It’s Finally Here!

When it comes to any production, one thing I love to do with a burning passion is lighting. And since City Reach this past year, our lights haven’t worked at 2Twenty. Leaving me either to do sound (which I don’t mind), computer (which I never do but sometimes would like to do), or do nothing. And personally, I don’t like to do nothing. But finally, lights return!!!

We recently just bought an Elation DMX Operator 192 light board. This is for our Intelligent lights, which are the three old intelligent lights from APC. They are 3 American DJ AccuScan 250’s. The lights are going up the first of April. CAN’T WAIT!!!!

Fine Arts Sectionals Recap

By the way, the tech side of fine arts for me, MY GRAPHIC DESIGN IS GOING TO DISTRICTS!! AND SO IS MY SERMON!!! Take a look!

BTW, Winter Retreat is this weekend in ERIE!!

New Email Header

I designed a new footer for my email. This is how it came out. No prank calls or emails. :D

It's Almost Here! Detroit 2010

In about 10 days, I will be leaving for Detroit Michigan, the site for the National Fine Arts Competition. I will be traveling in a group with a few other people. This year we have 35 students from Allison Park Church taking part in this. We would apriciate your prayers as we go. The tech side of me decided to make a twitter account that you can follow while we're gone by Clicking Here

Also I'll try to post as often as I can while we're there. Keep following the twitter, facebook, and the blog for updates during the week.

Crosstown Video...Armor of God

Today I took the chance to work on another video for Pastor Joe Schafer for Crosstown. Their next series coming up September 2010 is on the Armor of God. Here's how the video came out.

City Reach Prep Time!!

We'll, it's finally time. Time to plan for City Reach 2010. Above is the Countdown video I created for this event. City Reach is the event where we reach out to our church plant communities. Unfortunately, for the first time in 2 years, I will not be able to attend because of a school commitment. :-(

But I will be there the first couple nights for service and possibly staying over night at Allison Park Church. I'll keep you updated.

A Huge Success!!!

As you can tell by this weeks APC Minute, Kidz Kaboom was a huge success. We had over 300 Kids on the Campus over the week and over 1oo youth and adult volunteers this week. I had the chance to work with some amazing people along with my producer Brian Lippert. He is an amazing man of God and loves doing what he does. I love him with a passion and he will continue to do great things. But every year we do something called a penny weigh. If the Girls win, Joe Schafer gets a pie in his face. If the boys win, his wife Rachael gets a pie in the face. Here was the out come.

It Finally Happens this Week!

Finally! One of my favorite productions of the year here at Allison Park Church is happening this week. That one is also known as Kidz Kaboom. Close or over 400 elementary and pre-school kids will be on the APC Campus during the week, and over 100 teen helpers will be on site to assist them. What happens during Kidz Kaboom is in the morning there are camps that the kids attend (art, basketball, martial arts, cooking, dance, cheerleading, and obviously the pre-school camp for the pre-schoolers). Then in the afternoon, there is a high energy service that takes place featuring worship, games, story, scripture memorization, multi-media, and soooooo...much more! That's where tech ministries comes into play. In order to make it high energy, we want to bring in equipment that will make the service (rally) look both good, inspirational, and freakin awesome all at the same time. Sunday afternoon till the wee hours of Monday morning (if it takes us till 2am, we'll be there) is the set up in the sanctuary. I will try to update from there at some point with some pics of what's happening so far.

Another Crosstown Worship Song---Take it All

Today, I began again to start the Crosstown Worship Songs. By re-editing them and such in Sony Vegas. Take at look at Take it All by Hillsong Kids

Take it All from Mike Fowler on Vimeo.

Yes I know this is Late

Yes I know this is just a little bit late, but in March (see told you it was just a little late :D) I filmed the first service at the new Sharpsburg Family Worship Center. My friend Tim leads worship there so I thought that I should be there. SFWC is one of the original Church Plants from Allison Park Church. My friend from Sweden Johannes Amrizter was preaching that evening. Here is the recap video that so many people were asking for. Click here or look below.

Working on Tech Sheet for Kidz Kaboom

Normally for our Kidz Kaboom outreach (which you can register for by clicking here), the tech sheet we use is a little confusing to follow. Simple, but confusing. That's why this year I am going to see if we can try something new. For our normal APC Services, we use a site called Planning Center
To make our tech sheet. That's one way I'm going to try and do it this year, or we'll try and doing it the 2Twenty Style way in Microsoft Word. So I'm looking for opinions. If you know about planning center and Microsoft word, which would you choose? Looking for feed back. Thanks!!

