Environmental Projection: What You Need to Know
You are probably all familiar with environmental projection by now; the ability to create a palette of color and light to turn the walls in your sanctuary into a completely different space, through the use of projectors and limitless creativity. As a matter of fact, your HoW might already be employing environmental projection to augment worship series, or for special occasions. However, if you aren’t using environmental projection but want to, here’s the basic list of things you need to know.
Projectors
First rule of thumb: whatever projectors you use for environmental projection, they need to be bright enough to overcome the ambient light in your room. Remember, the projector is like the paint brush of an artist; transferring your vision to the canvas of your sanctuary. However, that canvas won’t always be the ideal medium for your creation. In other words, you aren’t just projecting on screens that are specifically designed for projected light, but also onto the walls, the ceiling, the architectural nuances of the room, or a combination thereof. The colors and type of material you are projecting to will play a role in the way your finalized image looks, and brighter projection will often help soften (or eliminate) problem spots on your creative canvas.
Software
You’ve got the projectors you need, but how are you going to create the picture you want to paint your room with? This is where presentation software comes into play – and there are a lot to choose from. In fact, you might already have access to some of these at your church already. Images can be created with something as simple as PowerPoint. However, like most things in life, you get what you pay for. If you really want to make an impact, spend some money and purchase a presentation software with more options than PowerPoint offers, that will allow you to manipulate and control your creative images in ways that the relatively basic ‘slide’ feature of PowerPoint doesn’t. Some software to consider: ProPresenter, Easy Worship, Media Shout, ProVideoPlayer and Arkaos.
