Churches don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on an LED wall to have a great-looking video background. In fact, with how bright and improved projectors are these days, there are better ways churches can spend their dollars than paying for an expensive video wall solution.
For inspiration, this post will break down how Jake’s church, South Fellowship Church, designed and implemented their video wall for use on Sundays. This design is affordable, built with everyday materials, and very versatile.
The Idea
The desire from South Fellowship and its leaders was for a design that could easily switch between a screen and a natural wood pallet look. For the screen, the church wanted to project some nice motion backgrounds, videos, or still images behind the band, using content from sites like Church Motion Graphics or Visual Church Media. These elements add color, dynamics, and energy to a worship set. But the wood pallet look also creates a great-looking stage and eliminates the white screen when it’s not needed.
Obviously, building a separate screen and separate wood pallet set would quickly add up to a lot of work, not to mention a huge pain when switching the two. So, the solution was to build a series of triangular columns that could transition between the white screen material and wood pallet. The results are stunning, professional, and easy.
The Structure
The stage is built of seven free-standing triangular pillars. Each structure is 4’x10’, so that makes the entire stage set 28 feet wide.
The screen panel side is made with a material called EUCATILE. They come in 8 ft pieces, so for a 10 ft high wall, just add another 2 ft below. For the wood paneling, South Fellowship literally used a member’s left-over fencing from an old project. Any sort of fencing or pallet-like material will do.
The insides of the columns are completely hollow. This space provides freedom for a third material of some sort or a space to mount lights or other tools. There is a lot of room for customization.
Eye hooks make it easy to move with a pole.
To move the triangles, South Fellowship added little eye hooks at the bottom of the columns, and a pole is used to position the correct sides accordingly. There are L brackets mounted to the floor that act as guides, so each column is aligned square to the rest of the stage. Just pivot the columns, and there’s the new look.
The Projector
The projector in this setup is an Epson PowerLite short throw projector. Every church will have different needs, so be sure to look up a projector’s specifications and ensure the projector has the right throw distance and measurements.
This projector is probably 10 to 12 feet away from the screen, and it's probably another 11 feet up in the ceiling right behind the curtain so it can’t be seen. This is an advantage, because band members can stand very close to the screen without blocking the light of the projector.
The Software
For all their projection needs, South Fellowship uses ProPresenter linked up with midi cues to link up all their various projection needs. ProPresenter is typically what Churchfront would recommend for most churches using presentation software, and motion backgrounds look great with this setup.
That’s the setup! We hope this has served as inspiration for your own church context and can help your church to ultimately make Jesus greater.
We are always on mission to equip local churches to grow their ministries, so please check out our Worship Ministry School if this post has been helpful and you desire to grow your ministry further.