First you need to get the login ID and Password from Gary. .......Ha...thought I'd tell you eh!?
The Screen can be lowered from upstairs as well as downstairs.....little red covered button (that says "lower"). There is a separate "UP" button.
The Announcements PowerPoint is put up on the screen just before the service. (Upstairs controls the PP on screen, while the downstairs computer looks after the TV's in the Foyer.)
The Worship Songs for that day are usually on the desktop of the computer in a "shortcut"....if not, they are in the "Worship Service" folder....and dated for that weekend. Sometimes the server is down so they have been storing the information on the local hard drive "C" under the Month folder. Just remember to save changes that you make in the local drive to the server also.
Note: That the PM songs are listed under PM, and not just the date....confused heck out of me the first time. I couldn't find the Sat. night songs for the life of me.
You usually don't get Henry's notes and slides until the last minute.....so you will have to scramble to make changes. Then he calls and wants specific songs inserted at the end.AHHHH! You have to find the POWERPOINT folder where all the songs are listed ( at least most of them) then copy the slides holding down the shift key whhile you click, then control "C". To paste insert the mouse line in the spot you want and use control "V"). Hopefully all the formatting sucha as the background will change to match. If the song isn't there you have to open the song book...find the song... and create a new slide from it. You do this by copying a blank slide from the original then using the text box, type the song and the title.
Projector/Control
The Projector is turned on using the remote.. you have to fiddle with the pointing of it to get it to work. Generally if you hold it low over the left edge of the sound board, point it between the lights at the projector and hopefully hit the little round hole at the lower left edge. Use the input button and set it to input 1. This gives complete control to the computer upstairs for what appears on the screen.
The other day the scan converter downstairs overheated and gave use GREEN everything on the screen. This would not have been good for video shots. So in order to cool it off, we gave control to upstairs while everybody worked frantically downstairs to crank up the air conditioner and apply more fans to the scan converter. It took almost the whole worship time to get it cooled off. (Nobody knows the trouble I've seen....oh...that sounds like a song!)
To give control to downstairs video room, you need to set the input to #3 video NTSC.
By the way, there is a control on the left that if it is on the GREEN side, you can get it to be a laser pointer.
HANG ON TO YOUR HAT!
You find the songs in the "Master PowerPoint folder". (They are there as per title and include the song book number as well) He will tell you how many verses of which songs. (You may have to copy and put these at the end of the worship songs at first till you get organized). You may also need to change the font color.
They use a lot of white fonts...so when you go to change something you can't see it, so you use the little paint bucket and change the color of the text box, make your changes, then go back to “No Fill”. Also you can add a drop shadow with the drop shadow tool, just remember to nudge-click a couple of clicks to the right as well as a couple of clicks down. If you don't like it, you can turn off shadow using the little box on the left with the diagonal line through it.
NOTE: There is a "BLANK" button "B" that you can hit on the computer to blank (Black) out the screen in an emergency. If you need to work on something you can shut off the screen with the switch on the box on the right labeled "A...Screen" and "B.... No screen". (If you just switch this dial, you get a funny blip on the screen). (If you hit "W" you get a white out). PANIC>>>>>>>quickly tell switcher to go to JUICE!.....AHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Also...if you accidentally hit the space bar and it goes forward too many slides, you can quickly back up using the arrow keys. Watch out for this... the space bar is very sensitive (I think we can change this!)
The band usually runs through the whole service during practice, so you can get the timing down....and put the word "Repeats" on the slides that are repeated in case they forgot that.
The Blank slides that are in between are opportunities for the TD to switch to various views of the band during the actual presentation. Make notes of interludes, talks etc....so that it is easier for the person following you to know what is happening.
You need to put the slide up slightly ahead of the words being sung, so the audience and the singers can have a chance to read them in time to sing them. This is opposed to when the speaker is speaking, you want to put up the slide AS he is saying it.
Watch out for two part songs on the same slide, that is one group of singers sings one thing, while another group sings something else. (Sometimes you are fooled into thinking that it is a repeat of the slide that came before it.)
Remember to SAVE your changes (Easily forgotten in the heat of the moment)...Use SAVE AS....and call it "Revised"....especially with Henry's PP because his PP is stored on HIS computer, and a dialogue box comes up if you just do "Control S".... and asks you if you want to save it to another location. If this happens..... Hit YES....and then type "Revised" after it. Also a good idea ...in case you REALLY screw it up! So do this right away...then it will be done.
Changing on the Fly!
Sometimes the odd thing needs to be changed on the fly....a full slide made to a half and visa versa.....
PowerPoint has some stupid little icons at the bottom that tells you what view you are in. The good part is...that on "mouseover"...it tells you what they do!
The important icon is the little "T" shaped one that puts the presentation on screen. (You need to play with this).
To get out of this mode you hit the "esc." key. BUT don't do it while you are live..... (Definitely not, or you will see the edit view on screen.).
Also if a slide is up on screen....wait for the Video guys to take it down before you change it.......DUH!!! (...it happens).
You'll notice that if you click on the text.... a hatched text box appears.....you can drag this box around using the edge of it....and a very cool technique for getting minor adjustments is to use the arrow keys to "Nudge" the text right or left etc. You can also use this to make a lower half slide into a Right sided half slide.
If you grab the little dots on the text box you can resize the box itself.
