Set Design
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DRIVE 2011/Life Apps
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DRIVE 2011/Life Apps
First off, parts of this set were the backbone of our stage design for the Drive Conference. The East auditorium had to have different structural elements for Drive that our West auditorium didn’t need so the two look a bit different. The series that overlapped Drive was called Life Apps, which dealt with the application of biblical teachings for our lives. Because of the strategic needs of the Drive set we decided that we would target the Life Apps series specifically instead of something generic. The Drive set needed a cube structure to allow 3 rows of people to climb into the structure for specific content. The problem was because of the height of our proscenium we would have had to limit those people to no more than 5’4.”
So we decided to raise our proscenium level 22” to allow for more space. We ended up with just over 6’ in each cube. The result of all this was a square set design that we had to work the Life Apps set into. We started looking at the current Apple designs for their Apps store advertising. Apple’s main add is a Macbook with Apps radiating out from it. We took this and came up with the design you see in the photos. Because of the needs of Drive vs. Life Apps the following took place in various steps spanning a month.
How we did the Drive Gridded Backbone:
This was the essential backbone of both designs. We took full lengths (21’) of schedule 40 pipe with a standard ID of 1.5” and threaded one side of each vertical pipe. To keep the space taken by the structure to a minimum, we bored holes into the pipes and bolted the sections together. We chose to make the structure out of steel rather then wood to give the structure strength and still have minimal structure. We used a drill press to bore the holes so that we could get a hole that was perfectly straight every time. Each vertical was bored every 6’5.” Twelve verticals were needed in all, six in the front and six in the back. We used a threaded flange to mount the pipes to the stage. Then we threaded one side of each of the horizontal pipes and bored holes every 7’4” across the space of our proscenium opening. We used a threaded pipe coupler to attach two horizontal pipe sections together and mounted them to the vertical pipes using Grade 8, 4.5” long 5/8” thick hex bolts. We then cut 65 pipe sections at 4’ 2.5” and bored 4 holes ½” & 2-7/8” from the ends of each side on every pipe. These holes allowed us to use a u-bolt to attach each pipe between the upstage set of horizontal pipes and the down stage set of horizontal pipes (the z-axis). This gave us the structure we needed for the decking. We took this entire structure and used pipe with cheeseboroughs to shore up the structure to our stage’s grid. An X pattern was created with steel cable off each side of the structure and attached to a roof I-beam to add additional stability.
We then took ¾” sheets of plywood and cut them down to 3’9” wide so that they would fit across the 4’2.5” sections of pipe. This ¾” ply served as the deck for the two layers that people would load into during Drive. We used a thinner 7/16” ply on the top of the structure as a roof to the top row. Two-inch conduit straps were used underneath each level to attach the ply to the z-axis pipe structure. We used scrap rolls of carpet, cut to size, and used crown staples to attach the carpet to the ¾” ply. The carpet made the structure more comfortable to stand on, but was primarily applied to cut down on the noise when people walked across it.
Coated Celtic Cloth from Dazian was attached to the back of the structure. We cut the fabric to the desired size (6’7” x 6’) and grommeted the fabric every foot around the perimeter. We then used a combination of zip ties and tie-line to attach it to the structure. We back-lit each section of fabric with a single Chauvet Colorado 1, allowing us to silhouette the App Icons or people and use two-tone colors in each cell when lighting the Icons.
How we did the Drive Shutters:
What I am referring to as the Drive shutters is the fabric that was pulled up for projection and then dropped in order to reveal actors & musicians during our Drive Conference. The fabric was Dasian Coated Celtic Cloth. We cut the fabric to size to fit horizontally within each cell of the Drive grid. The length was determined by the height of the cell plus 6” to give us enough extra fabric to sow a pocket for a 3/4” diameter pipe, slide it in at the top and attach the bottom to the wooden trough, via ½”screws and large washers. We also grommeted the sides of the fabric every 6” and ran a tight vertical cable from the top of one trough into the bottom of the other. 
The cable ran through the grommets so that when the fabric was lowered on this cable the grommets would cause the fabric to force fold itself with 3” of overlap on each side. The bar caring the fabric had to have a ½” hole drilled straight through to allow the folding cable to pass through. A half-inch from the center of that hole, towards the outside of the pipe, we also drilled a smaller hole (1/8”) halfway through to allow the pulling cable to be attached via a wire sleeve crimped to the end of the cable. All cable was 1/16” zinc platted aircraft cable.
The trough was designed so that the bottom would conceal the pulley system and the top would conceal the fabric when it was down. The trough was made of 7/16” plywood. The front and back were cut at 5.5” with a ½” wide and 1/8” deep groove routed down the middle. This groove allowed us to easily affix a 3.5” wide piece of 7/16” ply in the middle, creating the shelf for two of our pulleys to sit on. This structure looked much like an I-beam, except that the front piece was 1” longer on each side of the structure. This was what was needed for attaching the trough to the Drive pipe grid. 
The outside two pulleys were screwed into the horizontal piece so that the cable would run from the pipe, up through the pulleys and horizontally through the underside of the trough to another central double pulley. That pulley redirected the force of each cable back through the grid structure. We drilled two ½” holes in the back of the trough so that the cables could pass through. The two cables were joined via a carabineer about 2’ from the trough (when the shutter was in the down position). We then ran a single cable straight back through our stage’s foe wall to a pulley that we mounted on a 2×4 attached to the studs in the wall. 
