Greenford Baptist Church

I'm so excited that the MultiMedia Group has reached such a landmark stage in its development.

For the first time ever, last Sunday we used the new GBC video camera (in addition to my usual camera) to film a sermon. Today you can enjoy the two-camera video of Assistant Pastor Warren on our website GBCweb.tv.

Having two cameras makes viewing the sermon videos on the website much more fun!

Imagine the scene, the speaker (Warren in this case) says "Who has ever been into a car dealer to buy a car?" Immediately the shot switches from the main camera (the A camera) to the B camera hidden on the stage behind the curtain. The website viewer immediately sees several people in the congregation raising their hands, giving them a greater feeling of presence and involvement.

Similarly, when the speaker makes a witty remark, we cut to the B camera to see happy laughing faces!

Or when the speaker walks towards the back row of the congregation with microphone in hand to get people's comments, (I call these 'congregational comments'), we cut to the B camera and zoom in to get a much better full-on view of the person.

"All well and good", you say, "but I don't have the Internet - I don't watch the videos!"

Never fear, the next landmark stage in the MultiMedia Group's vision is to project the sermons live onto the big screen over the stage, so that people right at the back can clearly see what's going on - "up close and personal" - especially during baptisms and preaching when there are lots of people present.

Getting back to 'congregational comments', one of the big benefits here is that the people in front of the person speaking will be able to look up at the screen on stage and see exactly who is speaking without having to turn round. Very inclusive I think you will agree!

But don't worry, the B camera is just for the occasional shot. We'll try not to embarrass anyone by showing them dropping off to sleep! However, in-sermon texters, yawners, scratchers of noses and chatterers to their neighbours should be careful, as it may not always be possible to avoid including you momentarily on the big screen. This is because we are controlling the shots on-the-fly and may not have time to notice what you are doing.

But what's the worst that could happen? Well, we're all family here and anything mildly embarrassing on the screen is restricted to the building. It's no big deal really.

Embarrassing shots are not really an issue on the website videos as we have the time to edit them out.

Lastly, if anybody is really shy, they can sit in the 'camera-safe' area to the right of the stage, in front of and round the corner from the sound mixer desk. Here they can rest in the full knowledge that no-one will ever see them!

We hope that all our viewers (in the church building and on the web) will enjoy the new MultiMedia experience and as always, if you are interested in joining the group please speak with me.