jasonwidney

I moved on...

2010-02-07T23:44:00.000-06:00

Please visit my new blog at www.jasonwidney.com

ETC, ETC, ETC

2010-01-27T21:43:00.004-06:00

I spent a day at the ETC headquarters in Middleton, WI. They have an awesome facility and work environment.

The assembly floor / warehouse is one very large open space. All ETC products are made in this space. All elements of ETC gear are manufactured in this facility except for the lenses and the metal castings for the fixtures.

This picture shows the lens housing for Source Fours going through the paint booth.

This is the lobby. The employees eat lunch here. Each storefront houses offices.

This is inside the theater where they do training. There is an amazing rig hanging from the ceiling.

This picture of the main entrance does not do thy facility justice - it is huge.

Click below to see a short YouTube video on ETC.

Life Behind Art - Sorry no pictures

2010-01-23T08:01:00.002-06:00

I usually only blog about art and technology. Often times you look at an artist and think their life revolves around the creation of their art - you forget they have lives as well. Part of my challenge of working in the Church technology world, is finding the balance of work, community, and family. Often times in the Church world these lines get blurred to the determent of many people. I said all that so I could give you a glimpse into what was my life Friday morning.

Since Simone started working part time (so we could put Jazz in the school that we felt would best benefit him) and Paris started another school across town, life has been CRAZY! Just when we feel we have a handle on it something comes along and disrupts it...

This is one of those weeks, a day off for MLK threw the whole process into turmoil. Today was the pinnacle of the chaos. On Fridays, we leave the house at 7:20 to get Jazz and Simone to work and school by 7:30. Except we had not been to the grocery store so our children had nothing for lunch. Well that’s not the whole truth... we had dinner at Whole Foods the night before and failed to purchase anything for lunch.

So, after dropping them off, Paris and I ran to Jewel to purchase 2 lunchables, 2 Red Bulls (for mommy because that is the kind of week it has been) and “something to chase them with” which ended up being Snapple raspberry ice tea.

Paris was complaining about having to go the the bathroom but had admitted she only was saying that so she could get candy from the principal of Jazz’ school. So we dropped the supplies off and went on our merry way.

Once we got across town Paris started FREAKING OUT that her stomach was hurting. I HATE having to take her into mens public restrooms, but she cannot pee in a random ally like Jazz can! Nothing with parking (something that plagues city life) was open so I had to drive a bit with her crying in the back seat. We found a Starbucks (clean restrooms) and that was done. Got some coffee and headed on our merry way.

We arrived at her school 5 min early. Parent Volunteers help children out of the cars on the street along the school. We pulled up and were just hanging out there Paris had taken her seat belt off and had put her back pack on, all ready to get out of the car. 30 seconds before she was to get out of the car she said “Daddy don’t be mad at me” I said “Why?” she said “Don’t be mad at me. I think I pooped my pants”. I said “Turn around.” I then pulled up her coat and pulled her tights and panties away from her body which exposed... let’s just say it was FULL!

I think I held it together, only future counseling sessions will expose some deep emotional scar that I inflicted today! I quickly pulled away from the curb, so not to have to explain to the volunteer why Paris could not get out of the car. Found a place to pull over so I could get her backpack off and get her seat belt back on. It was a painful experience to watch the expression on her face as she sat in her booster seat with a full panty for the 20 minute drive home. She was disgusted to say the least. I felt really bad but there was nothing to do.

We made our way back home once back in the loft I had the unpleasant task of undressing her and showering her off... and I mean unpleasant. After finding her a new school uniform and a new pair of tights we were back on our merry way to school. That all happened while a little bit of chaos was going on at work I was on the phone having to arrange for people to come in at an unexpected time. I was totally spent after all of that the rest of the day I just felt like a zombi.

And what was the reason the school secretary wrote for her late? Personal.

Scribbles

2010-01-17T18:52:00.000-06:00

I am always scribbling concepts for set designs on pads around me. Here are a couple of conceptual drawing and the sets they led to.

Let's end this thing!

2009-12-29T19:39:00.001-06:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Merry Christmas from the Widney's

2009-12-25T09:23:00.005-06:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Warmth of the Season

2009-12-23T15:12:00.004-06:00

Anthony Barlich of Barlich Photography photographed our Lessons & Carols service. Here are a couple of his shots from the evening.

We spent the first part of the Christmas season in a purposefully cold stark setting. We were focusing on the simplicity of the event of Christmas. The theme was designed to contrast what the rest of the world does for Christmas. The last half of the month I wanted to create a lush warm environment but still maintain the non traditional aspect of our setting. Throughout the month there was no element that was traditionally Christmas decor.

The Red Candle

2009-12-23T10:01:00.000-06:00

In the midst of building the Christmas set with all the candles, an artist friend of mine called and told me I needed one red candle on stage. This candle would represent the death of christ and the blood that was shed for all of humanity.