This pulley redirected the cable down the wall. Finally, the pulley was attached to another carabineer, which we used as a handle. This carabineer was slid over one of two L-brackets that we mounted on the wall via dry-wall anchors. The top L-bracket was mounted so that the carabineer would rest on it holding the cable taut when the fabric shade was down. The bottom L-bracket was mounted so that the carabineer was resting on it when the shade was up. There were 15 different shades, therefore there were 15 different lines with 2 L-brackets needed for each line. So that the cables came straight back and didn’t land on top of each other or on top of a pre-existing structure like a conduit or stage doors, we had to adjust the mounting of the double pulley within the structure of the trough. Because of this the cables weren’t able to fall in a specific order so we labeled everything with a color-coded numbering system to make operation as easy as possible. To operate all 15 shades at once took eight people.
Fifteen full troughs were made and mounted at the top of each cell. There were also an additional five half troughs made just for fabric to sit in on the bottom sections. The real quandary of this entire process was how to attach the wooden troughs to the steel structure. The solution was to use 2×2’s as a spacer and attach them to the vertical sections of the pipes via 2” conduit hangers. This gave us a wooden structure to drill the overlapping 1” section of the troughs into. We then cut 5.5” foe vertical sections to sit between the troughs to make the spacing even between all the gridded cells.
How we did other Drive Add-ons:
In each of the 15 sections of the gridded structure we also added two floodlights so the people on the structure could be lit evenly. The 25Watt floodlights were extremely small, about 2” squared, and mounted to a socket that was screwed into the wooden trough. The two floodlights in each section were tied together and run to a stage pin socket on our electrics above the stage. This allowed all 15 sections to be lit individually with white light.
We also had to build two ladders, one on each side of the structure. We built them from 2×4x16’ and 2×4x8’s cut down to 2’ lengths. We glued and screwed the 2’ lengths every foot onto the front side of the 2×4x16’s. Then we took the ladder and cheeseboroughed it to the horizontal pipe structure of the grid because we had 2’ of extra pipe on the outside of level of the structure (blind luck).
The projection itself was primarily provided by our BARCO HD30 which outputs at 30,000 lumens. It is primarily used for our Sunday morning center screen projection when we do not have a live speaker. For the bottom 3 sections of the grid we also added a Christy projector (8,000 lumens) that we hung from our roof above the stage. This made it possible for the band to be in front of the screens without getting hit by the projection.
How we did the East Apps:
A computerized machine called a CNC router cut the App Icons out of 4’ x 8’ sheets of 3172 White Plexiglas Frosted material. The East stage was made up of 15 different sizes. Because of the predetermined size of the areas that the Icons would be placed in, we discovered that it would be best to start with the largest Icon at 23” squared. We then took 75% of that dimension to figure out the top, bottom, left, & right pieces, 1’ 5 1/4”. The next Dimension radiating out was 85% of the original 23”, or 1’ 7 9/16.” From this second number we then took 75% and again 85% to arrive at the next two sizes. We continued this math until the structure was filled in. Once we had these 15 sizes equated we decided that black chain would give us the most flexibility when trying to evenly balance them. 
We also discovered that in order to keep straight hanging lines we would need to either go with a very small hole spacing on the icons or we would have to adjust the hole spacing according to the cell the icon was in. A very small spacing might allow the larger icons to spin or at least torque under the amount of air that our AC units push. So a more complicated cell alignment would work better. The icon cuts went from 15 sizes to 23 different icons due to the hole spacing. The Icons were front-lit from above with Chauvet Tri-colors. There was one fixture per cell, 15 in all.
For the moving lights, a truss rig was built above the stage and laid out in four rectangles. Originally we planned to do a flying rig, meaning the trusses would have flown in and out on computerized motor control. We hung the rig tight while the trusses were stacked on top of each other using cheeseboroughs rather than corner blocks to minimize the amount of the IMAG screens blocked when flying in and out. Three of the rectangles were the same size and on the same line, while the larger fourth set of truss surrounded the smaller one in the middle. It would have been a cool thing to see these moving up and down throughout a show, but because of all the front projection that the Drive set needed it was decided that this wasn’t a cost efficient add-on. The truss was rigged with steel cable basket-folded off the I-beams.
Six plasmas were mounted with 3 on each side of the stage. We screwed a pipe flange on to each door cart and mounted the plasmas vertically on a 4’ long pipe. All plasma content was fed from our Arkos system.
How we did the West:
The West was a bit different due to the lack of lights available to effectively light the icons and light a white backdrop. This was acceptable or perhaps preferable because of the weekly use of the room for our High School environment. We had no need of a structure for people to climb in so we created a one dimensional pipe structure. The white backdrop was replaced with a black backdrop. The lights were hung low to lend the set to a rock-n-roll type environment. The four central vertical pipes of the structure were created with pipes threaded on both sides. These pipes measured 9’, 4’, 4’ and 2’ so that a T-joint at each juncture, turned sideways, joined the pipes together. This allowed for an additional 22” pipe to protrude down stage at three separate junctions on each of the four central pipes. 
We hung 12 moving lights from the pipes. The four jointed pipes and two additional full size pipes were drilled at the set distances just like the East stage, so that the horizontal pipes could be attached via hex bolts. The verticals were attached to the stage via flange plates like those in the East and cheesebouroughed to our stage grid at the top. We added 24 Chauvet Rain LEDs to the design between the moving lights for eye candy. A cluster of three ETC Pars with ultra narrow glass were added low on each vertical pipe to fill space and add additional beams in the air.
