Couple o' Thoughts

The This American Life live feed happened as planned last Thursday night. It was good. The show started with Ira doing a piece from the mixing console with a closeup of him on the mic. As the camera zoomed out and and moved to Ira's back, you could see that he was in a packed theater. I didn't realize that he controlled the bumper and background music and sound bites from the console while he was talking. I guess I just thought someone was in a booth at another console doing that for him.

The stage was set up in two sections. One side held the console, and the other had two chairs set up kind of like a talk show--a little like Inside the Actors Studio if you've ever seen that. A big projection screen hung above the stage so theater audience could see the video pieces.

The only technical issue of the 2 hour show was when Ira was introducing a piece for the upcoming season. He had been sitting in the "talk" area with the director of the TV version. Apparently someone was supposed to change CDs while he was doing that segment so that when he came back to the console, everything would be ready. Unbeknownst to him, that someone didn't put a cd in the player. So as Ira is introducing the piece and expecting to play a sound bite along with it, nothing happened. He calmly put the cd in and went about his business.

Having been involved with some production things here and there, I can imagine that this was a huge undertaking. I think Murphy's Law thrives in the world of production.

On another note, the "new" version of Adoration began last night. After 3 years of Adoration, this was probably the best one I remember--if you can say that about a worship service. I've never sensed the unity of real worship from the whole gathering of an Adoration like I did last night. So many people were involved in planning and carrying out the service. More people attended last night than we've ever had at an Adoration. The service didn't feel like a concert as it has in the past. There was just enough music. The atmosphere was nice. Jarrod did a great job with his message. The post-Ad hangout was good. For once I was able to walk away thinking that it had gone as planned. Thanks to everybody involved for your hard work! I think it paid off. Now we can get started on the next one.