Martin fixtures enhance Church of the Highlands
- Details
Founded in 2001 by senior pastor Chris Hodges, Church of the Highlands is a non-denominational multi-site church with headquarters in Birmingham and 16 additional satellite campuses across Alabama.
With technology playing an integral role in creating meaningful worship experiences for the church’s thousands of members across separate locations, church leaders wanted to ensure high production standards for the video simulcast
Lighting director Patrick Hentz made the decision to upgrade the church’s aging lighting system with a state-of-the-art lighting solution. Hentz selected an extensive range of Martin fixtures to ensure premium image quality for the video simulcast, in addition to providing immersive lighting for high-energy worship events.
“There were many reasons behind the upgrade, but the greatest benefits we gained from the new Martin fixtures are brightness, reliability and versatility,” says Hentz. “With 80% of our congregation watching the sermon via the video simulcast, it’s very important that we deliver excellent video quality, and that requires powerful and consistent lighting.”
The church’s new lighting rig features an array of 12 MAC Encore Wash fixtures which provides key light across the entire stage, resulting in rich colour and highly accurate white light on camera.
“A few years ago, we added a 60-feet-by-40-feet LED video wall and that introduced a significant challenge,” relates Hentz. “The video panels have a native colour temperature of 56k, and our previous rig just wasn’t bright enough to compete. The new Martin fixtures allowed us to increase our maximum levels from 65 foot-candles to 80 foot-candles, yielding a much greater depth of field and improved colour accuracy.
In addition to the new MAC Encore Wash fixtures, Church of the Highlands’ new rig consists of Viper Profile, Quantum Wash and Quantum Profile fixtures for front wash and spot applications. MAC Aura and RUSH MH6CT fixtures enhance the general wash by adding textural backlight from upstage, and Hentz utilises MAC 101 fixtures when an engaging crowd wash is desired.
(Jim Evans)
