Woodlands Church
Plover, wi
Project Details
1,120-seat auditorium
Acoustic Design
AVL Design/Installation
The Technology Of Worship Is Complex But Clark Productions Is Helping Woodlands Church Keep Sunday Simple
Houses of worship look to audio and video technology for a variety of purposes, for instance, to project a sense of tech-savviness. But Woodlands Church in Plover, Wisconsin had a more down-to-earth reason behind the new AV systems installed in the recent addition to their building. As they put it in their website’s FAQ page, “People in America still prefer to come to church on Sunday mornings.”
That simple sentence underscores the $8.2 million, 41,000-plus-square-foot building expansion that opened in late 2020, a welcoming new worship environment with new ancillary spaces such as a nursery and foyer surrounding the jewel of the project: a new 1,120-seat auditorium that’s been fitted with a d&b audiotechnik sound system and two 160-square-foot video walls, used for image magnification.
“Clark Productions was instrumental in making the new building as good as it is,” says Rick Satterthwaite, Woodlands’ Director of Technical Arts. “They designed and implemented not only the audio and video in the auditorium, and designed and installed the theatrical lighting and oversaw the installation of the house lighting. They were involved in every aspect of the audio and video systems in this expansion, and made it an engaging and comfortable place to come on Sunday morning.”
Included in that was the building of the church’s first permanent control room, from which video switching and routing is managed for the two 16.4-foot-by-9.8-foot Road Ready 3.9-mm LED displays flanking the stage, and which is used for streaming services, which became even more critical during the COVID pandemic. Clark lighting designer Paul Green also worked with the building’s architects to create a setback in the walls that would accommodate not only his custom-designed mounts for the LED displays but also let him position several lighting fixtures behind them, creating a pleasing wash effect that frame the video screens. Finally, the church now also has a central location to control the video from. “Previously, we had converted a Sunday School classroom into a temporary control space when COVID hit,” says Satterthwaite. “Now, we have our first permanent control room that’s ready for the next step in broadcasting services.”
Sound & Lights
The sound system is world-class d&b audiotechnik with eight 10AL and ten 10AL-D speakers divided into two line arrays buttressed by two 24S-D speakers for side fills and a pair of 12S-D speakers for delays for the rear of the room, all mixed through a Yamaha CL3 front-of-house console and on a Dante digital network. Eight 8S speakers form a front-fill array, and eight 21S subwoofers are built-in under the stage. Clark also handled the acoustical treatment of the auditorium and other spaces, assuring a high degree of speech intelligibility. This mainly took the form of acoustical clouds suspended from the ceiling, which are constructed to both absorb low frequencies above them and reflect back some mid and upper-midrange energy to the seats, keeping the sound lively but also very clear and transparent. They also serve to mask the catwalks and other infrastructure around the ceiling — an important point for a church that wants its architecture to be seen and enjoyed. “Woodlands Church really prioritized esthetics, so we made many of our technical decisions with that in mind,” explains John Stewart, Clark’s Senior Project Engineer.
Lighting is designed by Clark lighting designer Paul Green to be color-balanced and intensity-optimized for both live and broadcast applications. Lighting is controlled using a Chroma-Q Vista MV, a cost-effective, compact control surface with all of the features and advantages of the latest Vista 3 lighting and media control software. It’s running on a Dell All-in-One touchscreen computer and through Elation RDM645 DMX distribution. Six Apollo Design Right Arm units add pan and tilt capabilities to static lighting fixtures and allow enhanced control for keeping faces of those on stage perfectly balanced for video. Those will enable more efficient adjustments to the lighting as staging designs change.
A major challenge for the auditorium’s lighting was two very large wall-sized windows located on the stage-left side of the auditorium and extending upward nearly to the ceiling. “They could let an enormous amount of ambient light into the room, which changed our approach to how the video would be displayed,” explains Peter Fitton, Clark’s senior consultant on the project. “Ambient light has a cascading effect on the rest of the space, affecting the color temperature of the lighting for both the stage and the cameras. And that can have an effect on budgets.”
To address this issue, Clark’s lighting and scenic director Paul Green chose ETC Source 4WRD Daylight Gallery ellipsoidals with a variety of lenses, brighter fixtures that could be tuned to match both stage and video color needs as well as overcome any ambient illumination. These are further supported by washes and other fixtures from Elation and Chauvet.
Lighting As Parable
The lighting also illustrates the complexity of decision-making that goes into a project like this. For instance, while incandescent lighting fixtures would have cost less than LED ones, the LED fixtures last longer, offering greater ROI. Furthermore, color gels for incandescent fixtures might last 40 hours or less before beginning to burn out, requiring manpower to change them high up in the rigging, while conventional gels on LED fixtures can easily double that. Furthermore, the dichroic gels Clark chose for the LED fixtures are more costly but can remain effective for several years. “Churches often have a single person responsible for their AVL maintenance, and using this combination of fixtures and gels can save hundreds of work-hours a year,” says Fitton. “We’re always aware of budgets, but our goal is always to put in the least-expensive right solution to address any challenge.”
That philosophy extended to the additional lighting and video infrastructure that Clark also installed in the auditorium, readying it for future additions, such as moving-head fixtures or a center LED wall, that isn’t in the budget now but maybe in the future. “Putting in the cabling for that now will save a lot of money once new fixtures are added,” says Stewart. “We’ll put in additional circuits for lighting and audio, new stage pockets for cameras, and additional conduit to give them room to grow.”
That same value-versus-cost dynamic was applied to product choices. For instance, Clark specified a basic but highly reliable switcher and router combination, putting the cost savings towards a sophisticated Sony HXCFB80SL camera system with a Canon lens and Sony FB80 control unit, and two Sony SRG300H PTZ cameras with an RMIP10 remote controller. “The cameras were originally chosen to give the church a great I-Mag image for the audience, but they also offer a beautiful, sharp picture for their web streaming, which became even more important once COVID came along,” says Stewart. “The router and switcher are excellent products that meet their current needs and when they do want to upgrade to more full-featured units, it’ll be much easier because the infrastructure is ready for them. Meanwhile, the PTZ cameras give them the ability to have multiple camera angles cost-effectively, but that same infrastructure can also support more advanced cameras in the future.”
The Woodlands Church project underscores how sophisticated AVL can be designed and integrated into a venue without impacting its esthetic considerations. But this project also reveals how even the most seemingly basic technology decisions have larger implications for other aspects of a project, from how a venue sounds and looks to how well its staff and volunteers can adapt to it operationally.
“The important thing to approach every project with a fresh set of eyes and ears,” says Stewart. “To listen to what the customer says and understand their vision and their needs and their skill sets.” The art of integration, he adds, doesn’t lie in choosing systems and components. Instead, he says, “It's in how you put them together.”
As sophisticated as Woodlands Church’s new AVL systems are, they serve that very simple but heartfelt goal expressed earlier: to make coming to church on Sunday mornings a pleasure. “The culture is changing and we have to adapt to that,” Satterthwaite acknowledges. “It’s forcing us to ask questions, such as who are the people coming into our community, where do they come from, and what are their expectations of what a Sunday service should look and sound and feel like? We have people here from other countries, people who work in blue-collar jobs and professionals who work in insurance or teach at the university. Clark helped us work through those questions and create an audio, video, and lighting environment that makes this wide range of people comfortable, that helps draw them here. The colors are warm and inviting; the sound is clear and helps focus the message. And they helped us build for the future — wiring for screens we don’t yet have and floor pockets for cameras we haven’t bought yet but someday will. As the culture changes, we’ll be ready to land the message.”