“We cannot deny with our culture what we declare with our message,” the multi-campus Bridge Church proclaims on its website. The culture and message of this dynamic church are both beautifully evident in “Bridge Worship,” a collection of contemporary praise music EPs written by members of its congregation to reflect their unique voices and experiences.
Growing out of a “Song Writing Days” program started by church worship staff and volunteers just a few years ago, the EP series has already passed over one million Spotify streams from 76 countries. Recently, Bridge Worship reached another milestone with the release of “Attention,” an impassioned music video performed by a mixture of staff and volunteers.
“Everyone you see on this video is a worship volunteer or church staff member, many of whom recorded the music and vocal parts of the song, and consequently the video has an authentic, high energy performance” said Mike Marcario, Bridge Church’s lighting designer. “We’re all so happy with the end result.”
Marcario had more than a little to do with that end result. Drawing on his rich experience as a designer for Grammy nominated country stars and Dove Award winners, he used over 40 CHAUVET Professional fixtures from the rig at the church’s campus in Spring Hill, TN to support the video with a dynamic lightshow punctuated by moments of intense brightness and sudden darkness. In the process, he lent an air of expectation to the production that fit perfectly with the mood of the music.
“The song ‘Attention’ was written and recorded to have pop rock energy along with a sense of yearning and discovery,” he said. “I wanted minimal color and lots of movement to match the intensity of the music. Our biggest goal for this performance video was to let the musicians and camera movement drive the mood.”
Although he used yellows with accents of white for the song’s verses and choruses. Marcario relied more on movement, strobing and varying levels of intensity for much of the production, particularly during instrumental sections. “I enjoy using no color in intense instrumentals because I like the contrast between blinding light and darkness as well as letting the musicians play into the light to create silhouettes for the camera,” he said. “Our director Joey Jacob of The JACO Collective in Nashville did an incredible job shooting and editing this video. He and I both felt it would be more powerful to limit colors to the branding of the song and keep the intensity in the camera and musicians’ movements.”
Key to creating this intense visual display were the rig’s 21 EPIX Bar Tour fixtures powered by four EPIX Drive 900s. Driving these linear units with ArKaos MediaMaster Express triggered from the lighting console, Marcario overlayed video images and other content, often in coordination with a 16′ x 10′ projection video screen. At other times, he relied on the impressive output of the one-meter fixtures to create powerful still-white vistas for big accents.
“I’ve truly enjoy programming the EPIX units for our weekend services and other events,” he said. “They allow me to get great looking movement in the lighting without much time programming. They are also a reliable, cost effective tool for filling lots of space. In this production we had them in the front profile from the waste up camera shot across the stage.”
Marcario added texture to the set for Attention by creating sharply defined gobo patterns with his four Rogue R1X Spot fixtures that flanked the projection video screen. He also positioned three Rogue R1 Wash either side of the screen, using them for their narrow beam angle and quick movement, as well as intense moments of bright flashes.
Filling space on the floor to create evenly balanced vistas for the video shot was a collection of COLORado and COLORdash fixtures. “I had the COLORdash Batten Quad 12 units in a line for Front of House profile shots,” said Marcario. “They were set in full pixel control mode, so we could get great shuffles and sweeps of different intensities and color textures.”
By changing intensity levels throughout the production and in virtually every corner of the set, Marcario endowed Attention with a vibrant, pulsating quality, as if the music video itself had its own heartbeat. If it did, it was one that moved in sync with the culture and message of this engaging church.