Kim Gentes

Hey Kim,

Great blog post as usual... I'm going to forward this on to my head of tech / vision team right now!! :) Always good to have a thoughtful list of ideas as a refreshing reminder of why we do this, and how we can continue to do it well.

Thanks and God bless,

Ryan

Great suggestions, Kim! Right on the money. Less is definitely more here.

I have been having a very difficult time seeing the lyrics on the screen wherever I go to church. It seems that the current thing is showing the lyrics in a white font instead of the good old reliable black font. Oftentimes the white font is blurred out by light backgrounds, which make no sense at all. (By the way I like a lot of the points you brought out in your article.) If they MUST use white fonts for the lyrics, then only use them on a very dark background. But the best thing is less distracting backgrounds with BLACK fonts. Then everyone, including those with less than good eyesight could see the lyrics and enjoy singing praises to God without all the discomfort, frustration and distraction of struggling to try to make out what the lyrics are.

Thank you, well said! Goal is active participation. I love it when the congregation can sing the song without dependence on the screen. They've sung it from the heart. Just keep it simple.

Absolutely agree! I say so many of these to our people, but my words fall on deaf ears. Hopefully, coming from you they'll begin to listen.

Yes, I'll be sharing this with my Pastor and the projection team.

Thanks.

Good stuff! Reading this I was reminded of a recent interview I read online with Guy Kawasaki over at creator magazine.com. Here's what Guy had to say on this topic:

Kawasaki:I have a friend named Garr Reynolds who wrote a great book called Presentation Zen. I've been to many churches, and I've seen many many pastors speak. And, I'll tell you that a lot of them are now embracing technology. specifically, things like PowerPoint and multimedia presentations and I would just like to provide some basic tips, like - Number 1 you should use a dark background. Many people use a very light background and it's very difficult to read because think about it. When you go to a movie the scene where it's bright daylight that's the scene that's hardest to watch. Right? Because it's to bright for your eyes. You want a dark background with a light font. So, that's number 1. Number 2 is I see many people put up words to the hymns, they use center justify for the whole thing. And I for the life of me I can't figure out, did I miss that chapter in the Bible where it says center justify? Because that is so hard to read and they also use very intricate fonts, which is also hard to read. So you should use left justify or full justify and a sans serif font. It's that simple. And I think a lot of people look at the power point on their computer which is 18 inches from their eyes, but they have to realize that in the hall setting, people are 50 to 60 feet from that screen. So you may read it 18 inches from your eyes, but when people are 60 feet from that screen, it's a very different thing. They should look at what the people are seeing. So those are some of my tactical tips.">

Honestly, I love the suggestions you've made. They're simple and concise.

I'm "back in the saddle" as a WL after a ten-year break and have also been setting up MediaShout presentations for the past year or so. Good ideas... a few thoughts:

- agree, dark backgrounds for white letters and (very) light backgrounds for black letters. I've been turning off shadows and outlines on letters, too, and I don't think we use motion backgrounds on any of our songs anymore. Big, easy to read lettering. Use bold fonts if it makes it more readable on the screen, but with some fonts, bold makes it harder.

- think about the song and break up lines and sections appropriately. If a verse is 8 lines long and it won't fit on one screen, don't put seven lines on one screen and one on the other (unless that's really "how it sings"). If a line is too long to fit in the width of the screen, put the line break so that there will be at least two words on the second line, break at a comma or something (in publishing, these things are known as "orphans"). I do these things with the projected scriptures, too - if a verse goes to two screens, try to break it up so that there's a complete thought on that second screen.

- our church uses liturgical colors for banners & things so I've been collecting "seasonal graphics" that will match the other decor in the room, although I am cheating a bit on that because six+ months of the year is green... anyway, consider the decor of the room, and if that changes, try changing with it.

- know your projector. In our room, things that have plenty of contrast on a computer monitor can hardly be read because the onscreen contrast is so much less. Lately I've been going through some of our light colored backgrounds and making them even lighter using gimp or photoshop. Know the settings on your projector - the other day, our projector was running very dark, and I discovered an "Auto PC" button on the machine that adjusted something to make it better.

- note that the projection in the picture on this page is TOP aligned (there are only two lines, but they're at the top of the screen). That makes it easier for the people in the tenth row to read them. I think we still do middle alignment, but it's on my list of things to fix... horizontally, we do center the lyrics because our screen is off to one side, where some people can't see the left edge of the screen from their seats. But left-aligned lyrics may well be easier to read, and also lets you "indent" continuation lines and things like that...

- depending on the presentation software you're using, try to leave clues for the person who will be RUNNING the show. MediaShout lets you add comments, so sometimes I'll put in a comment like, "if we're running late, we'll probably drop this song" so that the person running the show knows what's coming. I added a comment about that "AutoPC" button to our service template, since I may not be there when there's a problem.

- MediaShout also lets you "comment out" a section so that it won't show unless it's manually fired. At the start of our traditional service, I have three slides - one says "words will be projected, but if you want a hymnal, ask an usher." One also includes another songbook we use occasionally. The third one is if we're doing something like a baptism where the responses aren't in MediaShout, everyone will need a hymnal. Each week I "comment out" two of the three so that only the correct one shows.

Hey, Kim!

Great advice, here! I'm glad you included #8!! I can't remember the last time we did a congregational song without lyrics on the screen. Gonna have to keep that in mind for a time when it would be particularly appropriate/powerful.

Thanks, again!