I ran by Michael's and grabbed the candle. We had the stand in storage. I placed six white candles around the red candle and took the blow torch to it all. I melted the red candle last so you got the red wax on top of everything else.

The candles sat center stage and a shot of them created the perfect backdrop for our lyrics during communion.

Lessons & Carols via Twitter

2009-12-19T15:14:00.006-06:00

We did a service this year called Lessons & Carols an adaption of Nine Lessons & Carols an historic service format. We ended up with 800+ candles on stage. Here are some shots from Twitter of the night. I will post more soon with pictures of how we constructed the set.

CHRISTMAS.

2009-12-05T01:02:00.004-06:00

Christmas was always simple.

An inn with no room, a manger with a baby, a teenage girl in an unknown town, and some shepherds that celebrated the arrival of God on earth. Christmas was never intended to come along with the all of the flash and stress that now surrounds this holiday. It was intended to celebrate the incarnation and now has become more about consumerism and our western culture.

So this year at Park we decided to go simple.

No screens.

Little Technology.

Old Songs.

The Birth Narrative in Luke 1 & 2 for four weeks.

Simple not for effect, but because we believe that if we could remove the inevitable distractions that come our way this time of year and remember that the incarnation, God being made flesh and dwelling among us, is real that it will change our lives all over again.

This is how we do it.

2009-11-22T21:05:00.000-06:00

Annual reports at a church are usually presented before an evening service or for 15 min during a service. The report is primarily centered around a Powerpoint presentation with graphs and lots of numbers. It is often presented by the administrative pastor who has very little, if any stage presence.

We wanted to take a different approach to educating our people on the financials of the church. Our goal was to provide a high level overview with enough numbers to satisfy those who want to know but with enough energy to still keep the rest of us engaged.

More of the same... in a fun way

2009-11-15T20:29:00.000-06:00

This week we launched our Global Impact Week, our version of your typical missions Sunday. Tim Schraeder, our communication director, blogged about it here so I'll just let you read about it there.

As far as the set I turned the towers square for the first time so the projections were not distorted. I had designed these prayer stations that represented each of our 5 global initiatives. It was a great design that coordinated with the set. It was one of those ideas that looked great on paper and sucked when I built them. I tried several different versions of them before I gathered everything up and hauled it to the back stage storage. I hate that part of creativity!

Here are a couple of shots from the weekend.

Versatility

2009-11-10T09:29:00.001-06:00

When designing our fall set I wanted it to be versatile. Each tower has 2 LED fixtures and 8-100w bulbs randomly hung from the top. This allows the towers to have very versatile looks. A couple of weeks ago I placed the towers closer together and used our center projector to project video on them. The effect was really nice and added another level of versatility to the set. In the next couple of weeks I am going to make 12’X4’ crosses out of florescent bulbs for each tower, so be sure and check back for pictures.

Common items

2009-11-08T21:15:00.000-06:00

I always look for ways to use materials you see every day in new ways. Here's a practical illustration of how to use a common material.

HOW THEY USE COROPLAST

HOW I USE COROPLAST

Any Questions?

Trying something a little different

2009-11-06T18:29:00.000-06:00

So, every church I have ever work for always struggles with announcements. How many to have each week, live or video, do you let people walk up right before service and add announcements? These are just a few of the issues I have seen over the years.

We try to consistently try to do Video announcements because of the control of the messaging and time. Since I have been at Park we have been through several versions of announcements. The first format was to have the staff that was over the events to do them... that did not work. We have many events that are volunteer driven so scheduling became a nightmare to deal with.

We have done Graphical driven video announcements. And have tried a couple of times with a "host" type delivery video. Continuing to be frustrated with the process I decided to contact a local actress that attends our church to play the role of host for the video, she will do them every week. Here is our first one, I am excited to see how this evolves for us.

Cultivate

2009-11-01T22:02:00.001-06:00

So I am feeling uninspired to write any content about anything this week. Maybe it's because I am still recovering from going non stop. Anyway here are some photos form the Cultivate Conference we hosted at Park Community Church. Anthony Barlich of Barlich Photography was the event photographer and did an amazing job, I love his eye.

Fall Set

2009-09-18T12:41:00.000-05:00

When I started thinking about what the set was going to be this fall, I had a certain criteria that I wanted to meet.

1 - The set needed to feel like it encompassed the whole stage. We have a 30' section of solid wall in the center of our stage. The sides of the stage is covered in windows 40' in each direction. This creates certain challenges when designing sets. We open the curtains at the end of each service and are sensitive to blocking the view.

2 - I wanted it to be versatile in it's looks. I wanted to be able to go from a polished saturated color look to a raw industrial look.

3 - It needs to be versatile in its location. This set will take us all the way to Christmas so I wanted something that can change from week to week if we want it to.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted 4 towers that would be constructed from steel studs and covered in Coroplast. The exact design of these towers was up in the air until the last minute. The design evolved from having multiple opacities of Coroplast to having a 58" plasma in each one. The structural design changed as well through several generations of drawings.

