Twice a year Oral Roberts University hosts a “College Weekend” where over 500 perspective students visit our campus to see what the school has to offer and if they want to make this their home for four years.
About College Weekend
One of the highlights of College Weekend is always the night of worship. We host a Campus Worship once a month where the student body and greater Tulsa community gather for worship and prayer, but College Weekend is always special because of the addition of 500+ excited potential students.
Pre-production
We are always trying things to create a more immersive environment. This time that meant lowering our 15′ by 25′ Absen LED video wall to use as a backdrop and adding environmental projection to our chapel for the first time. The projection system involved five projectors mapped to the room and lined up with video wall so graphics could seamlessly spill off of the screen onto the stage and beyond. To achieve this effectively I knew that we needed to find significantly better graphics than what we had been using.
Choosing CMG
I started researching where other churches that took their visuals seriously got their media from and Church Motion Graphics was the name that kept coming up. I then met with ORU Worship Director Kristen Thomas and Director of AV production Casey Phariss, and we decided to go with the Premium Yearly Subscription to get the full CMG collection of media.
From there, myself and lighting designer Caleb Gentry began to collaborate on the set up of the projection system and which backgrounds to incorporate with the lighting. We literally waited up until midnight to download the new Easter Smoke Backgrounds (March 2016 CMG Mega Pack) the night they were released and they were used to great effect on several songs. Most dramatically with dark stage and Beams of light illuminating singer Maya Gibson as she belted out “No Longer Slaves”, while the smoke billowed behind her. The backgrounds blend together so well that they can be easily transitioned between one another to follow each section of a song and the intensity of whats happening on stage.
Response to the night has been incredible, with attendance of over 1,700 and comments on how great everything looked, how excellent it sounded and most importantly; how everything worked together to achieve an engrossing atmosphere of worship.
Written by Justen Reddick (ORU Audio Visual Services Supervisor)