Here's some pictures of some of the lighting we've achieved at our Church for the major services at Christmas and Easter last year.
Contemporary Christmas Carol Service 2004
Front view of the stage with the band in action singing a carol.
http://tinypic.com/1nxl5g
Another view with the service title on the central projection screen
http://tinypic.com/1nxlp3
The band in profile
http://tinypic.com/1nxlyv
A distant view of the proceedings – yes those are real candle chandeliers suspended.
http://tinypic.com/1nxpc1
A monologue explaining the three wisemen. The “practical†star was improvised using a 6 D cell maglite attached to the ladder.
http://tinypic.com/1nxm4x
Video and sound desks in the background. Lighting hard at it with the Zero 88 Sirius 48 in the foreground.
http://tinypic.com/1nxlr5
Front lights – 2 x 6 way PAR bars
Backlights – 2 x Futurelight PCC-250CMY colour changers
Effects – 2 x High End Cyberlight CX
Even the tree and lit Christmas presents were remote controlled with a switchpack and DeMux (how else do you do blackouts?)
Dramatical front lighting – Source 4 JRs
Front lighting for talking heads – Source 4 ParNels.
Control:
Zero 88 Sirius desk for conventional lights
Light Processor Q Commander for moving lights
Easter 2004 (in the round):
http://tinypic.com/1nxog6
This was achieved with a few PAR16 birdies, and some Minuettes (for the red)
Contemporary Church lighting raises some interesting technical challenges for control. At my Church, on the outskirts of London, we have been researching lighting solutions to upgrade our existing architectural lighting system, as the Church's requirements have grown considerably.
So far, the Zero 88 Bull frog, Frog Box and Frog Screen seem to be the best products which come closest to bridging the gap between architectural lighting control (think iLight) and theatrical (think Frog). A modern evangelical Church needs both types of control simultaneously, to accommodate technical and non-technical users. We use a Sirius 48 at the moment patched into a Lutron dimming system, which is very limiting when used beyond the faders and submasters. We've brought in a Q Commander for a few moving lights at Christmas as shown above.
Sorry it’s a long post. Hopefully this will be inspiration for those of you involved in Church lighting. Every time we have pushed the boat out a little further with out lighting ideas, and as long as we've been sensitive to following the needs of the event, we've always been allowed to do it, and had great feedback afterwards.
Any thoughts/comments welcome.