Embedded Files
Characters
Characters
Achan : The YouTube Star and Main character
Biju : Director-cum-Cameraman and Light Technician
Don : Side-kick and second in command to the YouTube Star
Jordy : Playback Singer and Sound Technician
Rexy : Confused background tech support and occasional reader of the Epistle
It’s the Sunday after the Friday, 7 PM telecast. As a matter of fact, it can be any Sunday, for this story will still be the same. The report of Friday’s streaming quality and feedback is received and is to be discussed at the team roundtable. Religiously, I must add.
As we stream in one by one into the church, each of us wiping our hands with copious amount of hand sanitizers, we head to our respective spots. Achan is already by the pulpit checking the microphone setup, Jordy, after a small bow moves left towards the audio stations, Don walks right towards the tabernacle and I with headphones around my neck walk straight behind a gleaming set of bright screens.
Biju, on his part checks the light, camera frame and then finally the stream output on his mobile phone. He presses his shiny new Bluetooth earpieces tightly to his ears and listens intently to Jordy’s voice as it streams through. I am at my desk watching his face for reactions. As a minute pass by, with Jordy already rehearsing his second song and Don in his vestments lighting the candle, I see Biju’s already frowned eyebrows part, just a bit, followed by his face relaxing and his trademarked grin.
He gives a thumbs-up!!
And that is how we start every single stream.
COVID–19 was what got us here. None of us had any experience in streaming and this was a new situation. As the Massachusetts State government was announcing the “Stay-At-Home” advisories, our parish was 3 weeks away from the Holy Week. The SMCB parish council had decided to limit attendance and recommended watching Mass online. We already knew that many Parishes including our Chicago Cathedral Church were planning streaming services, so the thought of us streaming our service, didn’t gather much support.
The SMCB communication team, on their part, initially decided to LiveStream the service through FacebookLive. This initiative was well appreciated, and gave us a lot of insight, on what we needed to improve if we ever decided to LiveStream.
After the first week into the advisories, the Parish Council was already getting inquiries and suggestions about streaming. Some of the feedback we received, was that folks were missing the more familiar environs of our church and of course missing our dear Achan. It is at this point that the SMCB Communication team decided to seriously explore the option of LiveStreaming from our church. We already knew, that for us to improve upon our last attempt at LiveStreaming, we had to overcome all the technical challenges, starting with a dedicated high-speed Ethernet in the Church Sanctum and a good quality camera.
The Lockdown also made sourcing the equipment hard. We had to resort to reaching out to folks who could spare an equipment or two. Don agreed to get the Ethernet cable fixed from the router in the Church basement and get Internet to the Sanctum. Biju, on his part brought his professional/broadcast camera as the key component for this attempt. He also got the streaming device (Ephiphan Webcaster) which allows us to stream to Youtube or Facebook Live.
As we were readying for our first webcast, came more concerning news about increasing COVID-19 infection rates and Massachusetts implementing more stricter “Stay-At-Home” advisories. This limited the streaming team to the bare-minimum of 5, but didn’t deter us from what we had planned to do.
Our first stream was a recorded mass which we telecasted Live. We were still learning on the job and most of the initial issues were us testing something new, that back-fired. Since then we have telecast over 20 Qurbanas and each time we tried something new, some stuck, others still back-fired. This is us trying to improve upon what we have been doing.
The support system, that is our Parish, and the feedback we have been getting from our very first telecast, is what is keeping us going on. We get inputs on everything from camera framing to audio quality – “hey, the camera is shaking”, “There is feedback from the microphone on the lectern”, “there is echo in Achan’s voice”, “Fantastic Job”, “… Thank you for bringing our church into our home”, is what still keeps us going.
We also had the opportunity to witness some of the most touching moments like the Good Friday service when Achan dedicated each and every member of the Parish during the adoration. The love and that we all witnessed that day, is one of the moments we cherish of this activity.
The YouTube video above is a fun depiction of a typical day during streaming. Each of us have our prescribed role and this was our attempt to bring that to you. We hope that you get a glimpse into what happens behind the camera. It was fun shooting for the video, so please do ignore the antics. We hope that you continue to keep us in your prayers.
On behalf of the entire SMCB Communication Team,
Rexy Joseph
Rexy Joseph
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