Four vertical columns were removed from the outsides of the App design because of the limited horizontal space from having the moving lights hanging on the structure. This left us with 17 columns. Only 13 different size Apps were needed, but the spacing shifted the Apps to different cells changing the hole spacing needed and effecting our routing process. We up-lit all the icons from the back on the West with 13 Chauvet Colorado Battens.
Statistics:
- Over 1,000 linear feet of 1.5” ID pipe.
- East: 777’
- West: 234’
- 75’ of ¾” ID pipe
- 2500 cubic feet of coated Celtic Cloth
- 13 sheets of 7/16” plywood
- 10 sheets of ¾” plywood
- 45 single pulleys and 15 double pulleys
- 15 sheets of 3172 White Plexiglas Frosted cut into 342 App Icons (6”-23”)
- East: 189 Apps
- West: 153 Apps
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Light Boxes 2.0
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Light Boxes 2.0
This entire set was created by reusing old set materials. The goal was to create a simple stage design that could be built fast and be extremely cost effective. “Light Boxes 2.0″ was designed to be a bridge from our winter set to our “Drive” set and to be used for the two-part series “Wishes.” We needed to do some construction on our East stage to get us ready for our “Drive” Conference set and “Light Boxes 2.0″ was designed to stay out of the way of that construction. For that reason this was an East only set. The West auditorium maintained the winter look.
How we did it:
The boxes where originally created for the West during the “How to be Rich” series. They were built out of scrap plywood. The boxes are 8′ high, 23″ wide, & 12″ deep. We screwed a Chauvet Colorado (with 30 degree lenses) into the top of each box with a 1′ section of luan painted black covering each light. The interior of each box was painted white to maximize the reflection of light. 
The lit surface of each box is a milky acrylic sheet that was screwed into the plywood frame through holes that we pre-drilled into the edge of each sheet. We used 2″ black gaff to cover the screws and to give us nice clean lines on the sides of the lit surface. We hung all 13 boxes in two staggered rows off a single 40′ stick of truss.
Behind the boxes we hung our Austrian curtain that we originally bought for the “Illusion” series. We used our Chauvet Batten 72s to uplight this curtain.
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Shattered Glass
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Shattered Glass
This years Christmas set was designed to be a winter set, something that could carry us through February. The look was designed to resemble a frozen landscape. The chandelier looking objects are meant to mimic giant icicles and the shatter boxes frozen ruins. The fabric was layered so as to give the impression of a foggy atmosphere. A big desire was for the entire set to be completely asymmetrical and to become a scene independent of the confines of our stages. In addition the desire was that if truss were needed for rigging it would not be seen and that the lights would become a part of the set, not something thrown on top of it.
How we did it:
No matter how complicated this looks let me reassure you it was really ten times harder then you think. I will start with the boxes because they took the most work. They were essentially two giant projects in one. The first part of the puzzle was the glass. We started off by referencing the TV show Time Warp on the Discovery Channel and figured out that you can gaff tape three panes of tempered glass together and then carefully break the edge of the center pane by striking it with a pointed object like a nail or a pick. This causes the center pane to shatter into many different pieces while the outside panes and the gaff hold the overall square shape giving us the frozen look we desired. Of course all the glass had to be manufactured to size and shipped to us. We then had to clean every sheet, tape, and finally crack the desired panes. This meant that each cube used 18 pains of glass. There are 43 cubes on each of our two stages. We also built Buckhead Church’s 37 cubes and Browns Bridge’s 84 frames at the same time.
The second part of the shatter box puzzle was the frame. Because the glass ended up being 3/8” thick when we taped the three panes together we decided that we would use 1” thick MDF strips that would be grooved with a trough for the glass to sit in ½” deep by 7/16” wide. This would leave us with just over 3/16” of MDF on either side of the glass to hold the glass in place. Once we decided on using 1” MDF strips, we knew that to keep the glass boxes perfectly squared we would need five different lengths of MDF. We ended up cutting full sheets of 8’x4’ by 1” thick MDF down to strips of 1” and 2” widths with varying lengths of 23”, 25”, and 27.” All these strips were then given the ½” deep groove with a router.
These two steps, the cutting and the grooving, resulted in over eleven 50 gallon trashcans full of saw dust and right at 3,300 fully grooved strips of MDF. From there we built a temporary paint booth and lined up all the strips 15 or so at a time on rolling carts and rolled them in to be painted black. They were laid out in the parking lot on tarps to dry and once dried flipped and ran back through the paint booth.
Once the frame pieces were done the individual frames were put together with the panes of glass.We applied a thin layer of liquid nail in the groove of each MDF strip and then placed the set of glass panes into the grooves creating a framed shatter pane. This was screwed on each of the corners to hold the frames together while they dried. Once dry, six of the pains were glued and screwed together to create the cubes.
The cubes were laid out across the stage in the predetermined design and structurally locked together using L-brackets. Touch up painting was applied after they were all in place.
