A MobiMedia for Churches Idea

8 Replies

During my vacation (last week of 2011), I visited the church my best friend attends in PA and got a chance to meet the elder in charge of operational items for the church. My bro plugged me and what I’ve been doing with MMM and we got into a quick conversation about the church’s move into TV/broadcasting that they expect for this year. In listening, I started to ask why they are looking to go broadcasting, but changed my question to something a bit different. This is a paraphrase of what I proposed to him:

A TV/broadcast ministry for the size of church that you have will need probably about 5-6 dedicated people. You’ll want 2 camera persons, a video tech, a sound tech, and then a production manager to keep all of those together. You’ll probably need to have one of those persons, if not someone (or 2) else to take the content and do any further graphic/sound editing to the final product. And then there’s likely someone on that team, if not another team entirely that is going to be responsible for putting it on a website and making it “press ready” for other local stakeholders who’d want to rebroadcast it. That’s a lot of folks. 

Many of the members have mobile devices (feature phone, smartphones, and tablets were all visible during the service I attended). Why not create mobile media (mobimedia) teams in which people can sign up and do one of three things: recording video, recording audio, and taking still pictures. Ideally, you’d want to make sure that you keep the groups mixed so that the devices are being used within their best capacity, but then you end up with the people who are part of your community, giving a view of a service or event from their perspective, not just the one that’s most camera friendly.

You would then have just two positions to create for the community: a production designer/manager who would be responsible for taking all of the content from the devices, and then creating the “official” video that goes public, and a public relations-like person who would field questions/comments from the public/stakeholders.

When I proposed this to that elder, it was like a light bulb went off. He never considered that (a) the normal design of doing multimedia would need so many layers of people and processes and that (b) it would be possible to include the community in such a way that they’d have a greater sense of ownership of the community and the preached Gospel message.

Now, there are a few things here. You aren’t going to get RED camera quality video or Dolby quality audio from everyone’s mobiles, so you’d want to make sure that you have some kind of grid that would allow you to see the quality of video/audio/stills so that you can organize your teams appropriately. Then again, there was this movie shot entirely on a Nokia N8, so quality isn’t really a question right?

You’d want to make sure that you design a policy that allows people to keep whatever they record, but with the statement that if they make their’s public that it cannot be considered official content from the church. So, you might have a Flickr/YouTube gallery that they would all upload the pics/videos to, but then have something of an official “set” that becomes the public-facing gallery. You’d also have some streams for training that would have to be taken up. For example, you’d definitely want to do a workshop talking about how to best take photos/videos during a service (mindful of flash, camera sounds, zoom, etc.). There might only be a few folks who can do this well in your churches now, but what if that few turned into a few folks from your teen, college, and senior ministries? Considering that many mobiles really are just fine in doing this, these are the kinds of thoughts you’d want to have going into it.

I’m of the opinion that mobiles and people are ready for doing this. But, if I’m to pull this off, I’d have to start a church or something to prove it (uhmmm, the people formerly known as congregation) or just point to those folks already doing it in similar genres (Mobile Media Toolkit, hint, hint).

So, now I throw this one out there to you. Some of you are in churches of similar size (<250 people) and have similar contexts (cable channel access, many mobile devices, need to provoke greater involvement from community, etc.). Couldn't this work for you? And if it couldn't (because there's some unspoken rule about using the latest greatest cameras/tools/tech, this is just not normal, we don't have money/resources, etc.), then why? 

  • Mediafacilitator

    Olive was recorded on a Nokia phone, but it was equipped with a custom lens system costing thousands of dollars and operated by film pros. The movie also had a production budget of $400,000+ and almost a month’s shooting plus postproduction. Implying that the average church can do something like this with non-professionals is not realistic.

  • Mediafacilitator

    Olive was recorded on a Nokia phone, but it was equipped with a custom lens system costing thousands of dollars and operated by film pros. The movie also had a production budget of $400,000+ and almost a month’s shooting plus postproduction. Implying that the average church can do something like this with non-professionals is not realistic.

  • Not ignoring that detail; its not unrealistic to ask churches who have a plethora of camera equipped members to take out their mobiles and do the media that would otherwise be shuttered to “expensive” equipment and personnel. There is no rule about there needing to be such a high quality media production that this suggestion can’t work. There is a rule saying that its a community – and anything we can do to provoke folks to use the whole of the community to do media engagements the better it is for upholding that “rule” (be a contributing member of a local congregation).
    If that’s unrealistic… then maybe media producers need to reevaluate whether they are a gift to be used by the church or a gift to use the church for their endeavors.

  • Not ignoring that detail; its not unrealistic to ask churches who have a plethora of camera equipped members to take out their mobiles and do the media that would otherwise be shuttered to “expensive” equipment and personnel. There is no rule about there needing to be such a high quality media production that this suggestion can’t work. There is a rule saying that its a community – and anything we can do to provoke folks to use the whole of the community to do media engagements the better it is for upholding that “rule” (be a contributing member of a local congregation).
    If that’s unrealistic… then maybe media producers need to reevaluate whether they are a gift to be used by the church or a gift to use the church for their endeavors.

  • Mediafacilitator

    There are many Christian media professionals who also use their skills as volunteers in Church media ministry. That’s not the issue. What concerns me is a presumption that access to an available technology (mobile phone video) will result in quality video production if we just decide to use it. The reason professionals use professional tools and equipment is because it makes it easier and faster for them to create a professional high production value product. I suppose it all comes down to what kind of result you want. Truman’s triangle…

  • Mediafacilitator

    There are many Christian media professionals who also use their skills as volunteers in Church media ministry. That’s not the issue. What concerns me is a presumption that access to an available technology (mobile phone video) will result in quality video production if we just decide to use it. The reason professionals use professional tools and equipment is because it makes it easier and faster for them to create a professional high production value product. I suppose it all comes down to what kind of result you want. Truman’s triangle…

  • Good point there; I’m not coming from the angle of quality as much as that of engagement, activity, and accessibility. Citing the example above, while the church was looking at TV as a direction for video content, their need was/is also to share that content online and via mobile.
    Not presuming that access to the tech will result in quality production – it won’t. The goal isn’t to create a high production product – at least not framed in this piece – it is to provoke the discussion of whether “high production value” is necessary for the intended recipients of the project. If the source streams are of varying quality, the then road to travel wouldn’t be to “get better tools” or “skilled professionals,” but to go the direction of “how can we enable people to do high-quality-like media with the tools they have?” If you will, turning the aim for production media from “quality product” to “quality producers of any content.”
    Truman’s Triangle… been a while since I’ve heard that one. Thanks for the poke/discussion.

  • Good point there; I’m not coming from the angle of quality as much as that of engagement, activity, and accessibility. Citing the example above, while the church was looking at TV as a direction for video content, their need was/is also to share that content online and via mobile.
    Not presuming that access to the tech will result in quality production – it won’t. The goal isn’t to create a high production product – at least not framed in this piece – it is to provoke the discussion of whether “high production value” is necessary for the intended recipients of the project. If the source streams are of varying quality, the then road to travel wouldn’t be to “get better tools” or “skilled professionals,” but to go the direction of “how can we enable people to do high-quality-like media with the tools they have?” If you will, turning the aim for production media from “quality product” to “quality producers of any content.”
    Truman’s Triangle… been a while since I’ve heard that one. Thanks for the poke/discussion.