Testing out ProPresent in Easter Services

This past week we had six services in honor of Easter Weekend. Two on Good Friday (Noon and 7pm), an Easter Sunday Sunrise service in the Concourse (7am Sunday Morning) and then our Normal weekend services (Sat: 6pm--Sun: 9am/11am). Most recently I've been getting use to working with ProPresenter Worship Software because, Thank You Jesus for this, ProPresenter is coming out with the latest version of their software for Windows (YES!!!!!!!!! :D). This weekend, again, I will be working with ProPresenter in the 9am and 11am service. I worked with it during Good Friday at 7pm, and both Easter Sunday services. What I like about ProPresenter is the ability to do iFlexx (or also know as iWorship) which are the samething as putting the lyrics up on the screen but alot cooler. When we get it for 2Twenty, we will be able to do stuff like this...

Great TIme at Upward Awards

Last night was a blast at Upward Awards Night. I got the chance to once again work with Inteligent Lights with the Elation Operator 192 board once again. Not only that, I had to do video switch, and I got to take home a 2-litter thing of Coca-Cola (I seriously needed it after this past week starting day lights saving time.) But I got the chance to work with 4 other amazing people who without them, the night would not have happen. So special thanks to Gregg Jacobs, Brian Russel, Nick Karis, and Andy Eble. Joe Schafer did an awesome job also making the night happen.

ProPresenter finally for Windows!

Hey I wrote a song "Oh Happy Day, happy day, THEY FINALLY HAVE PROPRESENTER FOR WINDOWS!!" The long time Worship Software only for MAC Operating Systems is now being made for Windows, although it isn't coming till This upcoming summer. Still we might get rid of Easy Worship when this update comes avalible. To read the post that ProPresenter made available, Click the Link Below.

http://www.renewedvision.com/propresenter_pc.php.

Photo Editing

Part of some of the stuff that I do at APC and at 2Twenty is Picture Editing. I do serious projects like below....

Then there are the moments that either I'm bored or when I to something, I want to edit a picture like so...

Either way, most people would think that was done in Photoshop. But none of them were...(okay the last one was, but that one needed to look the best.)

A program I use called http://www.paint.net/ is excellent for stuff like that. It's basically the spoof or basic version of Photoshop. If your looking to do simple picture editing, I highly recommend that program.

Upwards Award Night

I will continue to post about this for the next week or so, but my next big production is Upward Awards night.

For those of you who don't know what Upward is, it's a Christian basketball league that Allison Park Church holds that involves APC and other surrounding church's like Orchard Hill Church, North Hills Christian Community and more. I got placed in helping with the tech production with that which includes Projectors, Lights, Live Cam, and output switching. I'll be working with Gregg Jacobs and hopefully 1 other person. This should be one of those easy productions that APC has.

Gregg Jacobs: Youth Pastor and Media Mentor

Another guy to Brag about for a second. Gregg Jacbos does it all. At Allison Park Church he and his wife Kyra lead JV 2Twenty for Junior High students. Also he is a producer in the Tech booth on Sunday Mornings. This guy has been a big inspiration in my life for as long as I known him, which has been since 2007. Gregg was the one who's been there since I got started both in my walk with God and when I started in the tech booth. He has been putting me up to bigger and better tasks like programing the light board for Winter Retreat. I would Like to personally thank Gregg for being there every step that I've been through.

Crosstown Genesis 1:1 Song

Joe Schafer Who is the Childrens Pastor at Allison Park Church had me make the Music Video for the Next Series which is The Creation Story (Genesis Chapter 1). This is what I have in the Video so fat...enjoy!

American DJ Forum...Great ways to get Tech Questions

This afternoon, since I've been off the past 5 days, I've decided to go "OCD" on learning how to program the DMX Operator 192 for the Winter Retreat which is Pictured. I thought That I would try submiting a question on "American DJ's Forum", which is a company that sells this board. I already got one reply from a guy named Chris who sounds like he know what's he doing. My question was do I need Scenes to record chases on the board. Check out what he said.

"Yes, you need to program scenes before you program chases.

Chases are dependent on scenes being created. You could make the chases without the scenes, but your chases are going to be really really BORING since there is nothing in the scenes.

The manual is excessively clear on this fact.

Since you do have the manual, this is some advise(besides reading it):
Sit down with the DMX Operator 192 with the manual open. Go over the scene programming stuff one step at a time with the manual, going over and over it until you feel comfortable with the whole programing thing. It's not confusing, but it takes extra practice. You might also want to download the manual and print out the pages that pertain to progamming to make those extra available. I say this because that is what I do with my DMX Operator(not 192). But I don't use my DMX Operator often these days since I'm using MyDMX as my controller.

Have fun and hope your retreat goes well. It sounds like you got a fun job!"

That is really going to help me as we Prepare for the Winter Retreat.

APC Tech Booth Upgrad---As of October of 2009

New Center Screen and Lights













New HD Camera on Tripod Mount














2 Mounted Web Cam like Cameras with New Switch Board











2 New MACs completed with Pro-Presenter Worship Software




Other than that, the tech booth hasn't changed much.