The chandeliers were quite a bit easier. We started off having four different sizes of aluminum rings bent and welded by a manufacturer in Atlanta. We then cheesboroughed the rings together using a solid pipe across the back and two other smaller pipes angled towards the center. Once the structure was secure we hung it from the ceiling using rope and pulleys and tied it off just over 8’ off the ground to assemble the structure before raising it into position. We then started on the center ring and spaced the acrylic strands of crystal 4” apart all the way around with a jagged pattern to the lengths. We did the same thing to the other ring with offset patterns but kept the same distance between the strands. The center ring max length was 8’ long, the middle ring was 6.5’ long, and the outside ring was 5’ long. The fourth and outermost ring was attached on the topside of the connector pipes to give a 5” rise to the ring and allow the moving lights that we hung from this ring to sit slightly above the rest of the structure. This minimized the amount of the chandelier that the lights blocked while still allowing them to be a part of the design.
The fabric is actually made up of two different shades of the same fabric called icicle. We used the two shades in an attempt to give the look of natural gradients throughout the fabric. All of the fabric was cut at inconsistent angles and hung in such a way as to not reveal a design. This gives the impression of randomness. There are actually four layers of overlapping fabric inside the center area comprised of sizes around 18’, 15’, 12’, and 8’ lengths. The sides were hung in two rows comprised of 8’ and 5’ lengths. Each side of the proscenium is lined with 21’ lengths and above that are two rows made up of 7’ and 4’ lengths. The fabric is 58” in width but we hung them all at 40” wide to give them the amount of fullness seen in the design. Lastly we added 3 strands of christmas lights behind each piece of fabric. This allowed us to add them in to the design when we needed them and they disappear when we don’t.
STATISTICS:
Total number of shatter boxes built for all Stages: 123
- NPCC East: 43
- NPCC West: 43
- Buckhead Church (BC): 37
- Total number of frames built to create shatter boxes: 822
- NPCC East: 258
- NPCC West: 258
- Buckhead Church: 222
- Browns Bridge Church: 84
- Total Number of sheets of glass used for all stages: 2,466
- Total Number shattered: 822
Total weight of all glass used: 8 tons
- NPCC East: 2.5 tons
- 36 Sheets of 1” MDF cut into 3,300 strips with ½” routed grooves
- Approx. Total number of screws used: 8,300
- Approx. 80 tubes of liquid nail
Approx. 7,500 feet of 1” gaff tape- 11 gallons of flat black pain
- 1 gallon of Windex
- 1 gallon of wood glue
- Approx 180 yards of fabric per stage
- 750 yards Total
- Approx 1,400 grommets
- Approx 8,100 feet of stranded acrylic crystal
- Approx 3,000 linear feet of christmas light strands
- NPCC East: 1,500 feet
- NPCC West: 1,500 feet
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Game Day
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Game Day
As the title implies this set was used for the Series Game Day preached by Jeff Henderson and Andy Stanley. The decision to change out the set was made last minute. The desire was to create an ESPN/Fox Sports look, clean lines, slick, with lots of contrast. We only had two weeks to come up with a look and execute it. As a result we didn’t have time to build or order anything so we had to use different scenic elements left over from previous sets.
How we did it:
The central focus of the set was a 9’x12’ rear projection screen and a Christie S9 Roadster. That gave us a nice video element that you tend to see on this type of set.
Next were the arches from the previous Camo and Wrinkle set that was already on our stages at the time. These gave us more symmetry as well as some very clean lines. Those set pieces had sheets of coreplast with wrinkled paper on the front and were down lit from the front. When we installed the Camo and Wrinkle set we realized that the backside of the coreplast had a really cool look so we decided to just turn the coreplast around and take a few sections out. This made for a cleaner look then the way we had previously used these objects.
All the content for the center screen was driven by ArKaos Media Master and controlled by the Jands Vista via ArtNet.
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Camo and Wrinkle
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.
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Summer Set 2010
The desire of this set was to create a look that was generic enough and relevant enough for our drive conference, yet had the ability to look different every week for almost four months. So we decided that video would be a big part of the design. In the pursuit of being as relevant in our culture as possible our desire was to have LED bands on the stage running video across them. The LED band is a look that many award shows and rock-n-roll shows have been incorporating into their designs recently.
The problem is that we can’t afford LED bands, not to rent for the type of time period this set required and definitely couldn’t purchase. So we decided on projection, but more on that later. The whole set was designed as a giant “V” pattern reaching out towards the audience. This slight angle was designed to give the stage depth. Part of a rock-n-roll look is that the lights are low and become a part of the background so we knew that, that was going to be a part of the design. The background vertical strips as well as the plasmas where added as a way of creating color and movement across the lower part of the stage where we couldn’t project video without hitting the people on the stage.
How we did it:
We first laid out our pick points on the steel supporting the roof in a way as to get the desired “V” patterns. We dead hung the four sticks of 20’ truss as well as two additional 10’ sticks with a combination of span sets, steel rigging cable, and deck chain. The deck chain was used in order to give us the flexibility needed to get the truss level and at the desired height. We then hung and rigged all the moving fixtures off of the four 20’ sticks of truss. The 10’ sticks were used to rig the eight 50” Panasonic pro-performance plasmas that were the primary background for our speaker setting look.
