TUTORIAL - What is the goal of church video taping and live audio recordings?
Creating access for those who cannot attend services in person, as well as building an archive of sacred music performances and church service videos that can be visited at any time by the public.
Presenting an environment to the viewer/listener that tells them what it is like to engage in worship at the church.
Communicating the message from the church to its audience.
In 2016 the church was using modest microphones to emphasize the piano, cello and flute. This was prior to the live streaming which began with the pandemic in 2020. You hear the instruments clearly and the congregational singing is a lovely cloud that fills the room. This sound I would describe as organic, meaning that the audio engineer wanted things to sound as natural as they did in that room at that time.
Recorded in 2019, here is a prelude played by piano and cello. The microphones are close to the instruments and you can hear the unnatural proximity of coughing from the congregation. It sounds closer than it was. The sound quality is becoming more direct and it feels upfront and electronically enhanced with additional volume. Instead of an intimate prelude performance, this audio has a more focused and dynamic quality to it, similar to a studio recording. This is known as close miking.
Here is an excerpt from the 2023 Advent Vespers “Silent Night” featuring Christina Borgioli, soprano. This is probably one the best examples of a good mix of instruments and soloist that we have in our archives of the services through the years. However, the congregational sound is too quiet and again, we do not hear the live room sound. This is because the miked sound is being used as the audio mix for the video recording. The “house sound” (congregational singing and live room ambience) is not being fed into the system. You will also notice that the video quality is very grainy and cloudy, probably due to the resolution capacity/quality level of equipment we have for video taping.
This is an example of what St. John’s Episcopal Church in Los Angeles is doing with their videos and audio recordings. Note the clarity of the video. Notice the vibrance and honesty of the sound of the audio recording. This music was carefully recorded. Together with the title cards and the visuals, the entire audio/visual product creates a lovely and welcoming environment which reinforces the message of the church, which is to invite the viewer to join in worship together in a Choral Evensong performance.
The Cathedral of St. John’s in Spokane, Washington hosts musical concerts. Their church is stone flooring which causes the natural reverberation known as “church sound.” This space is also full of non-flat surfaces, columns and archways, which helps to break up the sound and make it more diffused. Notice the opening of this video segment: the careful use of title cards, the visual panorama that gives the viewer a feeling of what it is like to take part in this service. The sound is very simply recorded on a condensor set-up (similar to an iPhone) and the equipment is invisible. It does not interfere in any way with the performance of the singers, nor the sight lines of the congregation. The chance of feedback is not likely in this type of a set-up. The live sound is recorded honestly, the way it sounds, and not manipulated or “hyped” electronically.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR WESTWOOD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Make a plan with a professional acoustician and audio technician to design where the space needs microphones, and how your speakers should be placed to cover the space for both spoken word from the pulpit and from the floor. Secondly take a look at placement of choir, soloists and instrumentalists to make sure that the recording devices can cover the area needed and not cause feedback from the speakers. Thirdly, look into monitors or small speakers on the floor so that the instrumentalists can hear themselves. Some churches are using in-ear monitors and small mixers next to each instrumentalist, but that is a style of live performance audio presentation that is more stage-centric than is necessary for Westwood Presbyterian in my opinion.
Hire a camera operator who knows what they are doing to videotape the services, and give them a concept of what visuals the church wants to present to tell the story of the message of the services. Provide this operator with the equipment necessary to get a clear and attractive visual presentation of the sanctuary, the pulpit, the lectern and the choir loft. When the spoken word and music are being performed from the floor, the cameras should adjust to that level.
Revisit the present microphone and mixing equipment to make sure it can record the speakers and the musicians in these different areas of performance. Revitalize the two existing room mikes that drop from the ceiling and are valuable. This is challenging, but ultimately extremely worthwhile as the church is building an archive for the future, and can maximize its outreach to the public through these assets.
Hire an editor to trim and edit each video after the live performance, to make it professional looking and to correct any mistakes that occurred. It is important that we maintain stewardship of these recordings in order to “put our best foot forward”to the public. We should also honor the contributions from the singers, speakers, and instrumentalists who volunteer or are paid for their time to be in the choir and who assist in the music and spoken word readings. It is not respectful of these efforts to constantly hear after the fact from professional singers and instrumentalists that they never feel that they sound very good in these recordings at WPC. This is something that really should be addressed going forward.