I got to work on the media production team at Pine Ridge again yesterday and learned a lot while doing it. I’ve done a lot of media work over the years and have been doing it at Pine Ridge for several months, but yesterday was my first day in the switcher/producer role.

There were six of us on the team - Travis, Lance, Elijah, Brad, Matt, and me. The first service was a little rough, but the second service really worked well. And I think the reasons it worked so well are pretty applicable to a lot of other teams as well:

1. Prepare. When I arrived about an hour before the 9:30 service, Brad (running lyrics & message slides) had already printed copies of the message notes for both of us and had already created all the necessary slides for the songs and Tadd’s message. The order of service was complete and entered into our Planning Center collaborative site. We were ready to go.
2. Be Agile. Then, things changed. We couldn’t print the service outline from Planning Center because the printer wasn’t working. No problem, Elijah (running sound) went to print copies in the office. While he was doing that I rebooted the computer to try to re-establish communication with the printer - and when the computer rebooted we no longer had internet access (oops…and I’m supposed to be a tech guy). No problem, we got the files we needed off of another computer using an external hard drive. Then Les (worship leader) changed the order of some songs, removed a song, and added a song that we didn’t have the lyrics for in ProPresenter. No problem, we all marked up our service outlines and we decided we could live without projected lyrics for that song and we’d go with displaying just the live video feeds instead. Everyone stayed calm and quickly solved the problems with alternate solutions.
3. Know Your Role. The first service started, and we couldn’t get any good camera shots of the guitarists because there wasn’t enough light on them. We asked Matt (running lights), and he said the breaker tripped for that bank of lights (see “Be Agile” above). Someone (I still don’t know who) ran to fix the breaker, and meanwhile Lance (camera #1) and Travis (camera #2) worked like crazy to get good and creative camera shots of Les, who was the only one with sufficient light to be picked up by the cameras.
4. Communicate. In the first service I (switcher/producer) missed some opportunities to showcase some really good camera shots, so we talked about that between services and Lance did a great job communicating a plan to have the right camera focused on the right element at the right time in the second service.  Tadd commented on the meaningful lyrics of the newly added song during the first service, so Brad entered those lyrics for the second service.  Matt let us know that the lights would be fully operational for the second service, and I think he may have adjusted to get more light on the guitarists as well.  Travis let us know that he loses many of his possible shots when everyone stands up to worship, so Lance knew I’d rely on him for most of the camera work during those times and Travis focused on getting the few shots he could given the obstacles.
5. Check Your Ego.  The communication was only able to work so well because we all talked and listened openly without fear of stepping on someone’s toes.  Most of us have done multiple positions on the media team, so we’ve all got ideas about how to do each job better, not just the job we’re working that week.  We get stronger as a team when we take advantage of others’ experience instead of working in a silo because I think my way is the best way.
6. Close the Loop.  We talked for about 5 minutes after the second service about what went well and what could be improved.  Capturing those thoughts when they’re fresh is much more meaningful than trying to remember a few hours or few days after.  We planned to make some changes to the set design & lighting to create better camera angles.  We decided to do a midweek run-through whenever the stage design changes so the camera operators can learn which shots work best in the new setup.  We decided to to try to attend band rehearsal whenever possible to learn the songs and make the best choices about when to display lyrics vs. live video, when to focus on Les, when to zoom on a guitar solo, etc.

It was a great week, we learned a lot, and the team really worked well together.  I guess Tadd thought so too.