In order to create the projected “LED bands,” we took 2×4’s cut down to 20 inches and zip tied them to the top of both bars of the truss pointing out towards the audience. We then screwed vertical pieces of 2×4’s between the top and bottom sticks of horizontal 2×4’s. From there we took 1×2 strips and screwed them onto the vertical 2×4’s. These 1×2’s basically gave us a frame for the LED bands that set about 6 inches off the front side of the truss. We used pieces of coroplast sheets cut down to 30” x 8’ and 46” x 8’ segments, which were hot glued to the wooden structure. Then we covered the seams of the coroplast with 2” gray gaff tape. The whole surface was painted white to cover up the lines as well as cut down the transparence of the coroplast. We have a Barco HD30 (30,000 Lumen) projector that we use to project our speaker onto the center screen whenever he is being broadcast from one of the other campuses. We used this HD30 to project the graphics onto our “LED Bands.” We used software called ArKaos run from a separate computer but triggered from our Jands Vista Lighting consoles for all our graphic content.
The background panels were two separate sheets of Coroplast. The front layer is a sheet of black that was cut out on a CNC router. This was done off site and delivered to us. We then took a second sheet of white and hot glued it to the back of the black sheet. We ran aircraft cable down the flutes on both sides of each finished sheet and hung them from the truss that hold up our back, black curtain. We lit the center panels from behind with Chauvet Batten strips and for the side panels under the screens we used Chauvet Colorados.
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Burn Out Fabric
When we started thinking about this set the desire was to have something fairly generic but with a rock-n-roll feel. So we immediately new it was going to be a truss and lights set. We originally wanted to do a huge arc of truss from the back wall up to the roof, but the cost was too great so we used regular 10’ long 12”x12” truss that we already own. The fabric was something we had seen used before and we were eager to find a use here.
How we did it:
We started off laying out our four vertical sticks of truss 102” apart, mounted on four base plates weighted additionally with sandbags on the backside. We then did four additional sticks of truss hung from the ceiling at an angle to create the sloped background. We used four more sticks of truss to create a 40’ long run that we hung from the roof with motors. We then used this solid 40’ long horizontal piece of truss as a pick point for the front side of the diagonally hung truss. This allowed us to use two cheeseboroughs on the front topside of the truss so that it could not sway or be kicked out of alignment with the bottom vertical truss. The back of the diagonal truss was dead hung using 12’ long span sets from the roof.
We then used cut pieces of schedule 40 black 1.5”ID pipe extended horizontally from the truss by using two cheesboroughs on either side of the truss. This gave us our point off-set from the truss from which to hang our moving lights. We also strategically hung pars lining the center of the truss for added theatrical flare.
The fabric spanning the truss was a burn out fabric. The material was attached to the truss using fabric clips, which were then zip tied to the truss. All the fabric was front lit using a High End 575 Color Wash that was hung from our downstage grid. We also created a type of fabric door covering our stage entrances by attaching fabric to a sliding pipe that traveled along a piece of cable. When closed the curtain would be latched to the wall via carabineers allowing for a solid look to our stage and a background that covered our slash camera angle. We also decided to put the fabric underneath our side screens and light them by throwing light horizontally across the length of the fabric. These sides allowed the set to grow outside of our proscenium opening and make the stage feel bigger, which we like to do whenever possible.
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Christmas 09 “Velma’s Diner”
How we did it:
We had the problem of knowing that we couldn’t build this set from scratch in a single week’s time. We set out two weeks prior to the install week, to build the structural backbone for the set. The biggest obstacle was that it had to be planned and built modularly to fit through the stage doors. The entire set was actually built as 39 different flats, structured out of 2×4s.
We then brought in and put together these flats during the install week to create the structural backbone for the set. We used textured vac-u-form 4’x8’ sheets of bricks and stone which we cut to size and molded to the flats, tacking them in place to create the surfaces for each of the buildings. The vac-u-form was then finish painted to give texture to the actual buildings. We also sprayed a base coat of paint on all the vac-u-form sheets in the weeks prior to the set install. While the buildings were being finish painted other finishing touches like the awnings, molding, shutters, benches, tiles, and lights were being added to the set.
Special thanks to all the guys who worked so hard to make this set happen.
Stats (Approximated):
Man Hours: 1200 hrs for the install alone, 400 pre-build hrs
2×4’s: 3 pallets (Over 1,000 boards)
Nails: 6,500
Brad Nails & Staples: 10,000
Compressors: 3
Sheets of Luan: 200
Sheets of Vac-u-form: 166
Gallons of paint: 12
Scissor Lifts: 3
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The Wall
I like to refer to this set as “THE WALL,” kind of ominous I know. I would dare say that this is the most engineered set we have ever done in my tenure here at North Point. It has so many different complex angles that have to work out so that the wall is seamless and the doors open and close. The doors open just enough to get the risers through and nothing larger. Our backstage crew has done a stellar job of moving these risers on and off in very tight transition times throughout the life of this set. I would prefer that I didn’t have to patch the wall or re-duvetyn the risers so much but that is a different story.
How we did it:
The panels made out of extruded fiberglass were cut in 6 different sizes with a 7 degree angle around the edge for the first half inch and then with a 45 degree cut for the other inch. The 7 degree angle aloud us to wrap the panel with the Muslin fabric without rounding the edges to much while still allowing the panels to butt up with one another. The 45 degree angle then gave us the desired beveled edge that creates the shadows and lines of the design. (All this precision cutting was done by Matt Borbi)
The fabric was sprayed with super 77 glue. The panel was then put on the fabric and the fabric was wrapped to the back and stapled into the fiberglass. The panels were attached to the backbone structure using Snap-on Anchors from rotofast. http://www.rotofast.com/home.htm
The backbone structure was made out of ¾” ply and cut using a precision CNC router operated by Matt Borbi. We constructed the framing in house by taking the two backbone pieces and using 2×4’s constructed the horizontal and diagonal supports.