We landed on the simple cross beam design. This felt simple and elegant, although it was difficult to actually build. So we decided that two sides of the towers would have the cross beam pattern and the other two sides would have a simple horizontal beam pattern. This became the plan until we ran out of time. So the center two towers have 2 sides with the cross beam and 2 sides with the horizontal pattern and the two outside towers only have the horizontal pattern. They ended up being 16' X 4'.

In the end, I do wish they were all the same but they still look great. I am excited to see what we do the next couple months with these. We already have some really cool plans for the upcoming week, so be sure and check back for pictures and videos.

10 years

2009-08-06T16:05:00.001-05:00

10 years ago I married my best friend. For better or worse, the richer the poorer, till death... I'm sure Simone has felt like making that last one happen a couple of times over the years.

We have changed dramatically over the years home ownership, car purchases, dogs, infertility, adoption, birth families, loss of loved ones, layoffs, moving across the country, and much much more continue to reshape us.

When I look back at this video we had no idea what life would hold, looking back God's faithfulness is evident above all. It's easy to see when you are looking from the other side, not always when you are walking through it.

The Loop

2009-07-16T21:54:00.000-05:00

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been working very hard to make Park’s very first children’s summer camp,VBS, a fun exciting experience for the kids. The week was themed “The Loop”. We are a city-centric church and we love to celebrate the urban life experience. We built “L” tracks around the ceiling of our children’s area by cutting forms out of 1” thick styrofoam with a hot knife. We built a version of the great hall of Chicago’s Field Museum on our main stage. The main teaching segments happened there. It was themed Night at the Museum where the Bible characters, the t-rex skeleton and the statues came alive to teach. This included a night guard to guide us through the story. We created the museum out of 2” thick styrofoam and added some faux painting. The effort of many volunteers and staff has paid off with a great week of seeing children impacted for the glory of God.

This video is a brief look at the construction of the L.

This is the initial test of the crude animation.

Fix My Picture

2009-07-08T00:21:00.000-05:00

Since moving to Chicago a year ago I have not done any portrait photography, other than my kids. A friend ask me to do some head shots a couple of weeks ago. This is Billy, the host of Fix My Recipe. It was nice to get the strobes back out.

The Cross

2009-07-05T20:37:00.000-05:00

We have spent the first part of the summer with a black stage. A couple of weeks ago I added a 20' X 10' cross made out of light bulbs. The original concept was to use standard 100 watt bulbs. After thinking about it, I decided to go with a 12"X 1" showcase bulb (I only paid $3.25 per bulb from a local supplier). The showcase bulbs added a very sculptural effect to the cross. The sockets, purchased from Ikea, come with a 15' long cord on them. I laid a 10' section of Unistrut on the stage floor, measured out the cross and attached the cords with black zip ties.

A or B?

2009-07-05T19:41:00.000-05:00

A couple of week ago we asked our church to text in a vote for what topic we would teach on next. We used a texting poll via Jarbyco. The series for the life of David got the most votes. We had to do a quick turn around on the artwork and thought we would put it up for a vote as well.

So which one would you choose: A or B?

Dead Dreams

2009-07-02T17:15:00.001-05:00

I am getting ready to start a creative coaching program this week. When Carlos sent around the assignments for the first session one of them was to read Ezekiel 37:1-14. This is a passage I was very familiar with. Below is an article that was written by my wife for our adoption agency newsletter back in spring of 2003.

Jason has attended our church, Grace Fellowship, since he was a child. Now on staff, Jason came up with the new name, “Grace Kids”, for our children's building because he was a Grace Kid. Jason also designed the new children's logo and he spent literally months working on special lighting for the children's building before it opened. When the doctors told us we would probably never have children we were devastated. We made ourselves go to work and keep going even though we wanted to just close ourselves away from everyone. At least twice a

week Jason had to walk those children's building halls, knowing he would never have a child who would benefit from the fruit of his labor. Late one night, Jason went to Wal-Mart and purchased baby stuff. He arranged it in a big basket and set it in our bedroom as a faith statement. Soon after, Jennifer Hatch, a teacher at our Christian school gave an interpretation of Ezekiel 37:1-10 during staff devotions. We held on to this scripture. Simone even taped it to her computer monitor. “So I prophesied to my dead dreams like God told me to. And I commanded

life to come into my heart's desire. And that inner dream God gave me lived and rose up fully manifested.” When Simone took Jazz to the nursery the first time, she was given a new mom's gift pack that contains a bib, bottle, rattle, and fridge magnet all with the Grace Kids logo that Jason designed!! After Jason took this picture he realized the sleeper Jazz is wearing was one of the ones he purchased that night. Our once empty sleeper, purchased as a faith statement, now is filled with a beautiful baby boy. What a testament to God's never ending mercy and faithfulness. Now the “inner dream God gave us lives and has risen up, fully manifested.” His name is Jazz David Paul.

