Looking to visually kick your lyric display up a notch?
If you’ve been to a huge conference (ex: Catalyst) or concert, you’ve probably seen the amazing “sensory-overload” motion graphics that also serve as lyric displays.
With After Effects and about half a latte, you too can create those super-cool “mograph” lyrics to accompany your live Sunday environments.
Here’s a little window into how it’s done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZgpgFgaoo
Missed the previous video tips? Here’s how to create a vignette & how to animate text.
A couple of final footnotes to keep in mind:
- Running a program that can trigger videos along with lyric slides is definitely a plus (ex: ProPresenter).
- It may be best to make separate videos for verses & choruses. If the structure of the song changes or the band ever sings it differently, it’ll keep you from re-rendering. And that saves time!
- The videos work best when the band sings in a structured manner. It’ll be hard to match the timing if your band doesn’t use a click-track, or no one knows what lyrics are next. 😉
- Interested seeing a few more examples? BigStufMedia has a few current songs, so you won’t have to re-invent the wheel.
So what about you?
Do you use “live lyrics” on Sunday mornings? What’s it like?
Graham says
Wow. Sweet. I need to step up my game…
Jesse J. Anderson says
I did several of these videos for Eastlake Church’s worship night back in November – they were a real hit and make a huge impact. If done right they do more than just look cool but can actually enhance the worship service.
That’s what I had hoped to achieve anyways. 😉
You can see the 3 videos I did at : http://echofaith.com/portfolio#somebody_like_me_look_up_great_visual_song_tracks
Jesse J. Anderson says
I had the advantage of Eastlake Church’s very regimented worship process. All of their songs are played to a click track with a strict structure which allows them to use some aux tracks (though the aux track is mostly used for transitions between songs).
This allowed me to create one solid video per song without worrying about the worship leader deciding to do that chorus just one more time.
This may not work for every church though, if your worship leader likes the freedom of changing it up a little (and/or does not use a click track) you may need to create several individual videos as Andrew suggested. If you do this make sure the lyrics come to the screen quickly so that they are never behind the singer if they happen to play it a little faster than normal, but also leave a lot of extra room for the video to play long in case they happen to play it a little slower than normal.
Andrew Mason says
Awesome. Good stuff!
Stuart says
Hmm, whilst these things are visually appealing I don’t quite see how being “structured in our worship” is biblical.
One of the first things I learnt as a new chrsitian was (and still is) that worship is a lifestyle – something we work at, adapt, change day by day and minute by minute and stuff like this just restricts that to my way of thinking.
Jesse J. Anderson says
Does the Holy Spirit only work on Sundays?
Bill Glick says
Another good source I’ve used for pre-produced motion graphic lyrics is from Igniter Media. http://www.ignitermedia.com/song-tracks has several great lyric videos that I’ve used.