The door pieces were constructed on top of a piece of ¾” ply with 5” casters. A 2”OD Pipe was flanged to the floor making the pipe static and the doors were equipped with two ball bearing flanges that allowed the door to sit on the static floor mounted pipe and pivot only on the ball bearings inside the flanges. This method was chosen because it insured that the doors would easily line back up with the rest of the wall every time.
The lights were all hung off T-joint pipe dead hung off of truss using cheesboro clamps to attach the pipe to the truss.
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Summer 09 “Sunburst”
This set was very modern. We decided early in the design process that we wanted it to be heavily light driven almost rock-in-roll esk, because of our Drive conference. We also wanted the set to have a video element so that we could custom fit the background to match the series because the set was going to be up for the entire summer. Some might have refereed to this as the “Sun Ray” set. It was very bright and radiated out across the stage like the beams of the sun.
How we did it:
We used Panasonic Pro performance plasmas because they have grid-mapping technology built in. Meaning we tell them what part of a larger image we want them to display and they display that part only, allowing us to send video signal down the line and the TV’s display that large image over the entire 10 plasma layout. We had custom plasma plates made so that we could hang the plasmas and swivel them at any angle and fasten them down to hang that way.
We dead hung four 20’ sticks of truss off one point from a 40’ stick of truss that was dead hung from the roof steel. The bottom corner of each 20’ “finger” truss was kept in place by drilling 2×4’s into the floor on all sides.
We used coroplast sheets slit on one side so that they could be folded and feed into the truss on one end to construct the interior box that allowed us to create the glow of the sticks. One Chaveut Colorado was fixed to both ends of the 20’ length of truss to light each “finger.”
The three panels that were flown between the truss were hung by horizontally running a piece of aircraft cable from one truss through the panels frame to the adjacent truss and tightening with a turnbuckle on one side. The outside two panels were dead-hung off four points from the roof. Each panel was backlight with 2 Chauvet Colorados.
The panels themselves were manufactured punched sheets of metal from McNichols in Kenasaw, GA. We then took Voile fabric and glued it to the back of the metal to catch the colored backlight. The whole thing was framed with angled aluminum strips tied to the punched metal sheet, this angled aluminum gave the sheet the rigidity it needed to be flown off four points without warping.
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Fabric Columns
This was our second set for 2009. The columns were internally lit from above which gave us the ability to create some motion on stage by simply chasing color and intensity between them. The set was very well received.
How we did it:
The back wall is 4’ squares of tufted fabric sown together in house by our great volunteers. They are comprised of 2 different types of colored fabric, a silver and a copper, this giving us the option and flexibility for reuse in the future. The two types of fabric were sown together into a pocket, stuffed with a 1” sheet of cotton stuffing and then sown closed. They each have 13 buttons punched through them to give them their texture.
The columns are long strips of iridescent fabric with grommets at the top and tied off to the top aluminum square. The horizontal lines on the columns are actually 2’ square pieces of aluminum that were welded by an outside company. Each aluminum square was hung off the one above it from all or corners using aircraft safety cables. The Columns were lit from above using a Mac 250 wash.
Between the Background and the columns was a row of extremely transparent light green fabric that was drawn together behind each column and drooped over a 3’ wide piece of PVC pipe that was dead hung from the ceiling creating a fabric swag that swooped in from about 16’ wide down to about 3’ wide.
The truss at the top was internally wrapped with Voile fabric and lit from both ends with a Chauvet Rain 56 Led.
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Multi-tone Squared
This was our first set in 2009 primarily used for the Balanced series. It was also the first multi-campus set, meaning we built this set on every campus at the same time because we were going live. It consisted of a lot and I do mean A LOT!!! of 2×4’s. It was adorned with 2 different types of fabric and screen (the type of screen used in a screened in porch). It had some very interesting challenges because of sheer weight and the need to be able to move risers. Many a volunteer hated this set because on more than one occasion, someone smacked their head on one of the low-lying horizontal beams. But in the grand scheme of things it was a very cost efficient set.
How We did It:
We made rectangles out of 2×4’s by screwing a 5’ vertically board on both sides to a 10’ horizontal board on top and bottom. We then evenly split them into three sections by using three more vertical 5’ boards nailed into the frame using a nail gun. We then proceeded to nail horizontal board in between the vertical boards to give us 6 squares on each 5’x10’ rectangle. These rectangles were sprayed with two coats of flat black paint using a compressor powered paint gun. The air filter was also painted black in the process ☺ This entire process took 2 weeks to do all the frames for the four rooms.
We then took the frames and stapled the 3 different types of fabrics onto the back to create the desired design. The rectangles were stacked into the desired configuration and screwed into the floor and to one another. We also had 2 pieces on either side that were hung using aircraft cable through a counter balanced pulley system that allowed an operator to fly them up and down. This system was used on Sunday mornings so that our risers could be struck for Andy’s messages.
The curtain in the back was silver voile fabric strips hung pinched together to give it some fullness.
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Christmas 08 “Welcome to the Ball”
This was our Christmas set for 2008. We set out to create a very clean set that was easy to install and would be quick to tear down and install the next set. It was only up for 3 weeks. This is an example of what you can do on a rather small budget.