Sometimes, in the chaos which is life, you lose sight of the amazing things God has done. When we lose sight of these things is when we start to think that we can do it ourselves.

God, never let us forget your amazing power at work in our lives. Let us continuously reflect on the love you have shown to us.

beneath a velvet canopy

2009-06-21T21:40:00.000-05:00

My status was: "Chicago. Summer. Night. Exhale."

Dave Pingel, a friend of mine and awesome man of God, wrote this in response. Dave is one of the best examples of a loving and tender father that I have ever seen.

"In the calm and quiet solitude of the middle of the night
beneath a velvet canopy bespeckeled with star light,
when the hurried, worried pace of life is at a rest
and the hustle and the bustle await the next day yet;
when the air is cool and clean, soothing to the soul
and time is somewhere sleeping, all by itself, alone -
the voice of God resounds in noiseless quietude
proclaiming ageless mysteries to the listening, chosen few.

God's voice is like the night - of peace, tranquility;
like a sea of silent sound whispering eternally.
He speaks not to the ear but softly to the heart
with words worth more than gold His ways He does impart.
Yet, God is not like man, nor are His methods mortal;
He needs no helping hands, no earthly wreaths of laurel.
God needs not the MIND of man to receive the gifts of heaven -
but it's to man's HEART that the heavenly gifts are given.

--dave pingel"

Nice to hear

2009-06-09T15:28:00.000-05:00

As a tech/creative guy it's nice to know what you do with technology in a service is having a deeper impact on people and not just entertaining them. Jackson just sent this excerpt from a email he received this week.

"You can share though to whomever is correct person(s) that you all do a great job with the media, different ways to keep our interest via texting, scripture finding, photos, short video clips, music, lighting changes, decoration changes ... I have been coming to Park for about 4 years and just in the last year - through small group and a mission trip, I think I am finally getting closer to "accepting or authentically living" with Jesus (words feel a little uncomfortable for me to say. The media, attention you all give to service - keeps my interest (which is what I actually still need) ... something that pulls me to service as it just isn't something i know that I like/need until I get there - sometimes still kinda dragging myself there."

Create with purpose!

Texting

2009-06-07T22:37:00.001-05:00

At Park, we are using texting to better connect with our people. We use many features of our provider, Jarbyco, to keep people informed and to find out what they are thinking. Tim Schraeder, Park’s communication director, manages all the texting options. I manage the implementation into our projection system.

A couple of weeks ago, we did a texting poll. It was very useful for Jackson Crum to understand where our people stood on the issue of speaking in tongues. We did this live during our service with results in real time on our screens.

Click here to try the poll for yourself. After the flash app opens, text your answer to the number and watch it change in real time. The poll will reset itself when reloaded or refreshed.

We have some fun ways we are going to implement texting in the near future. I will let you know how it goes.

ink it

2009-06-04T23:51:00.000-05:00

Ragamuffin Soul // Coaching For Creative s

A Guy. A Camera. A City

2009-05-20T14:40:00.000-05:00

I am going to start a new series to show the photos I take. Living in a City like Chicago I am always surrounded by amazing inspiration for the art I create. I often have my camera with me and will snap photos of things I find interesting.

Reflections at Millennium Park

Train tracks at the Art Institute

In the gardens surrounding the Art Institute

Found this in a garden at the Art Institute

Love the contrast

The entrance of the Roosevelt Theater

Iconic Chicago Summer

Love the texture

Just a fun picture

Again love the texture

Cool Toys

2009-05-20T12:43:00.000-05:00

I am always loosing my USB thumb drives. I saw this on the key chain of a friend I was having lunch with the other day and asked where he got it. I ordered a couple for our team. We got the 8GB version. It is water proof and very light weight. You can order them from the LaCie web site.

RAW

2009-05-17T13:29:00.000-05:00

This morning at park I went with a very raw look for the music segment of our service. The rest of the service had our usual look. I side lit the coroplast shapes with 3 source four par cans from either side of the stage. I also aimed 1 source four par can up into the structure from both sides. In the house I turned up the bare bulb fixtures higher than normal to provide an very ambient feel. All of this together provided a very raw warehouse feel. My favorite part of the day were the cues that took us back to a theatrical feel, it was really cool to watch the room transform it's self.

Balance

2009-05-15T19:48:00.001-05:00

Balance. Life is filled with always having to balance priorities, this is an area that I have always struggled with. Historically I will get busy with a project and things start falling off the end of the table. In my mid 20’s I was forced to start balancing this aspect of my life. For me it’s like an addiction, you are never over it you just have to learn to deal with it.

The introduction of a wife brought one more aspect of balance in my life. Although we flowed pretty well. She would spend time and help with projects. This continued until I was 29. That year brought the birth of our son, yet another element to have to balance. All of a sudden my table was getting fuller of things that could not fall off, the price was to high. This kept Simone from hanging out and helping as much.

