November 7, 2010
/This week, my buddy @waitsfornone did an awesome job as visual worship leader, giving me an opportunity to sleep in and enjoy a coffee date on the way to church with my wife, the lovely and talented stylist @audistyles. While I designed the basic structure of the visual setlist, Tim makes tweaks depending on how the actual flow feels during the set, or if he has ideas that fit better. Here’s the final setlist:
- Intro & Verse 1: Sunrise Sunset (Organic Videos) - This clip is a beautiful 4min loop of a sunrise over the ocean, which reverses halfway through, providing a seamless loop. This provides a simple way to start the set, giving our worship leader the space for a scripture reading at the top, and keeping the same visual for the first verse ‘…Your majesty for all to see in raging storms and quiet cloudless days’
- Choruses: Jesus, Garden of My Rest Vibe (Highway Video) - Sunny, lens-flared film footage of stone statues including angels, crosses and Jesus harmonize with the strong guitar-driven chorus and lyrics ‘Beautiful Jesus, Beautiful Savior, nothing is greater, Brilliant Creator, Friend of mine.’ NOTE: I use two instances of this video, one for each chorus, starting around the 1min and 3min marks, since the first 30-45sec are a slow sunrise.
- Verse 2: Clouds Vibe (Highway Video) - Slow-moving footage takes us soaring through the clouds as we sing ‘You’re Powerful above this world…Your glory shines a holy light…’ NOTE: I start this clip about 40sec into the video, as this particular dark scene can be restarted as needed without anyone noticing.
- Bridge: Jesus, Garden of My Rest Vibe (Highway Video) - I start this clip at 2:08, which starts by panning around a statue of someone kneeling and clinging desperately to the cross, before moving on to other footage.
- Last Chorus (down): Clouds Vibe (Highway Video) - Coming back to the clouds footage returns to a familiar place, and the slow, dark motion allows the song to come in for a landing, while giving space to breathe if needed.
NOTE: We’ve done our own arrangement of this tune, but I’ve linked to a similar version from the amazing folks of @PageCXVI.
- First Light (WorshipFilms) - Various sunrise/sunset nature scenes combined with a soft grunge effect add a simple visual harmony to this well-known song. NOTE: The guys at WorshipFilms have also created another version of this film using subtle overlays of various people in worship postures.
- Names of God Rise (Visual Worshiper) - This visual is a simple use of various names of God, printed in various white-colored fonts over a black background, scrolling from the bottom to top of the screen. Since this song is both simple and widely-known, we used this visual without any lyrics on the screen. NOTE: The video is only 5min long, so if your live version goes longer, I would recommend leaving the screens completely black throughout the quiet intro and verse, starting the video when the band brings up the volume in the chorus.
NOTE: This song was used as a response after the sermon, so the visual theme isn’t necessarily tied into content from earlier in the set.
- Free To Worship 3-05 (WorshipFilms) - The single-scene, grainy footage of flickering candles and an iron cross complements the quiet, introspective music and lyrics of this song. ‘In the morning when I rise…When I am alone…When I come to die…Give me Jesus.’