This past week was rough. Trust me.
It was rough enough that I decided to encourage you by drafting out a Guest Post here so that you can learn how not to manage media creation and distribution for Church services and other events.
I am sure that you can relate to this:
I had already been spending some time filming and collecting what was needed for a few video elements. These were required for a once off Volunteer event called Together. We were using pretty much the same graphics and title pack from the NPCC event of the same name.
But wouldn’t you know – it took too long to render and never compressed (until I switched to the Apple ProRes422 Codec and turned off frame controls in Apple Compressor) – sorry for the foray into the technical; but hey this is media right?
As it turned out I had to drive to the planning and practice, the day before, and back again to pick up the file when the compression finished. Showed the draft, got recommendations, made the amendments, exported, compressed.
Next day I tell my wife to give them the file. It was the wrong file – I copied the export file from Final Cut Pro – doh. So after work I rushed in to give them the correct file and then rushed out to help bath my son, disrupting the run through.
I sound like such an amateur… But here’s what I learned:
Areas of Improvement, The Right Tool
Of course the question is this: So, how can I improve on this process so that it doesn’t happen again?
There were a few stumbling blocks in my story that could have been avoided with the right tools or set of tools. While my story involves just video, it could have happened with a graphic or audio element.
What features should the right tool contain?
1. Central Repository
In Churches, most of the greatest contribution is from a volunteer or group of volunteers that work from home. Therefore the need to share content and media if of great importance.
It might not be practical to connect over the internet to upload or download video media, especially High Definition, but for other formats that would be feasible. The video guys would need to do a physical sync. This way the content can be made available to everyone.
Along with the media, the project file would have to be managed in the Repository – for collaboration and version control to be feasible. The only problem for sharing media would be the management of meta data and tags (for categorizing and managing the media) they would have to be strictly controlled.
2. Collaboration
Leading off from the Feature of the Central Repository is the idea of collaboration. Given a know set of shared media and collaboration tools it would be quite easy to have more than one editor work on the project.
This would be kind of similar to what most IT and programming guys know to be as CVS, subversion or equivalent. Of course all the principles of collaborating on shared project files would have to apply so that changes are not overwritten by mistake.
Churches that do not have permanent staff or who can outsource would benefit from this because the volunteers working on a video or graphic element could be miles apart – all working at 11pm or something crazy like that.
3. Versioning
How many times have you wished that you could go back to that sequence you were working on just two days ago?
Quite a lot I think.
Not only would the above two feature enable version control for backup as each new sequence is “checked in” but it will enable the ability to have multiple options available for review by those that requested the task in the first place or whoever leads the creative side.
4. Remote Review and Annotations
Here is were I think the greatest benefit lies. With the click of a button a version can be tagged as available for review – allowing certain parties to preview a draft or proposed final version as well as offer the ability to annotate at various points in a video sequence or on a graphic.
This would be like letting a person see the time line as you see it but only allow for markets or notes to be added – not to edit the sequence which should be left to the professionals. This would eliminate the hassle using the sneaker network or to upload files to something like box.net which would mean wasting time in compressing to a suitable format (besides, annotations would not be possible)
5. Dispatch for Release
Tagging the project for final release would literally tell the Person in control that the project can be rendered and compressed for the service or even better to tell the server hosting the central repository and version control system to render and compress automatically.
Ideally copying the final file into the directory used by the presentation software (like ProPresenter) so that whoever sets up those play lists whole just import the file when needed. Wouldn’t it be cool if such a system integrated with ProPresenter through Meta Data that even the Play List would be updated.
The Right Tools and Products:
There are tons of options to choose from but not all of them are going to be the best for your ministry. Make sure you take the time and due-diligence to study and account for your specific situation!
Here are two options that may fulfill our list of aforementioned features:
I use Final Cut Pro exclusively and I have trained most of the guys who edit at our church on it. It offers Collaboration, Asset management and Automation to name a few. It could work very well in a local environment with Final Cut Studio project files such as Motion and Final Cut Pro.
Avid Interplay:
A great option if you already use Avid Media Composer (although it can import Final Cut Pro files). Media Composer itself is already much more expensive than Final Cut Pro, I am assuming that Interplay is way too much for a Church.
Conclusion
Those are my thoughts – as someone who has brought that file in for the Sunday Service 5 minutes before the run through and who has even had to compress a few minutes before the file was needed for the service.
What would you recommend for an online media management tool for ministry?
Nick Shoemaker says
Great post Phillip! I read it imagining a Southy accent. 😉
I’ll admit- I’m way outta my league in this area (as far as online media management). But you’ve inspired me to learn more about it!
Thanks fro sharing bro!
PhillipGibb says
thanks man.
I have a lot to learn too.
Nick Shoemaker says
You and me both! 😉
Scott Magdalein says
I feel your pain, brother. Oh man.