The next couple of years were pretty smooth. When our son was three we introduced another element to balance. Our daughter was born when I was 32, at the same time my work load increased. I literally felt like I was spinning plates - just going from plate to plate just spending enough time to make sure it did not fall. I missed simple things like playing in the snow, I look at those pictures and still regret it.

I am 35 now and don’t feel like I have made much progress. I am convinced that this is not something that ever gets easier you just have to make daily decisions about where your time is going to go. Maybe by 40 I can get a handle on it...

I wrote this on the plane on my way to be a part of the the Worship Facilities Expo Tech Talk. One of the questions that was asked from the audience was about how we balance work and the rest of our lives. Jill Gille one of the panelist said “I wish I had been brave enough to end the meeting, or just leave” It made me think how many times thing have been rearranged in our personal life because a meeting ran long.

Piper|Carson Event

2009-04-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

Last week the Gospel Collation held their annual conference just outside Chicago. For the last evening of the conference everyone was invited to join John Piper and Don Carson at Park Community Church for a discussion titled "the Pastor as a Scholar, and the Scholar as a Pastor".

Due to the fact that we were just hosting the event we had to put the sponsors logos on the stage behind the speakers so that they were visible on the video. I used our three screen setup from our christmas set except this time I lined up 3 58" plasmas and used them to display the logos. I moved the computer for the three screens on stage right behind the plasmas, we then covered it with black fabric. Our video room is on the second floor so this kept us from having to add two additional cable runs. I often use remote desktop to control computers so it worked out great.

I added 6 columns three on each side of the stage. I used Coroplast left over from easter. I scored the 4 X 8 sheets every foot and folded into a square then taped the connection corner with white gaff tape. I then cut a slot in the bottom for the cables and placed them over our LED par cans.

This event maxed our our facility, It was fun to see the building overflowing with people. We set up every classroom and public area as overflow and they were all full.

Remember

2009-04-19T15:14:00.000-05:00

For Good Friday this year we did a short theater piece where a man beat a cross on stage. While he was beating the cross a figure representing Jesus was hanging from a rope on the other side of the stage responding to every blow. During this scene a sin would flash on the wall with every hit.

For Easter Sunday, we took one of the crosses he beat on stage and hung it in a stair case that connects our two main lobbies. The Good Friday theater piece was very moving for a lot of people and they are reminded of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us every time they enter the building.

Got to love it!

2009-04-15T19:08:00.000-05:00

Late last August my wife went to visit her parents. I took the opportunity to go see The Dark Knight. I first went to Navy Pier to see it at IMAX but it was sold out. I took a bus to the next closest theater. After the movie I started walking to the L station. It was one of those amazing summer evenings and after seeing Chicago in the Dark Knight it was an amazing feeling to walk down those streets.

On my way home I saw a shoot happening on lower Michigan Ave. I wandered down that way and snapped a couple of pics on my phone. They had wrapped for the night and the cast was leaving when I got there. I often wondered what they were shooting. There was a CTA bus down there so I thought it may have been an ad for CTA.

Today I was sitting in Joseph's office and we were listening to The Fray's 'You found me'. We were talking about the video so he pulled it up on You Tube. I saw them on the bridge and knew what it was. I had been there and seen the set up.

I love living in the city. I love the crazy things you stumble upon.

They shot this on top of 311 Wacker. It is the building Jazz, my 6 year old, can see out of his window and judges whether it's bedtime by whether the light is on or off.

Easter

2009-04-13T21:34:00.000-05:00

Easter at park was fairly low key short service. We did 4 services at our main campus and one at our Lincoln Park Campus.

I used 4X8 sheets of white coroplast hung by black chain to create the reflective surface for the center projector. I also treated the entire room with a breakup pattern in an amber color.

We also did baptism as part of our easter service we have always done it at the lake during the summer and baptize a large number of people. We have started doing them in small numbers. I was against each person sharing their testimony but in the end think we should always do small numbers so they can share. This became a real family moment and people connected on an emotional level to each of the people being baptized.

Good Friday

2009-04-13T21:24:00.000-05:00

The set for Good Friday had to provide space for the band to play and for a short theater piece. The band was small keys, electric, drums, acoustic, and violin. The theater piece consisted of a cross that we created out of metal studs that would be beaten with a metal pipe and a rope with a hook on the end for a Jesus character to hang on.

I wanted to create a oppressive feel in the room. The ceiling of bulbs above the band made the space feel small and closed in. This was done with sockets from IKEA and 90w par 38 spot bulbs. I rented 4 MAC 700 wash and 4 MAC 700 profile fixtures.

As the cross was being beaten we flashed sins with our center projector on the wall above the ceiling of bulbs.

It was cool how the cords for the bulbs became a piece of art when his from the sides with a rotating pattern.

