Bringing Large Venue Techniques To Worship

Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church Leads Large Format Edge Blending In Worship With Precision Displays From Digital Projection International

While many churches are now realizing the benefits of previous investments in high-quality video projection equipment, certain houses of worship are now looking forward to the next step. Realizing the thematic impact of large screen blended projection arrays for their annual Christmas production, Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church in Alpharetta, Georgia took a bold step into bringing large venue production quality into the sanctuary. Harnessing the power of seven precision displays from Digital Projection International, the production team at Mount Pisgah took a creative approach to video, all presented with a variety of cutting-edge 3-chip DLP® technology.

For the three consecutive nights of the 2007 North Atlanta Christmas Festival, the Technical Ministry at Mount Pisgah was tasked with creating a video environment using multiple projectors that would serve as both a backdrop for sequences with live performers and for showcasing critical video content. Keith Frey, Director of Technical Ministries at Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church commented; “A number of factors led me to select Digital Projection products for our highly attended Christmas production. Largely, the reliability, image quality and ease of configuration were paramount to the success of our production.”

The first and most challenging step for Frey and his team was to create a display using a 60-foot wide screen in a 3:1 aspect ratio that would serve as a high definition video backdrop for much of the scenic elements in their production. Then, hidden behind the 60-foot wide projection screen would be a 10-foot wide by 12-foot high black scrim material onto which the production team would project moving and static, thematic images such as an angel, the Star of David and a cross. Finally, moving images were displayed on a 100-foot wide kabuki curtain with a 10:1 aspect ratio.

“We had to have reliability every night in front of a packed house of 3000+ attendees, and we needed optimum image processing with very high quality lenses on such large surfaces,” Frey added. “Since part of the show is theatrical, noise level was crucial, and projector operating noise criteria was also a significant factor.”

For the 60-foot edge blended screen, Mount Pisgah chose three DPI HIGHlite 12000Dsx+ projectors. With the broad range of lens shift and sophisticated edge blending functions, the team was able to achieve excellent results with various content that ranged from solid color backgrounds to critical high definition information. “Bright, flicker free lamp performance with high contrast and white uniformity for the edge blend screen was very important,” Frey commented.

For the images projected onto the black scrim, Frey used the current video centerpiece of the Mount Pisgah sanctuary, a DPI HIGHlite 14000HD. The low screen area ratio of the scrim required that the production team provide as much pixel data as possible to have a quality image appear. Inherent with projection onto dark material, a high light output projector must also be considered. “We needed every single foot-candle we could get, and the 14KHD certainly has an advantage with 14,000 ANSI lumens,” Frey added. “In addition, the success of the setup with the rigging frames of the HIGHlite and TITAN Pro Series II products where paramount, which allowed us to do critical alignments for the edge blending well after the projectors were clamped down on the truss.”

Finally, for the 100-foot kabuki curtain, Mount Pisgah used DPI Mercury 5000HD for the center 20-foot section, and flanked it on both sides with two DPI TITAN HD-500 projectors also displaying 20-foot wide images. The source content shown was custom high definition animation graphics produced in-house.

Much to the efforts and creativity of the Technical Ministry team, Mount Pisgah and the powerful performance of the DPI displays, the 2007 Atlanta Christmas Festival was a major success for the church and the community. Chuck Collins, Senior Market Development Manager for Digital Projection commented; “We are thrilled that the 2007 North Atlanta Christmas Festival was a major success for Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church and we wish them continued success using their DPI displays – both on Sunday mornings as well as during their most impressive special events.”