If you want to change all the font colors inside the text box, just click on the edge of the text box, then go to the arrow by the little “A” thing at the bottom. Change all the fonts in the box at once without the need to highlight it.
The convention is...that anything over 4 lines needs to be a "FULL" slide. Occasionally it comes to you as a half.......so....click on it...grab the edge of the text box....and move it up to the centre. Check it's position on a full screen....then nudge it with the arrow keys if necessary. and VOILA!....(There's my High school French again!) Sometimes the half slides have too much space between the lines, and therefore take up too much room, so you may need to shrink the font size and the spacing. (You can type in odd font sizing if the scroll box doesn't include it....i.e. type 39 when the scroll box show only 36 and 40.)Usually we don't use anything less than 32, preferably 36.
To change the background of the new songs to the “JUICE” of the day you can RIGHT click and go to background “Fill Effects”.....tab to “Picture”, select the appropriate juice (You can type the name if you know it) then “INSERT”. These are saved in the “Worship Service file” with the name and a DATE.
You can globally change everything in the slide set by going to the slide master.
Highlight the box you want changed and then change color, or font etc....then it will be applied to all slides in the set. Or you can be in NORMAL view, right click and go to slide color scheme, then “apply to all”.
To copy a slide, use control C and to paste....use control V. (Just like in any other program) and...to copy to the clipboard and remove it....use control X. If you're into this... control Z is “Undo”; control Y is “Redo”; control A is “Select All”. F4 repeats the last thing you did on the keyboard.
So the easiest thing to do to make a new slide then is to simply copy the one before it, and paste it where you want ....then modify it. You place the cursor where you want the slide placed.
You can also drag the slides (In slide view mode) and place them in a different order. (You shouldn't have to do this....but you NEVER KNOW!)
SOMETHING YOU WILL HAVE TO DO IS to HIDE A SLIDE ONCE IN A WHILE. For instance during the Sat. night service there is a "Rise and Walk" slide for the kids to leave...but on Sunday night they exclude this. SOOOO......You can right click on the slide...then scroll to "Hide Slide"...or you can go to the file menus and scroll to it there. It keeps the slide for future use...but hides it for that particular presentation.
Make lots of notes on the paper to remind you and the following team of changes made and it is a good idea to note what page the next slide comes on. If there is several pages between slides, you have an idea where it is....and can breathe easier in the following service. Also it helps you stay focused so that you can call "Standby" to the switcher or remind him where he is on the script, (Because it is easy to be distracted in the video room and lose your place.) Also...make notes on Sat night, of slides that need fixing as you go, then note "done" when it is completed. (Best to do it right away that night or you will not remember). Make sure that words like God, Him, Father etc have capital letters. So screen everything for typos.
If you make tons of changes to the worship music....which you usually do, then print out a new revised copy. Go to File ...Print.... And it shows up in the box room downstairs by the common Ground cafÈ.
You need to communicate with the TD and the Switcher and especially LISTEN to the TD so that you know when he is doing things. Also, the TD leaves it up to the switcher to take off slides quite a bit, and it helps if the PP person can cue him, as he sometimes has a better feel for what is going on in the congregation.... i.e. writing of notes etc.
I used this to create the training presentation for the switcher.
To time a presentation use the little clock icon at the top.....you get a little box up on the left that has pause buttons etc. The trick is to make slide ONE a count down dialogue slide... like "START at 00:00:5:00. (This is where the tape is cued.
Now, following that....make count down slides every second for ten seconds of count down, then a "NOW" slide.....then 5 more count down slides.....
What that does is....gives the person time to go upstairs and start the PowerPoint, come back down, and have time to start the tape, so that the training for the switcher can be accomplished.
So....start the timing on slide one...give it 60 seconds....then, start hitting the space bar every second to time the count down, all the way past now to the beginning of the presentation. When you come to the NOW part....you have to have the remote handy for the DVC player so you can start the tape......then read the script and cue each slide slightly ahead of when it is spoken....so to simulate giving the Switcher time to cue it up.
.Don't hit the escape key at the end...or you will need to re-do the whole thing (experience). The presentations always end with a BLACK slide....this way the transition is smooth. So.....when timing....go through to the black slide then hit the space bar ONE MORE TIME.....this brings you to a SAVE dialogue box, where you can save it.
Once it has been timed, you can adjust the timing by adding or subtracting seconds from one slide, and adding or subtracting to another. So you test the timing with the script and see if the slides come up at the appropriate time.....if certain ones come up too soon, you go to that slide and add some time to it......then find the point at which they are correct again, and subtract time from the previous one.....This way it straightens it all out.
This exercise is beneficial in that it gives you a feel for what the switcher is going through, as well as the PowerPoint person upstairs.
Dual Monitor
With the dual monitors it takes a little getting used to....but you can make changes on the fly....whcih is really cool!
Suggestion is to minimize everything in the order you are going to use them.... ie the announcements first, then the worship songs, then the Sermon. That way when you click on it, it makes the view screen active and the space bar will work to change the slides. (You can also move the mouse into the lower left corner and click...but there is a danger that it will be seen on screen....not as professional!
It is better to use the hard copy as a reference than go to the "all slide" view on the second monitor as you tend to become diestracted and can miss a cue. I think it would be helpful if yoiu were to label the slide number on the hard copy before ..or as you go during the first run....as this makes it easier to return to a particular slide if you have to. You just type the number and hit return.
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