Light work

Note: This post is a personal spiel re: the past week and a half and the challenge of Christmas Eve lighting that was wrapped up in it.  And just so you know, it’s LONG.

For someone who was embarrassed about going so long without posting on his blog, I did an excellent job of not posting lately.  Don’t think I haven’t been bored though.  The past two or so weeks, many NPCC staff (including myself) and volunteers have been gearing up for Christmas Eve.

So what was the IT guy doing on Christmas Eve?  About a month or so ago, Danny asked me if I would be interested in setting up and programming some rented intelligent fixtures for our Christmas Eve services.  Now I’ve run lights before here and there, and by that I mean I’ve set scenes with plain old dimmers and 4 fixtures with I-Cue units on them.  I never dreamed I would be programming intelligent lighting gear, or fixing it for that matter. (more on that later)

Set-up

The fixtures (or “luminaires” if you’re fancy) arrived on December 15th: Four Studio Spots and 3 Studio Colors.  I spent Monday getting our board configured and Tuesday getting familiar with the lights, and on Wednesday Dave B. and Vince came out to help get the lights mounted on their assigned bars.  See, I’m a recovering acrophobic, and we don’t have a catwalk, so at this point I wasn’t mentally able to make it up 20-some feet in a wobbly scissor lift with a 40-pound light fixture in my hands.  Vince and Dave B. shrugged off such things and mounted 5 of the 7 fixtures; we left two on the stage for some “surface-to-air” light.  Once everything was set, it was time to start programming.

Programming

I had already listened to the two songs that were going to require the largest amount of programming (TSO’s “Christmas In Sarajevo” and a pop-rock-STOMP-esque version of “O Come O Come Emmanuel”), so I had a decent vision for how I wanted things to look already. Now that lights were set and I could actually SEE stuff, it was time to nail all that down.

For the next few days (and nights), the lighting desk became my office.  Like I said, this was my first experience with intelligent fixtures, and the last time I ran lights at all was LAST Christmas Eve.  Things started out pretty slow, but just like riding a bike, you re-get the hang of stuff pretty quick, and so before too long I had “Sarajevo” programmed from start to finish, and by Monday the 22nd, I had just about finished both of the “big songs,” and things were looking good for programming to be done by Tuesday afternoon, but some unexpected stuff started to happen.

Unexpected Hindrances and Helps

On Tuesday, it became very apparent that one of our fixtures was beginning to malfunction.  One of the Studio Colors we had mounted upstage began producing the wrong colors, and even after homing the fixture repeatedly, continued to do so.  What was strange was that each time the fixture was homed, it would produce a different wrong color.  Not being one that understood the mechanics of these things very well (yet), I began speculating on what could be the problem.  Was it a loose belt? Had the belt jumped teeth or something? Was the motor rotating too fast?  Too slow?  I knew that I could program around the problem, but I also knew I didn’t want to leave the lights running for 24 hours in order for that programming workaround to be effective.  All the while, I had been tweeting my experience about this because at the time I needed some way to vent.  This was extremely disheartening, and it was frustrating to have done a load of programming only to face the prospect of having to correct every scene because of a single fixture.

To my surprise, a little later I got a direct message from Jonathan.  He works in the Tech Arts department at Granger Community Church, and he had sent me his phone number, along with a message to call him if I wanted help with troubleshooting.  For the next hour or so, I passed information to Jonathan, Doc and Mike (all tech/lighting dudes at Granger) about what I was seeing and experiencing with the fixture and in turn, all three of them played a major role in helping me get familiar with the inner workings of the fixture.  After some troubleshooting, some testing, a hunch or two and even more testing, “Studio Color 1,” as I’ll call it, was giving us accurate colors again.  The culprit?  A stepper motor that controls the frost wheel had gone bad and was moving too slow. This issue created a domino effect that prevented the yellow and magenta filter wheels from homing properly.  The fix…home the frost wheel by hand and then disconnect the offending motor.  The yellow and the magenta wheels homed perfectly after that.

With Studio Color 1 back in action, programming resumed and went on through the night.  Finally around 3am on Wednesday, everything was done.  Normally I would be beat about this time, but it actually took me awhile to calm down enough to fall asleep after I had gotten home.  The day had been extremely full of highs, lows, and more highs, and after all that, it was DONE.  Apart from positioning for vocalists, there was no more programming to do.

Christmas Eve

…easily one of the most amazing times I’ve had at NewPointe.  God was truly present with us that night, and it was evident in everything that happened.  From music and technical to ushers and parking, God made himself evident by allowing everyone on the team to be on their A-game that night so that the message of Christmas and the Gospel could be presented to over 4200 people.    During the 4:30 service, the auditorium was actually filled to capacity and we ended up piping A/V to our KidStuf venue in order to utilize it as an overflow.  That is a HUGE win for the Kingdom!

I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity to do anything of this magnitude again, but at the risk o
f sounding conceited, I counted this as a win. Not just a personal win, but it was a win for our volunteers, a win for NewPointe, and a win for the Kingdom overall.  As much as the lighting was a personal win, there’s some serious thanking that needs to happen:

NPCC Service Programming: You guys rock, end of story.  Thanks for continuing to move things forward and making weekends at NewPointe awesome.  Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of something God-sized and for setting me and the rest of the tech team up for a win.
Dave Beachy and Vince Beachy:  Those fixtures still wouldn’t be mounted without your help!  Thanks for making yourselves available and going to altitudes that I’m still not comfortable with!  Dave, thanks so much for doing the footwork that was needed to even get these lights in the building!
Jonathan Bartkowiak, Doc, and Mike from GCC:  You guys are a total example of how the body of Christ, specifically the “capital C” Church, is meant to operate.  You had your own Christmas Eve services to prepare for and took time to help a tech guy from another church get his lights back in order, and I am extremely grateful.  Thanks so much.
Jessica Mast: Thanks so much for understanding how I’m wired and what I’m passionate about, and for cheering me on and encouraging me as I take on the stuff I’m wired to go after, even though it means late nights sometimes.  You’re awesome.  I love you.