A Crash Course In Live-Streaming

By: Dr. Dwayne Hooper

COVID-19 came at the most ironic time for one of the churches I’m involved in with tech ministry. This church had recently decided to develop a video ministry. The ironic part was that as social rules were imposed and churches were shut down that is when the deliveries of gear were just arriving. That being said, I had done a lot of research and planning, but COVID forced us to take a different route in developing an online service. For those interested let me lay out for you the choices we made as we entered into an online service during COVID-19.

Please understand first I have a broad understanding of tech, however video is not my strongest area. So this is not meant as instruction on how all churches should do video or online ministry. Rather this is simply some insight into some of the choices we made, some of the mistakes we made, and some suggestion on how you might enter into a similar ministry.

Let me breakdown some of the areas, then focus in on each one. We will look at:

1. Acquisition of video content
2. Editing video content
3. Hosting video content online
4. Streaming video content online
5. Copyright issue

• Acquisition of Video Content

  
  We chose to abide by the social distancing rules being imposed. As such it was imperative to me that anyone involved produce their own content and then send it to me for editing all online. In order to achieve this we developed some instructions and provided them to anyone producing content. We had already planned to use Vimeo as our online video hosting platform. As such we shared a username and password with all involved and each person uploaded their content to vimeo. I would then download that content and use it to edit together the service.
  We instructed people to shot their videos with their phones. Most smartphones these days can produce decent quality video. Here is the insight we shared with people to help get better quality video:
  • Video should be shot in 1080p and at 30fps (frames per second). The key for us was to have a consistent frame rate for editing (30fps) and we didn’t want 4K video to use up our vimeo upload limits.
  • Do not shoot video free hand. Use tape and be creative if you need to, but secure your phone to something to frame your shot.
  • Avoid a bright window behind the subject, it really messes with the exposure of the image. Better yet have your subject facing towards natural light (i.e. an open window).
  • NEVER shoot video in portrait orientation (holding the phone upright), ALWAYS shoot video in landscape orientation.
  • Frame your shots; either centre the person in the frame or if the environment enables it follow the rule of thirds. Don’t cut off heads, there should be enough room above the head that the person could hold their fist there.
  • Be aware of noise in the environment your recording it. It is surprising what audio even a phone camera will pick up while recording. Pick a room where you don’t hear your furnace fan running, or a fan in a computer, or fridge compressor etc...

Editing Video

Video editing is a massive topic in and of itself, but let me give a brief overview of what we did for music. Our main leader would record themselves with an phone playing keys and singing, this was done to a click track (via earbuds) and they would clap a measure then wait 3 measures and begin the song. They uploaded this to vimeo and it became my base track for music. The drummer then downloaded the video and listened to it via earbuds. He clapped the same bar and waited the 3 measures then played. For those interested he played an electronic kit, recorded it through a DAW and re-synced his audio to the video. The rest of the musician recorded their tracks in a similar fashion.

The “clap in” on each track helped with video and audio alignment. Without getting into all the technical reasons, we had an audio tech rip all the audio off the video tracks and produce a mix in a DAW software (we happen to use REAPER). This produced a final mix that would be synced up to the final video track.

We used video software to edit all the video tracks from the musicians to create a video, then we overlayed the lyrics on this video and synced the final audio track to it. Hope I haven’t lost you yet.

Having 4 kids myself in distance learning I had limited technology at my disposal; so all the video editing was done on an iPad with a stylus and the video app was Lumafusion. Lumafusion is about the closest thing you can get to a pro grade video editing software on an iPad. I also used Lumafusion to create the lower 1/3rds lyrics to overlay on top of the worship songs. Alternatively, I would recommend Da Vinci Resolve, many because they offer a free version. This software is not as user friendly but is extremely powerful especially for colour correction.

So what did I learn along the way. First, you can’t fix poorly framed shots. So really work with the people acquiring content to get a good composition. You also need to colour correct. What does that mean, well each person is shooting video on a different device, in different lighting, with different temperature light (ie. Natural sun light, 3000k lights, 5000k lights, etc...). All this produces very different looking videos or images. I did my best with lumafusion to correct for these things by eye. However, Da Vinci Resolve has tools that would have helped to do this far more effectively.

If you don’t colour correct as you move from shot to shot the viewer is very aware of the fact that the images are disjointed. If you get the shots to have a consistent look with regards to “colour” it becomes a more unified work. I also did the same colour correction with all the other content (i.e. dance, testimonies, prayers, and preaching).

The other issue we ran into was “wandering colour.” Most of our people acquiring video were “none technical” and they were using their phones which shoot video in an auto exposure. As a result sometimes the exposure or “image colour” would vary a bit. This could have been corrected with a better camera app on their phones. But for the short term we hope our service is done in this fashion and considering the “none technical” nature of those involved, we elected to overlook this for now.

Video Hosting

Once all pieces of the service were edited the software renders it into one video. This video was then uploaded to Vimeo. Video’s online need to be stored somewhere so that people can access them. A personal website might be able to store the video but likely would get bogged down or crash if too many people tried to view the video. We had previously planned to use Vimeo as our video hosting site. One of the benefits is we could then embed that video into our website and a large number of people could view it because vimeo would be handling the “heavy lifting” and our site would not crash.

There are many option for video hosting 2 of the most likely ones you may think of are YouTube and facebook. These sites have algorithms that look for copywritten music and if found they may shut down your content. Churches often are using copywritten worship songs which can trigger these algorythms even if you are using them legally having paid for the rights to do so. However, I have noticed more churches using these platforms and so things may have changed in recent times. This is an area you need to research and make a decision.

Streaming Video

Streaming and live streaming can create a huge amount of confusion. For us we kept things simple and we embedded our video from vimeo onto our website then asked the church to watch it at our usual service time. However, I personally like the idea of simulated live streaming. So let me explain my use of these terms. Streaming is when a video airs online at a set time. Live streaming is supposed to occur while that event is actually happening. However, you can also simulate live streaming where you have pre-recorded video air “live” at a set time. The benefit is that you can have a means of live hosting that service. Where you can chat with those who are watching your stream. This provides opportunities for people to connect during your online service, to offer encouragements, or prayers and praise during the service. It helps bolster community during an online service. A great way of doing this is with a service called ChurchOnlinePlatform.

Keeping It Legal

The one thing you need to do especially as a church is to make sure you are abiding by copyright issues. I am not an expert on this but your church should be using a service to ensure they have the rights to use the music they play in their services. You likely need to acquire additional rights to use the music in an online platform as well.

Conclusion

Many churches have found creative ways to worship “together” through COVID-19. Hopefully, this helps inspire other churches to think outside the box and continue their services online. We elected for this approach because we wanted the feel of our services to be authentic. The viewers watching were all stuck at home so to us it made sense that the content was produced at home as well. This did not occur without many challenges but I do feel it was worthwhile and we delivered an authentic worship experience for all in our church.