NPCC Production Updates
The Stage Thrust
We just finished a month long reconstruction of our East auditorium stage that resulted with a brand new stage thrust.
There were many factors that played a part in the decision to move forward with this project. One of the most compelling reasons was that because of the acoustics in our room we wanted to place the subwoofers on the floor. When we did this we lost all aisle space at the front of the room. The thrust was designed so that the subs are now buried underneath the stage. The front of the thrust and the steps where built in such a way as to make the audio transparent.
Another big reason why we decided to go through with the reconstruction was to get more depth of field on our camera shots. The thrust effectively added another six feet between our communicators and the background set. This pushes the set just enough out of focus so that our communicators stand out on video. This is significant because of the amount of content that goes out to TV and the Web.
Similarly the thrust brought the stage closer to our front light hanging points not only allowing for a better angle of light but also allowing us to decrease the light level on our communicator. The overall effect is that the communicator is only slightly brighter than the audience.
Moving the communicator out towards the audience decreases the space between the two. This creates a two-fold effect. It draws our communicators closer to the audience to where they feel more engaged. It also aids in achieving better reverse shots from our jib camera.
The final reason is simply that it created more room on our stage. This allows us to space our band in such a way that the stage no longer feels crowded.
There were a few technical challenges that we had when designing the thrust. I already mentioned that a cavity had to be created for the subwoofers to live. But the cavity also had to have access in order to get the subs in place after the stage was built. The stage not only had to be built with this cavity but then it had to be strong enough to handle a 3500lb lift fully loaded. The final challenge was that our stage has a hardwood flooring over it and with the new thrust the hardwoods had to be re-laid in such a way as to make it look like it had always been there. We also took this opportunity to remove some electrical outlets and audio pockets from the stage that had to be reinforced after removal and the hardwoods realigned.
It was a big project but the results have been much appreciated.
Camo and Wrinkle
The arches of this set were designed in such a way as to eliminate the precenium encasement that the architecture of our stage creates. By building the arches over the sidewalls it creates the illusion of a less devided stage. The stagering of depth between the outside arches and the center arches creates the illusion of a much deeper space. The texture in the background fills in the space between the arches. This texture in addition to the texture on the arches creates a look that appears complex with very few individual pieces.
How we did it:
We started off dead hanging 10′ sticks of truss from the ceiling on either side of the stage, pitching up from left to right. To the side of each stick of truss we affixed 10′ sections of pipe using cheesboroughs to create an arc if looked at from above. We further created the arc by attaching another section of pipe 4′ long between the center of the 10′ pipe and the truss. This extra pipe softened the curve and reinforced the structure. Sandbags were hung off the backside of the truss to counterbalance the weight of the pipe. From this structure we hung the background beige camoflouge. We created the texture in the camo by pulling sections up behind itself and using small white zip ties to affix the section to itself. We extended this design piece across the entire stage by stapeling the camo to the existing walls under the screens as well as our new stage screen doors. We used the zip tie method to create the texture here as well.
The arches are four layers of 3/4″ plywood cut to shape on a CNC router and then glued together into strips with over lapping sections to attach to one another. These strips were put together using screws from the back as to not blemish the front with screw holes. The four openings of the arches were backed with Choroplastic sheets cut to shape with a razor blade. The chloroplast created a solid structure to which we hot glued sheets of crumpled paper. The crumpled paper was created by taking 4′ wide by 1000′ long rolls of butcher paper and cutting sections off the roll and then wadding them up until we had the desired texture.
Both the camo and the paper were lit from above via an assortment of Chauvet Colorado and Batten LEDs. The majority of our moving lights were hung off of two sections of truss. One section at 20′ and the other at 30′ to create an asymmetrical look above the stage. We did hang a few spots lower behind our percenium via ladder pipe rigs. Our color washes were hung off our down stage grid flanking the stage in order to cast side light across the stage.
Stage Screen Doors
As many of you know we have been removing our band risers from the stage for our message setting for several years now. This has caused us to have to engineer some fairly ingenious systems for moving set pieces around on our stage in order to remove the risers. We came up with a plan to create an entrance door to move the risers through on a more permanent basis so we don’t have to reinvent the process of removal for every set. Because of circumstances we were able to demo the walls under the stage at the beginning of the summer.
Although establishing the entrance doors was the end goal, we have been using this area for backlighting some set pieces all summer. We used this time to design the doors and get the initial construction of the doors done. We installed the doors as we changed out our fall 2010 set.
These two doors swing using a pipe hinge. Both doors are just over 13′ wide and swing to a 70degree angle creating a lot of space for the risers to roll through. This space has helped to speed up our transitions and make removing the guitar pedals via the guitar sleds a real easy addition to our transitions. We are able to clear our stage of all band gear in less than one minute. These doors have allowed us to further accomplish our desire to have a clear stage for our communicators and the video products that we create.
Design:
For those who are interested, the door was designed to be modular. This is so we can easily remove the sections allowing us the flexibility to use this space to project on set pieces or light set pieces from behind. The whole structure rolls on six wheels. It pivots from two ball bearing pipe hinges mounted on the floor and on the support beam below the screen. The wheels are staggered at a slight angle allowing the door to rotate easily on its arced path.
The wheels are mounted to a footer beam that was constructed by wood, gluing three 2×4x14’s, that had been cut down to 13′4″, together. This creates the base for the entire door. The hinge section of the door consists of a pipe cut to size running vertically between the two ball bearing hinges. The pipe is bolted to four 10″ horizontal 2×4’s via carrier bolts. The hinge section continues across so that the entire section is 41″ wide. This was intentionally done so that all four sections of the door are 41″ wide. This keeps the seams in the door evenly spaced. The other three sections of the door are 2×4 structures constructed individually with framing nails. The four sections are bolted together so that they are easily taken apart. The front of each section is surfaced with a 3/4″ piece of MDF cut to size and screwed to the 2×4 structure. 3/4″ MDF was used because the MDF is smooth enough to match the drywall once painted and thick enough to staple or drill set materials on to it. The whole structure is sured up using a strand of aircraft cable with a turnbuckle running diagonally across the back of the structure. This allows us to pull the top right corner tight into alignment with the bottom left corner. Each section of the wall was then strapped to this cable using corrugated metal straps. The whole structure if unbolted can be removed in five relatively light sections.
Drive 2010 Opener
Drive conference is a time when church leaders, staff, and volunteers come visit us to see how we do what we do. We thought it appropriate to post this video of the opener to say thanks to all of the volunteers that made the conference possible.
North Point Online
Starting on the February 28 Sunday, we will start broadcasting the North Point Online services from North Point. The plan is to broadcast the 11 a.m. East auditorium service live on the internet and then rebroadcast that service again on 6p.m. For those of you that are not familiar with the NP Online services, it’s not just a internet transmission of the service. They’ve built a very interactive experience around the service in order to really target the unchurched and also help facilitate dialogue and online participation. Collide magazine did an article about NPOnline recently. For those that are interested, you can read it here: http://www.collidemagazine.com/article/284/north-point-starts-streaming.
The online services won’t have a huge technical impact on most of our positions on Sunday morning. And, aside from adding a bigger audience to the 11 a.m. service, it will be pretty much business as usual for us as a team. To view the stream see this page: http://www.northpointonline.tv.