with Stephen Proctor
Recent developments in technology have made it affordable for many churches to worship in multi-screen environments for the first time. This opens up a whole new door of creativity to the local church and could have a dramatic impact on what the future of many of our worship services will look like.
The term “multi-screen” simply means spanning your projected media across two or more projection screens. Currently the most common configuration seems to be a three-screen display (referred to as “triplewide”), but there are virtually endless possibilities.
In a church context, triplewide projection usually takes on one of two forms: multi-screen video staging and Environmental Projection®. Multi-screen staging refers to the use of multiple screens as a significant feature of the stage area of the room. This may take the form of an array of screens hung directly above the platform, or an array of screens that serves as the backdrop for the stage.
Environmental Projection® refers to projecting images onto the architectural surfaces of the worship space interior. For some great examples of this, take a look at the gallery on VisualWorshiper.com.
To get set up for a typical 3-screen configuration, you will need a worship presentation software package, such as EasyWorship, MediaShout, or ProPresenter. You will also need an additional plug-and-play device, the TripleHead2Go, made by Matrox, that takes your outputted signal and splits it across three projectors (around $300). Most of the presentation software packages take the image and stretch it across the screens, however, with the Advanced Module from ProPresenter, you can actually control which screen or screens display text (e.g., song lyrics) and which screens display your background image (video or still).
One important key to great looking triplewide projection is to project media that is made for that format. With the release of our Worship Animations III collection, WorshipFilms now offers video in 2400 x 600 resolution, specifically designed for this application. Additionally, we plan to produce more video products for this format in the coming months.
