You’re inside Browns Bridge Community Church’s auditorium for the fi rst time, and the worship band kicks into high gear with a sound that’s loud but pleasant. It thumps you in the chest, yet your ears aren’t overloaded. Every spoken word is intelligible, even though you’re sitting in the very back of the 2,056-seat venue. The side-screen IMAG of the lead singer is so crystal clear that you wonder if you’ve ever encountered anything that comes close. Then, after casual announcements from Campus Director Lane Jones and a glance or two at a slick, four-color promo piece you picked up at the door, it’s time for the sermon. Now on stage is Senior Pastor Andy Stanley, and he quickly draws you into his topic for thought and prayer. As Stanley stands before you on the stage, you hear attendees answer aloud to questions he masterfully poses. You even fi nd yourself answering amid the crowd. Stanley is on stage, yet his message was pre-recorded weeks before. You know it’s so, but it doesn’t matter. Welcome to enhanced reality.
Browns Bridge Community Church (BBCC)
Browns Bridge sits in Forsyth County, a prime location north of metro Atlanta, Georgia and near well-populated Lake Lanier. The 150,000-square-foot campus grew out of North Point Community Church in suburban Alpharetta, Georgia, just 20 miles to the south. The parent organization, North Point Ministries, includes another satellite as well, Buckhead Church, in a thriving urban area known as Buckhead. The $30-million Browns Bridge campus consists of a main auditorium with 1,522 non-fi xed seats on the main level and 534 fi xed seats in the balcony, for a total of 2,056 seats. A children’s worship area includes 317 non-fi xed seats as well as a carpeted space for children to sit on the fl oor. A youth space holds another 360 middle schoolers at two different service times. And the facility includes 48 small group gathering rooms as well as offi ces for church staff. As North Point Community Church grew to maximum capacity, leadership decided to add more campuses. BBCC Campus Director Lane Jones relates, “Five years ago when North Point began to outgrow its facility, we decided to add campuses instead of increasing the current capacity. Our goals in [building] Browns Bridge were to free up space at North Point by moving 1,500 people from that campus, and to use that core group of people to reach the unchurched people in the area around BBCC.” Most Sundays, North Point Ministries provides a pre-recorded digital video sermon for BBCC. According to Tyler Reagin, director of service programming for Browns Bridge, a sizable backstage area houses Barco rear projection equipment that transports the speaker’s video message, digitally, onto the center screen. Jones’s role is to then provide a platform presence in most services, welcoming people and delivering announcements. “I preach during weeks when we have a campus-specifi c need or if there’s a gap between video sermons,” he explains. “We have live worship as well as other live elements that complement the [pre-recorded] video message.” Those elements include a live professional praise and worship band. And the church typically focuses on Sunday worship rather than hosting touring acts. The staff at Browns Bridge is quick to emphasize that cyber sermons don’t mean a lack of human interaction. Jones says the video aspect of the service is well-received by attendees and members alike.
BBCC Video To deliver its enhanced-reality, 100%-digital cyber sermons, Browns Bridge staff turned to Alpharetta, Georgia-based Clark ProMedia, a performance engineering fi rm that has played an instrumental role in designing the tech systems at each North Point Ministries’ campus. Chris Briley, BBCC production director, explains how BBCC’s all-important video component is received and managed. “We mainly designed our video system after the North Point Community Church control room. A digital router is at the heart of our video system. This allows us to put any source to any destination at any time. We only have a 16-input switcher, but with the router attached to it our options are endless.” The primary use of BBCC’s system is IMAG, yet video clips, song lyrics, Scripture, and incredible graphics round out the experience. Clark ProMedia’s Matt Card, vice president of client development, sums up the necessary video equipment components and their roles. “The church installed a Ross Synergy 2 video switcher, supporting three Panasonic SPX800 standard defi nition cameras and several Panasonic HVX100 roamer cameras.”
Video playback is provided by computer software from Renewed Vision. “Software includes a program called Pro Video Player for playing video clips, Pro Video Sync for playback of the pre-recorded teachings, and Pro Presenter for lyric text presentations,” Card reports.
On BBCC’s stage set, the video is displayed on an expansive center screen, measuring 17 feet by 28 feet, using a Barco XLM HD30, a 30,000-lumen projector. In addition, two side screens, measuring nine feet by 16 feet, utilize Barco SLM R12 12,000-lumen projectors.
To house the equipment, Atlanta-based architectural fi rm Niles Bolton Associates designed a sizable backstage area for the projectors. Backstage is also where the control room sits.
Brian Dempsey, senior associate and project manager with Niles Bolton Associates, contends it’s vitally important for architects to anticipate and accommodate technological needs in facilities such as Browns Bridge. “[At BBCC], the architecture [is] tailored to the specifi cs of the equipment being used. As technology changes, the architecture needs to adapt to it. Issues like screen aspect ratios and projector technology need to be factored in.”
Director of Engineering Bob Nahrstadt of Clark ProMedia concurs with Dempsey’s assessment. The cyber teaching method used by BBCC required his company to pay even more careful attention to sight line requirements for the video screens, even more so than for a live environment. “We resolved this issue by using detailed 3-D building modeling software that allows us to pre-establish the necessary ceiling height to accommodate sight lines.” This information, too, had to be strictly coordinated with the architect and general contractor.
