED displays but also let him position several lighting fixtures behind them, creating a pleasing wash effect that frame the video screens. Finally, the church now also has a central location to control the video from. “Previously, we had converted a Sunday School classroom into a temporary control space when COVID hit,” says Satterthwaite. “Now, we have our first permanent control room that’s ready for the next step in broadcasting services.”
Sound & Lights
The sound system is world-class d&b audiotechnik with eight 10AL and ten 10AL-D speakers divided into two line arrays buttressed by two 24S-D speakers for side fills and a pair of 12S-D speakers for delays for the rear of the room, all mixed through a Yamaha CL3 front-of-house console and on a Dante digital network. Eight 8S speakers form a front-fill array, and eight 21S subwoofers are built-in under the stage. Clark also handled the acoustical treatment of the auditorium and other spaces, assuring a high degree of speech intelligibility. This mainly took the form of acoustical clouds suspended from the ceiling, which are constructed to both absorb low frequencies above them and reflect back some mid and upper-midrange energy to the seats, keeping the sound lively but also very clear and transparent. They also serve to mask the catwalks and other infrastructure around the ceiling — an important point for a church that wants its architecture to be seen and enjoyed. “Woodlands Church really prioritized esthetics, so we made many of our technical decisions with that in mind,” explains John Stewart, Clark’s Senior Project Engineer.
Lighting is designed by Clark lighting designer Paul Green to be color-balanced and intensity-optimized for both live and broadcast applications. Lighting is controlled using a Chroma-Q Vista MV, a cost-effective, compact control surface with all of the features and advantages of the latest Vista 3 lighting and media control software. It’s running on a Dell All-in-One touchscreen computer and through Elation RDM645 DMX distribution. Six Apollo Design Right Arm units add pan and tilt capabilities to static lighting fixtures and allow enhanced control for keeping faces of those on stage perfectly balanced for video. Those will enable more efficient adjustments to the lighting as staging designs change.
A major challenge for the auditorium’s lighting was two very large wall-sized windows located on the stage-left side of the auditorium and extending upward nearly to the ceiling. “They could let an enormous amount of ambient light into the room, which changed our approach to how the video would be displayed,” explains Peter Fitton, Clark’s senior consultant on the project. “Ambient light has a cascading effect on the rest of the space, affecting the color temperature of the lighting for both the stage and the cameras. And that can have an effect on budgets.”
To address this issue, Clark’s lighting and scenic director Paul Green chose ETC Source 4WRD Daylight Gallery ellipsoidals with a variety of lenses, brighter fixtures that could be tuned to match both stage and video color needs as well as overcome any ambient illumination. These are further supported by washes and other fixtures from Elation and Chauvet.
Lighting As Parable
The lighting also illustrates the complexity of decision-making that goes into a project like this. For instance, while incandescent lighting fixtures would have cost less than LED ones, the LED fixtures last longer, offering greater ROI. Furthermore, color gels for incandescent fixtures might last 40 hours or less before beginning to burn out, requiring manpower to change them high up in the rigging, while conventional gels on LED fixtures can easily double that. Furthermore, the dichroic gels Clark chose for the LED fixtures are more costly but can remain effective for several years. “Churches often have a single person responsible for their AVL maintenance, and using this combination of fixtures and gels can save hundreds of work-hours a year,” says Fitton. “We’re always aware of budgets, but our goal is always to put in the least-expensive right solution to address any challenge.”
That philosophy extended to the additional lighting and video infrastructure that Clark also installed in the auditorium, readying it for future additions, such as moving-head fixtures or a center LED wall, that isn’t in the budget now but maybe in the future. “Putting in the cabling for that now will save a lot of money once new fixtures are added,” says Stewart. “We’ll put in additional circuits for lighting and audio, new stage pockets for cameras, and additional conduit to give them room to grow.”
That same value-versus-cost dynamic was applied to product choices. For instance, Clark specified a basic but highly reliable switcher and router combination, putting the cost savings towards a sophisticated Sony HXCFB80SL camera system with a Canon lens and Sony FB80 control unit, and two Sony SRG300H PTZ cameras with an RMIP10 remote controller. “The cameras were originally chosen to give the church a great I-Mag image for the audience, but they also offer a beautiful, sharp picture for their web streaming, which became even more important once COVID came along,” says Stewart. “The router and switcher are excellent products that meet their current needs and when they do want to upgrade to more full-featured units, it’ll be much easier because the infrastructure is ready for them. Meanwhile, the PTZ cameras give them the ability to have multiple camera angles cost-effectively, but that same infrastructure can also support more advanced cameras in the future.”
The Woodlands Church project underscores how sophisticated AVL can be designed and integrated into a venue without impacting its esthetic considerations. But this project also reveals how even the most seemingly basic technology decisions have larger implications for other aspects of a project, from how a venue sounds and looks to how well its staff and volunteers can adapt to it operationally.
“The important thing to approach every project with a fresh set of eyes and ears,” says Stewart. “To listen to what the customer says and understand their vision and their needs and their skill sets.” The art of integration, he adds, doesn’t lie in choosing systems and components. Instead, he says, “It's in how you put them together.”
As sophisticated as Woodlands Church’s new AVL systems are, they serve that very simple but heartfelt goal expressed earlier: to make coming to church on Sunday mornings a pleasure. “The culture is changing and we have to adapt to that,” Satterthwaite acknowledges. “It’s forcing us to ask questions, such as who are the people coming into our community, where do they come from, and what are their expectations of what a Sunday service should look and sound and feel like? We have people here from other countries, people who work in blue-collar jobs and professionals who work in insurance or teach at the university. Clark helped us work through those questions and create an audio, video, and lighting environment that makes this wide range of people comfortable, that helps draw them here. The colors are warm and inviting; the sound is clear and helps focus the message. And they helped us build for the future — wiring for screens we don’t yet have and floor pockets for cameras we haven’t bought yet but someday will. As the culture changes, we’ll be ready to land the message.”
