Project X #15

Whew! This is has been an insane week. I feel like I say that a lot, but it feels so true. I honestly don’t even know where to start. So much happened. A couple of BIG things too.

First thing that comes to mind was an exciting email we got from our lead pastor on Wednesday. We’re preparing for our series in August, yeah, we’re not as far ahead as we’d like to be. So we had been given the summary of the series with the main title for the series and so forth. Well, typically we’re told, “See if you can come up with a better title.” Well, we came up with a different title from the original. There was only one problem, our lead pastor is gone on vacation. We tried sending him an email when we came up with the new title, but he apparently didn’t get. We’re putting an ad in a local magazine for August, and had to send in the ad this past Wednesday. So Justin, our graphic designer, put together the ad and emailed out to every to check it out, including our pastor. Well, about 5 minutes later we all got a reply from our pastor and in the email was the line, “And when did we change the title… I’m not sure I like the new one.” Oh boy. It’s not a major change but it does change up some stuff, including the direction we were going with the graphics. So that made for a fun start to the week. Luckily Justin is a magic maker.

Next up, we were busy getting ready for a Night of Worship we’re having this weekend. I LOVE Night of Worship. It’s always a blast, and everyone really enjoys it. It’s also always a lot of work. A Night of Worship means we do about 11 songs in one weekend, compared to typically having 4. I really love the programming I get to do. One of my favorite parts of the week is Wednesday when I get to spend all day programming lights and CG. It’s a big of us being able to create and enjoyable experience for people. So while it triples my work to prepare for a Night of Worship, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now, while programming for the weekend is a lot of fun, we ran into a BIG hicup this week. I was having a problem with Jands Vista, the lighting system we use, and called them up and they suggested I do a software update. The software we were running had been updated a few times, so it was a bit past due. I’ll be honest, I was terrified to do the update because I just didn’t know what would happen. With Vista, you don’t just download the update then it applies it. You have to download a whole new version of the software and delete the old version entirely. That’s kind of scary! But i did it anyways in hopes to fix the issues I was having, so I did it.

Well, when I did, there was a major problem.

The fixture information for our movers was lost. Actually, it got replaced in the patch with the information from another fixture. Our moving lights require 12 channels to work properly, but it got replaced with a fixture that only had 3 channels. Also, the fixture info wasn’t even in the software at all! Then, when I finally uploaded the fixture info, I had control over the movers. But… They wouldn’t fully dim. They’d only down to 20% intensity. Not, good. Also, all the programmed info was lot(that’s what happens when you have to repatch fixtures). So that obviously puts a big damper in our programming. So I went back and reprogrammed all the movers for EVERY song for the weekend. After that, I created a whole new show file to use for next week’s programming. It wasn’t great, but it at least got the movers online.

Then I went back and opened the show file for the morning services(a different show file from the one for the Night of Worship). And guess what…

Everything worked perfectly!!!

I felt like such an idiot. I automatically assumed that the information was lost on every show file, but it wasn’t! It was only lost in the file for the Night of Worship! Glory! See I had programmed all of the light shows and saved them in the show file for the morning AND the Night of Worship. So all the songs were still in that show file. I realized this completely by accident because I opened the show file for the morning to program the movers for the morning. When I did, badabing badaboom, they worked!

I did have to go up to the church for about half an hour this morning just to be sure everything was in order for the weekend. I can’t tell you how happy I am that everything is working great. There is one problem though. Something happened with the software and the fixture file that swapped a couple colors around on the movers. It’s really not a big deal at all because our movers are super cheap and use a color wheel for the colors, and there’s only 5 colors in them. So now, when I click the movers to red, they turn yellow. And when I click for them on the yellowish-green, they turn magenta. Yeah, it’s really weird, but it still works. I can definitely work around that problem. Oh, and it still didn’t fix the original problem I was having with thee old software! I don’t really care. I’m just happy that everything is back in order. I really did laugh out loud too when I realized the show file for the morning was still good.

So everything is ready for the weekend and our Night of Worship. I can’t wait for the weekend. We’ve got some great volunteers this weekend too who I really like hanging out with. It will be a great weekend, even if the movers decide not to work again!