BBCC Audio
Audio at Browns Bridge includes a Meyer Sound loudspeaker system. As Nahrstadt describes: “The primary loudspeakers are Meyer M’elodie line arrays. There are two primary arrays of 13 cabinets in each array, placed left and right.”
According to Nahrstadt, these arrays provide coverage to the majority of the BBCC house, including the balcony. And he adds, “The use of line arrays eliminated the need for delay coverage in the balcony.”
The PA is a left-right system. As Briley describes, “We have a side fi ll on the outside of each array and a center fill. The far left fill gets a right signal, the left line array gets a left signal. The left side of the center fill gets a right signal, [and] the right side of the center fi ll gets a left signal. The right line array gets a right signal and the far right fill gets a left signal. This allows [attendees] sitting in the near field to have a stereo mix as well as those in the back of the room who hear both line arrays.”
Several Meyer CQ-2 and UPA speakers are used as side fi lls on the extreme left and right, as well as CQ-2 and UPAs used as a center down fi ll. And the under-balcony coverage is provided by 14 Meyer UPJ speakers.
“We also have a line array of subs lined across the front of the stage. [And] we currently have six Meyer M3D subs spread out under our steps and center stage thrust,” Briley adds.
The chosen console for BBCC is the Digidesign Venue, placed at front-of-house (FOH). The trial and error lessons of previous campuses helped BBCC make the choice.
As Briley relays, “At the main campus, we waited and waited until we found a board that did not sound digital. We demo’d several other desks at over twice the price of the Venue, and nothing compared.”
Another reason that BBCC staff is pleased with the Digidesign Venue is its integration with Pro Tools. “This feature unleashed a whole new world of sound quality for us,” Briley states. “The Virtual Sound Check allows us to train volunteers on a level never reached before. Volunteers are a huge part of what we do, and systems that allow them to be successful are priceless.” The console’s plug-ins also attracted BBCC techs.
A second Venue serves as BBCC’s monitor desk. “We do all in-ear monitors (Sennheiser G2s), [so] all musicians get a stereo mix of their own, and we store scenes of each song. It’s great with the variety of music we do and it allows us to let them focus on the music and worship,” Briley reports.
For mics, BBCC uses Shure UHFR for both quality and control reasons. “The computer control of the wireless mics is awesome. Knowing that the mic is on, has good batteries, and is getting good RF is a great feeling right before your pastor walks on the platform,” Briley adds.
BBCC Lighting
Clark ProMedia was the force behind the lighting design, and they called upon consultant Andrew Dunning of Nashville, Tennessee- based Landru Design to help design with a focus on lighting for the cameras.
As Briley describes, “We chose the Martin Mac 250 wash. I was a little reluctant to put such a heavy roll in our light design on a 250-watt fi xture, but it has continually impressed us. We knew we wanted a fi xture that was CMY (cyan magenta yellow) and was a moving head. At its price point, we were able to get enough of them to really make a light show.”
Dunning and BBCC staff also chose the Mac 2000 Profi le for beams, and then obtained Mac 2ks to complete the design.
Another lighting hit with Briley is the LED PAR. “We have eight Coemar PARs we use for band back lighting, and we have 14 additional LED PARs … by Tri North Lighting. We typically use them for set lighting.”
And Briley adds, “We were very intentional about only getting fi xtures that were CMY or RGB (red green blue). It allows us to create any color at any time with any fi xture, [and] it’s also smoother when programming.”
BBCC’s lighting console is a Hog 1000, while 26 ETC Source Four Zoom conventional fi xtures supply primary key lighting. Rear key lighting is achieved with 26 ETC Source Four PARNels. An ETC Unison control system, ETC Sensor dimmer mod-
Altogether, BBCC’s A/V/L system delivers an immersive worship experience with a cyber sermon that’s just as effective as an actual in-house presenter. As Facilities Director Steve Taylor sums up, “What it would be like to attend a video church is diffi cult for some people to grasp, but it can be just as engaging and interactive as a church with a live speaker.” With BBCC’s setup, perhaps even more so.
[ BBCC Production Workflow ]
How does a satellite campus with a cyber sermon effectively perform weekly production planning? According to Chris Briley, production director at Cumming, Georgia-based Browns Bridge Community Church (BBCC), it’s a concerted effort.
“Our production workfl ow typically begins in the planning room. We usually do our services in two- to fi ve-part series. This helps us come up with a look and feel [for] the services… and focuses our creative energy towards it,” Briley says.
One of the main advantages of being a campus of a parent organization such as North Point Ministries is sharing the resources of a well-established media team. “Most of our video content, including CG [character generation] and print graphics (bulletins), comes from [North Point], and we edit the copy to make it relevant for our campus,” Briley reports. “We design and build our sets to coordinate with the series as much as possible, and many of those ideas stem from what North Point did for the series.” ules, and three ETC Sensor dimmer racks are also part of the setup.
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