How we did it:
There are 3 design elements to this set. The first is the red backdrop made out of strips of red encore fabric. The fabric (approx. 5’ wide) was hung and pinched together in two different rows to give it the texture seen in the photo. The strips of fabric were grometed and hung alternating from front to back on a single 40’s stick of truss. We used par cans mounted on the floor to backlight the front hung fabric, which casted light on the edges of the back hung fabric. This was just a cool extra. Otherwise, the fabric looked solid.
The second element is six strips of pink voile fabric grometted and hung from a pipe with fullness and then pinched together about 6’ off the floor using a piece of tie-line.
The third element, which is hard to see in photos, was a row of small mirrors that had been hot glued to 20’ pieces of 80lb test fishing line. When hit with light, the mirror row twinkled behind the pink voile.
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Why Worry
For this set, primarily used for the series Why Worry, we set out to create the feel of a spa type environment. The billowing fabric started out above the audience and drew the attendees’ attention to the stage as it sloped to the back wall. This helped break the line between attendees and the stage. The fabric fell behind three vertical rock walls on the stage.
How we did it:
The rock walls were simple 12′ flats that we covered with vacuform rock. The rock was painted with a base coat and then treated with two additional colors to give the walls texture and depth.
The fabric started out in the house at the roof about 15′ in front of the stage and then dropped over several dead hung pieces of pipe on its way to the back of the stage. The fabric was backlit with LEDs from above and could also be lit with movers from the massive 32′ wide riser below.
The risers were laid out in three tiers and covered with the vacuform rock. This actually drew the risers in and made them a part of the set rather than an addition to it.
The truss was four 20′ sticks raked out into the audience in a fan pattern between the fabric.
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Illusions
This was one of very few sets designed specifically for a series. The name of the series was Illusions and the desire was to have an element that mimicked a scene in the movie the Prestige.
How we did it:
The main element is the light towers. Each tower consisted of 12 small bulbs mounted in candle operas wired in sync with every other one. This gave each tower the need for 2 power supplies. This also allowed us the ability to do chase sequences or different dimmed designs with the towers. The towers were built with 5/8” plywood with the 12 shelves in a triangle if viewed from above. The towers stood 8’ tall and the entire front side was backed with bronze sheets that allowed the light from the bulb to spread horizontally like what you see in the image.
The back curtain was purchased from Georgia Stage. It is a red Austrian designed curtain.
Each truss, a single 10’ stick, is hung at an angle from low in the back to high in the front. The sticks are straight on the left to right plane and were loaded down with approx. 5 moving lights each.
The truss above the stage was left in place from an earlier set. It was internally lit with Chauvet Rain 56 LEDs casting light onto a frosted piece of plexi-glass.
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5 Things
5 Things was a huge 6 part series conducted at North Point by Andy Stanley. The icons were designed by our media department to represent the five things God uses to grow our faith: Practical Teaching, Providential Relationships, Private Discipline, Personal Ministry, & Pivotal Circumstances. We decided to incorporate these icons into our set and every week enlarge the icon that represented the thing that Andy was teaching on.
How we did it:
The Icons were cut out of MDF on a CNC router to give them there image and shape. We then cut out a circular piece of milky white plexiglass with a jig saw and liquid nailed them to the back of each icon. This allowed us to backlight them for the desired glowing effect.
The backdrop was made out of a 64″ espresso colored Encore fabric with horizontal slits cut every 6 inches. What looks like a solid wall is actually 9 columns of fabric. Each column has a pocket sown in on each side with a piece of aircraft cable running through it. The aircraft cable was attached to the floor on one end and to a pipe hanging from the roof. A turnbuckle at the top allowed us to tighten the cable, thereeby tightening the fabric and giving it the seamless look seen in the photo. We also hung another solid white curtain behind the slit fabric so that we could back light the design with color.
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Summer Series 08
The primary series of the summer was “Letters to the Next President.” The desire was to come up with a generic look that would work for the series but then last for the entire summer and was fairly inexpensive to produce. This was one of the first sets designed to be up for over two months. This was also the first set designed specifically with removal of band risers for message as a central focus. Something we think about for every set now.
How we did it:
The panels in the foreground were built with 2×4s making up the outer structure and then reinforced with 1×2s diagonally to achieve the desired design. The whole structure was then painted with a dark brown paint. Oyster colored Voile fabric was then stretched across the backside of the flats and stapled along the edges.
Each panel was designed with different dimensions to achieve the asymmetric design. The panels were all designed at less than 12’ so that we could fly four of the panels out via pulley systems in order to remove the risers from the stage.
The trusses were hung off balance to add to the asymmetrical random design. The lights were hung low so that we could use our LEDs to light the middle panels and so that we would create some energy with some of the moving lights. The truss at the roof was hung so that the moving lights hung off of them could easily light the side panels. The truss was also backlit with LEDs hitting an acrylic panel that we had cut out and placed on the front side of the truss.
The back wall was covered with 3’ wide 40’ long strips of grey craft paper that we had crumpled up and then stapled to the wall. It was lit from above with our 6 High End Studio Colors.
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Faith, Hope, Luck (East)/DRIVE 08
Our Drive Conference 2008 fell in the middle of the series “Faith, Hope, Luck” which was preached from Buckhead Church. This allowed us to design our stage with Drive in mind and then add drive elements to it for the Conference. The picture is from the series not Drive. The desire of the look was so that the IMAG screens and the “set” screen become one massive wide screen.
How we did it:
The primary element was the 40’ wide 10.5’ tall projection screen, which was front-projected on from the HD30 in the back of the auditorium. This was used primarily for jump backs on Sundays but we did do some IMAG at the Drive conference.