Editing

2009-04-04T21:30:00.001-05:00

We shot a promo for program called Alpha the other day.
The actress, Kirby O'Connell, that came in to do the promo was fighting a cold at the time. After we shot the footage we noticed there was a "glisten" in her right nostril in some of the shots. It was very noticeable in three of the shots. we were short on time to get it turned around for the weekend. I spent a couple of hours Saturday tracking the "glisten" and applying a circle blur to remove it.

This is the unedited promo

This is the motion tracking for the circle blur

This is the final edit of the promo.

Cool Image

2009-03-29T16:53:00.000-05:00

So we really have not been doing a lot of cool stuff lately but just the basics while getting ready for Good Friday and Easter. I did want to post this image because I thought it was just very cool. She was singing about being sheltered under the wing of God.

O what a tangled web

2009-03-12T22:41:00.000-05:00

We have branded the next part of 1st Corinthians "O what a tangled web". We immediately knew we wanted a Tim Burton (ish) look. I designed the artwork. After several fonts, we decided on the one. I asked Chris Joye to compose a short score for the project. His piece was amazing. It was a perfect fit.

I had designed 20' diameter spiderwebs to flank our stage and hang above the house. We ran into some scheduling issues - this part is not 4 weeks like we thought but 6 weeks. It will span Easter and we have a wedding right after Easter. Spider webs for a wedding would not go over well. I decided to make 10', easily movable, webs. We put one together and it looked horrible. I scraped the idea at the last minute. It's called creativity. I guess we'll just have to stick to projection-based elements.

When it came to the video I knew we would do a 3D thing and fly the artwork in and webs were going to be part of the visuals. I really was struggling with what would tie the whole thing together. A couple of weeks ago, I got the idea to make the webs out of words, words describing the things that cause the webs.

I hate coming up with ideas like that when I have no idea how I am going to make it happen. I started doing tests to make sure it was possible with the software I have. It was a lot because to be able to zoom as far in as I needed to, the files had to be huge. It really slowed down the processes. I needed a couple more gigs of ram. I made several attempts at including the wall paper, changing the wall paper, and trying to create a room out of the wall paper. After several failed attempts and much frustration I just let the background be black and flew in the wallpaper at the end.

Preview

2009-02-20T19:23:00.000-06:00

So we have changed the set this week more for fun than anythings else. Joseph's band debuts this week so I thought it would be fun to do something different. I wanted a rougher small stage look so I scoured Chicago land Goodwill stores and got a bunch of great lamps for really cheap. I then put 4 sc40 pipes in some bases we had and put 3 source 4 pars with 575w lamps on each pipe. I left the random lenses in the top 8 in the bottom 4 we put a very narrow lens and pointed them up at the ceiling. the top 8 fixtures are focused at the band. The lamps are on 6 different channels so we can do a random chase and have a really cool look. Not really sure what imagery is going on the big screen in the center or the side screens... I know it's Friday but I'm sure inspiration will come soon.

Theatrical

2009-02-15T18:14:00.000-06:00

So we went with a theatrical look at Park today. After a lot of changes at the last minute due to several key players being sick the music changed at the very last minute, Saturday at 1:30. The "band" ended up being a single voice with piano. We had a single look for all the music.

I created this by overlaying a gilded frame over an image of burgundy drapes and adding some lighting effects in photo shop. I then washed the curtains in red to match.

Park usually has more of a raw urban feel so the classier look was very different for us.

Maps

2009-02-12T13:27:00.000-06:00

Our lead pastor, Jackson Crum, uses a lot of historical references during his teaching. He often shows you temples, ruins, statues, and maps. As you can imagine the quality of most biblical maps leaves a lot to be desired.

I was watching CNN one day and saw them use Google maps. I was hooked, what a relevant way to show people what happened. The first map that I did I was amazed at the terrain. When I imagine Paul on his journeys I did not thinks about how rough the terrain was that he had to overcome. It brought it home to me in a whole new way. This file is Paul's 4th Journey.

I purchased the Google Earth application so that it gives me the ability to export to what ever codec that I need. I export to HD720 and it plays flawlessly. The program is somewhat challenging because it really is not a "production" type of package so you have limited control over time and speed. I will often bring the file into Final Cut Pro and speed it up, or pause it at a location for an extended amount of time.

The reaction from our people has been overwhelming they really love it. During our Three Screen setup I created one that spanned the screens, you almost needed Dramamine because of the motion sickness effect it had. For that one I exported the clip at 1080p so I had the most pixels to work with.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, and impress!

2009-02-08T21:47:00.000-06:00

Ok so we all know the economy suck. So in an effort to be good stewards and wise spenders I am trying to be creative with what we have laying around.

I was really tired of the three screen setup. I was having to create two versions of everything it was really getting old. So last week we split the screen apart, we put the two screens back on the sides of the stage. I put the wide angle lens in the center projector and put aluminum screen, that was left over from our first set, at different angles from the bottom of the cat walk. This created a 20 X 30 foot image that is fragmented and creates some double imagery at points. The overall effect was very dramatic.

