Tech Arts

Here is a little bit of backstage insight. I have a minor history of running camera. I took an internship at the Iowa Cubs and worked for minimum wage all baseball season home games running camera, switcher, directing, playbacks, etc. It was a pretty good summer gig, even though it was more for broadcasting emphasis than print. But I got to watch baseball all summer and get paid for it. There are worse fates.

Anyway, I learned camera and I learned that camera is actually pretty simple. The point and shoot part. The only finesse you can get at entry level is learning what shots your director wants, what shots look good, and how to zoom and focus smoothly.

So with my expertise and experience, I volunteered for running camera at church. It's fun and it gets me backstage. I like being backstage. In the theater of life, I never want to be center stage. I'd rather be behind the camera than in front of it. One of the stagehands all dressed in black. My biggest acting aspiration is that of an extra. No lines. Dreadlocks.

So, I am somewhat mystified as to the "talent." They are a different breed. We talk about them like objects as we have to capture this angle or that. And I avoid them.

Until recently, when the worship team made the pre-service meetings mandatory for all members. Previously, the cameras crew would lurk in the video room and the worship team in the green room and the lighting and audio crew... well, I don't know where they lurked.

We also got a new name. Instead of video team, I am now a part of "Tech Arts." New name tag too.

But those meetings I find baffling. We all tromp out of the video room through the amp room to the green room. The worship team is already there, draped over the chairs, so I usually take up a wallflower position. In the room I thought was the bathroom, it sounds like some of them are practicing a three part harmony. Russell is talking transitions, "...and after that, it goes into a boom boom budum budum psh..." with the appropriate drum motions. They talk like old friends until about time. Derek had to get them to let us camera people out early so we could be in position on time. And occasionally, they go over things that we might actually need to know, like a prayer in between songs, who's leading, etc. Things that could be covered by a good itinerary.

I don't think these meetings help us as much as they think they help us.

But camaraderie and inclusiveness! Maybe I'm an elitist, maybe I'm just a recluse, but I could do without. Oh well, I can spend my time studying that strange species, The Musician.