Because the sermon was preached from Buckhead Church, we needed our HD center screen to drop down in front of the “set” screen. We re-hung our HD screen on chain motors so that we could raise and lower the box that our HD screen rolls out of. We used a pin camera mounted at the roof to see where to lower and raise the box.
Behind the screen we hung our white curtain, which was then front lit from our six High End Studio Colors.
The lights below the screen were mounted on schedule 40 “T” pipes which we cheesboroughed to a 30’ section of truss that was also hung from motors. We raised and lowered this truss to allow the risers to be removed from the stage.
The Martin 250 lights on each side of the “set” screen were placed there to fill in the gap between the “set” screen and the IMAG screens. The HD 30 was unable to project all the way to the IMAG screens so the gap was something we were stuck with. The lights were hung off of schedule 40 pipe that “T” jointed out from a set of pipes that ran from floor to ceiling. The bottom was mounted to the floor with a flange and the top with a cheesborough to our stage grid.
Faith, Hope, Luck (West)/Summer Series
This is one of the few sets were the West Auditorium actually looked different from the East Auditorium. The problem was we could not afford to buy 2 of the 40’ x 10.5’ “set” screens. The solution was to come up with a set design that mimicked the look that Buckhead Church had come up with for the “Faith, Hope, Luck” series, but mix in the plasmas for graphics that we were using in the East. The look was not originally intended for the Summer Series but was extended to save money.
How we did it:
We couldn’t afford the versa tube knockoffs that Buckhead was using so we decided to use 6” diameter PVC pipe that we already had from a previous set. We drilled a hole at the top of each pipe and ran a long bolt through a piece of chain and then though the PVC holes and back though the chain creating a loop with the chain that we then hung via a piece of aircraft cable from the ceiling. The layout of the pipes was simply a copy of what Buckhead was doing. The pipes were up lit using seven Martin Cyclos.
Two of the plasmas were cheeseboroughed directly to a section of 30’ truss. The other three were cheeseboroughed to a schedule 40 pipe that was “T” jointed and hung via cheeseboroughes off the 30’ section of truss. The truss itself was hung with two chain motors from the steel.
The High End Studio Spots that are not on in the photo were hung via “T” joint pipes from our upstage grid. The Martin 250 movers on each side of the stage were hung in the same was as they were in the East.
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Metal Siding and Vertical Truss
Before any of you get the wrong idea, yes this is North Point and no the Cross was not a part of the design of the set. The Cross was simply added for our Easter services that year. This set was up for about a month and a half and so needed to be generic but was primarily for the series “He’s still got the whole World in His Hands.” The design incorporated materials that we already owned in order to keep the cost to a minimal. The desire was to encompass the entire space so that it felt like there really was no way on or off the stage, that the stage became a world unto itself. The panels were placed in a slight arc that just enough room was provided for someone to walk between the first and second set of panels on each side of the set.
How we did it:
The panels were simply metal siding originally bought from Lowes which we then foe painted rust onto. The panels were hung from the upstage grid using aircraft cable. We down lit the top panel from the grid and uplit the bottom two from the floor via Chauvet Rain 56es.
On each side of the panels we stood a vertical piece of truss mounted to rented base plates, six pieces of truss in all. We mounted a Studio Spot (moving light) at the top of each truss that we ratchet strapped to the top of each truss. We also mounted a Martin Mac 250 to the front of each truss.
The remaining moving lights were hung off a 40’ section of truss that was hung in front of the proscenium, along with several gelled pars.
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Text
This was one of those few sets that matched with the other graphics extremely well. The idea for the series was to create a feel that was reminiscent of an overwhelming amount of instant messaging windows. The title package had lots of stylized windows of text flying by the camera. We mimicked this with our set design. A few of the panels had specific scripture that were relevant to the series, the rest were books of the bible.
How we did it:
The text panels were single sided milky acrylic sheets. They originally came in 5’ x 10’ panels, which were then cut out mechanically into many different predetermined sizes by a company in Cumming, GA called Iron Spirits. Iron Spirits also did all the text, which was cut out of vinyl and placed on the acrylic.
We used solid U-channel cut to size and attached to the top of each panel to give us a rigid structure from which to hang each panel. We accomplished this by first drilling two holes through the top of the U-channel. We used these two holes to bolt two i-loops on either side of the channel in such a way as to evenly distribute the weight between these two points. We then slid the acrylic sheet into the channel and using a drill press drilled holes every 2’ along the U-channel. We then ran bolts through the structure, attaching the acrylic to the U-channel.
We then hung all the panels via aircraft cable from pre-determined points, which we laid out along four of our upstage grid pipes. This allowed us to have four layers of depth to the design. Each hanging point also had a turnbuckle placed in line at the top so that we could easily balance each panel.
The larger panel that consisted of a rather long scripture verse located on the right side of the stage was actually too much text to fit on a single panel so we had to sow two panels together using fishing line. It was a very interesting solution to a design verses materials problem.
Our 6 High End studio colors were hung evenly behind the panels in order to wash the design with color. We also hung our 6 Mac 250s in front of the design to give us additional options for front lighting the design.
One of the really “cool” factors of this set was that we used our HD30 projector in the back of the room to project a masked out image of the cursor. We looped a video that turned the cursor on and off making the physical printed cursor on the end of the actual word “TEXT” look like it was blinking.
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