We launched the common.org for our church today. Benjamin Gott, the founder of the common, was there to help us launch it.

Relationship Status is our current series the backdrop added a dramatic visual aspect to the artwork.

The great thing about this set is that you can use traditional elements in a contemporary context.

Love the tree.

Relationship Status

2009-01-23T16:29:00.000-06:00

So we are going through 1st Corinthians. We are hitting the relationship part in February. We have branded this section Relationship Status, This is a preview for the series. Week one is dealing with sexual immorality, week two is Singles, week three is marriage, and week 4 is divorce. The last couple of series have had complicated art so we decided to make this one really simple to keep things mixed up. This is a very different look for us so it will be fun to hear people's response.

I love seeing this on my blog

2009-01-22T23:52:00.000-06:00

I love seeing this IP address on my blog.

We Shall Overcome

2009-01-19T22:10:00.000-06:00

This was another element in our Martin Luther King Jr service. This is a live recording of Michelle singing. This was not a planned element it was a spontaneous creative moment during rehearsal Sunday morning, I went to my office and put the footage together. It truly was a special moment Michelle stood center stage backlit only, it was powerful.

Martin Luther King Jr - The Process

2009-01-16T07:19:00.000-06:00

Martin Luther King Tribute from Jason Widney on Vimeo.

Martin Luther King Jr weekend at church... what does that really mean. In the past 15 years of being on staff at churches not much.

Park's new building is in the middle of a very diverse neighborhood in Chicago. The area is being reshaped and redefined and everyone in the area is struggling on what a diverse neighborhood looks like.

As Park focuses on racial reconciliation this Sunday I have struggled to put together a video that merges the two worlds of the past and the present and represents authentically the struggle. Your mind goes to the classic MLK tribute of inspiring music and hearing the I have a dream speech while seeing the classic MLK photos with I have a dream in glowing letters scrolling by. I knew that was not what I wanted to make I sat down with Curt, our music and band developer and showed him this and this. I felt this was fresh inside perspective on the whole situation, this was the lens that people who were in the midst of it used to express themselves.

He came back with using rage against the machine's wake up as a back drop to express the aggressiveness that was surrounding Martin luther King. This contrast MLK's peaceful approach, but echos what the country was feeling.

We recorded scratch tracks to edit to, I will blog about the creation of the click tracks in the near future, the band did an amazing job. We did a board recording Sunday afternoon and Michelle came in after our evening service and laid down her vocals. With the three screen setup still in place we were able to create a very impactive experience. The image is 47' X 9'. I shot the interviews in Chicago's downtown loop. the point of the interviews was to show how MLK influenced the average African American and how little it means to the average caucasian. We know this seams to stereotype people but for the most part I found this to be true with the people I interviewed.

The video ended with a modified version of our unhindered bump.

Unhindered Shoot photos

2009-01-04T14:47:00.000-06:00

I snapped these picture of the Ink shoot for our Unhindered series.

3 Screen Setup

2008-12-30T18:39:00.000-06:00

For the Winter set we decided to to a three screen set up as the center piece of our stage. We run ProPresenter software as our lyrics and video play back solution so all we had to add was the module package and the Matrox TripleHead2Go box. We already had the projectors and screens and each projector had a individual cable runs.

I set up my sequence in Final Cut Pro to 2400 X 600 and Shot all the footage in HDV720p. It is a challenge to think about editing this way when you are shooting I put some guide lines on my LCD viewfinder to help out.

Unhindered

2008-12-30T11:41:00.000-06:00

So for the month of January we are doing vision messages. Our lead pastor came up with the title Unhindered. I had a hard time coming up with imagery to go with the title. The first things that came to mind was a person in a field with their arms raised (ok I know very cheesy) the next was someone dancing crazy. I knew neither of those were good options. On our drive back to Oklahoma I came up with the ink concept I called Tim he loved the Idea so I spent the next couple of days thinking about how to make it happen.

I picked up a $12 fish tank at the local pet store and some fabric dye at the art store. I set up a soft box behind the fish tank and shot straight into the tank. let the water settle and and squirted in the dye. I then took some white paper and and shot the ink drops.

s l o w

2008-12-16T16:14:00.000-06:00

The last three weeks were insane. I have always wanted to not do one big production for christmas but split it up over the first three weekends. Sounds really cool in theory but it is a lot of work. Usually I have one big week where you work non stop to do a set and production and life goes back to normal. Well this has been a non stop 3 week period. The set was insane to get in place. My computer crashed and I lost a lot of work. And it was finals week so most of my volunteers had crazy schedules and could not be here a lot.

All of that to say I am taking it slow this week. This Sunday is scaled back but still very cool. I am spending time with the family again. And getting ready to head back to Tulsa for a week over Christmas.

long day

2008-12-14T20:54:00.000-06:00

Sunday is over. They are long days. We do 4 services I am at 3 of them. I am always exhausted at the end of a Sunday. I think they are more draining that manual labor. You are "on" from the minute you walk through the door until you leave the building. It is a constant barrage of trouble shooting, managing time, and quick decision making. I was talking to Jaxn this morning about how people walk through the door and have no idea what goes into to making it happen. People often are surprised we can find stuff to do during the week they think we just show up and do Sunday. But I love what I do and it is all worth it.

Home now going to rest now.

Jason

Sunday live

2008-12-14T09:11:00.001-06:00

Just snapped this pic of the stage.

just me.

2008-12-13T21:28:00.000-06:00

As a creative person it is hard to take criticism or to be challenged. I can only speak for my self but when I do a project I really feel like it exposes a private side of my life. Art and emotion are so closely intertwined. Judgment about what I have done is difficult to not take personally, because the art is very personal.

I recently did a project for Christmas that I feel is some of my best work. It was received very well by my community. A few people in my community challenged how performance oriented it felt. And a couple of people outside my community challenged it on my blog. The question was brought up “how does this direct people to Jesus?”.

I do what I do in a local church because that is where I feel called to. I could do what I do for secular companies and probably get paid more than I currently do. But I am in the church world. I love the entertaining side of my job but as a Christian everything I do is from a lifestyle of worship. Therefor I consider what I do as stage design, lighting, audio, and video an expression of worship. The creative/technology areas is where I am gifted, I have no formal training and obtained all my experience in the local church.

When people challenge whether or not what I do points people to Jesus I would have to say yes it does based on the foundation of worship that I am doing it from. I like to create atmospheres that people can better connect to God in. Not all my expression is flashing lights, actually very little.

The people who are challenging this are the same kind of people in history that has protested using drums and electric guitars in a church setting, because that is what the “world” uses. God created all things and there for we as Christians have the authority to redeem what the world has corrupted and use it to worship God.

Rehearsal

2008-12-11T20:10:00.001-06:00

Doing band rehearsal for Sunday.

Dinner

2008-12-11T18:15:00.000-06:00

Dinner on the run with the fam.

CRASH

2008-12-11T13:41:00.000-06:00

My hard drive on my Mac Book Pro crashed. I erased my back up two weeks ago because I needed to move a big file with that drive. I got to busy and did not do the backup again. I lost a lot.

The Wide Shot

2008-12-09T17:32:00.000-06:00

So this is the wide shot of our opening song. Curt Carson our Band director arranged the song. It was fun to do live. Video never does it justice.

The Stage

2008-12-09T17:16:00.000-06:00

I actually started out with not a clue of what to do for Christmas this year. Christmas has always been my favorite time of year and I love doing Christmas production work. That said I was drawing a blank. My art has shifted a bit since moving into the city. I did not know what christmas was going to look like through my new lens. Also due to the economy my budget was cut by more that half. I toyed with several ideas but always kept coming back to using light.

At one point there were going to be 8' tall letters spelling incarnate across the back of the stage. And frosted plexi-glass stars hanging around the stage. In the end I stuck with all light. The only hint that it is christmas is the 60in wreaths on either side of the stage. I even kept them very plane with only lights.

We put the three screens center stage. In the end it was a good play of horizontal and vertical lines. Everything was kept very clean and simple.

The back wall of the stage has 576 strands of lights for a total of 57,600 points of light, or 24,000 watts of light.

Christmas Artwork

2008-12-08T21:32:00.001-06:00

So the artwork for Incarnate took several paths. We started with trying to create something we could use in the stage design as well. That fell apart so we were going to go with the light writing look, like in the sprint commercials. Then once we started putting together the music part of the month the sound was ancient, tribal drums and didgeridoos. So I created the art work with that in mind. I wanted something that reflected all of that but still said christmas at first glance.

out of control

2008-05-05T22:57:00.000-05:00

As americans we are very in control of our lives. Sometimes we don't feel that way but we go where we want when we want and if we want something we really never give up on trying to figure out how to get it.

We often look through this lens when it comes to being a Christian. We want God to do what we want him to do when we want it. And we also what to know why. Although this is a contrast to what we are told in the Bible. We are told to surrender all to christ at all cost.

Moving to the city has been a great illustration for me on what it means to let go. Often I put my safety and my family's safety in other peoples hands. If I take public transportation I am restricted to their schedule and have to plan around it. Their schedule is not dictated by my needs but by the big picture on how to best serve the masses. Every day I put my life in the hands of countless engineers, often supported by structure that was designed over 80 years ago.

We need to rethink our view of what it is to surrender to God. What it means to let him be in control. we should question if our imminent happiness is what is best for the masses. We need to reflect on how God has provided for us in the past and take the next step with confidence that God will be there with His plan and that that step will bring attention to God's work in our life.