Smoke in the Multimedia Office

It's that time again: our heads are smoking. Like every year at this time. We are working as a whole multimedia team on the multimedia implementation for the annual theme of 2019. We would be happy to take you with us on our journey.

We start simply

We start with a kick-off meeting of the multimedia team together with our pastor, Matthias Altwegg. Matthias explains the annual theme for 2019 - what the church leadership is planning and what goals are being pursued. Together we agree on a meaningful title and look for initial ideas for the teaser. It quickly becomes clear: we are going to tell a story.

The meeting is followed by a brainstorming phase in which we collect many ideas. Useful ones and also many useless ones. In a second meeting we bring all the ideas together, develop them further and decide on a final version. From now on, many things happen in parallel and very quickly.

Off to the Grisons mountains

We produce all the sound for the videos to evoke the desired emotions and underpin the visuals. At the same time, we create a storyboard, organise all the material for the shoot, set up a test setup at seetal chile, find a location and ask for actors.

The evening before the day of the shoot, we get all the material ready and go through each clip again. Where do we use which camera? Which setting? Does everything fit together in terms of timing? We hope so.

We travel with three cars - filled with technical material and people - to the Grisons mountains. The programme is tight, the weather perfect. We do our best and make good progress. When the sun sets, we have recorded everything important: Videos, pictures and also audio recordings.

Detours to the breakthrough

We travel back and start editing the teaser and the countdown (these are the video clips we show in our services). At the same time, the graphic design work for the poster, the flyer and the slides for the projection begins. Ideas are raining down. But we have a problem: none of the pictures from the day of filming are suitable. New solutions are needed. And fast. We spend many hours in the multimedia office, try out many things and finally convert it into a photo studio. The breakthrough is not achieved. Only two days and many ideas later can we breathe a sigh of relief: we have a suitable picture!

Now it's time to place the lettering - which is also more challenging than planned. We spend evening after evening in front of the screens. Until it fits. And how it fits!

We are also challenged in the area of video: The audio tracks are not good enough. At 9 o'clock in the evening we set up a simple sound studio in a parlour and record the sound again. We also start with the so-called colour grading: we edit the colours in the video to tell the story more accurately.

Final spurt!

Now we need a picture for the slides. Fortunately, this is quickly in the can and will now be processed further. The flyer is also starting to take shape and should soon be ready for printing. The poster is even being printed already.

So this is how the multimedia framework of an annual theme is created. With a lot of passion, perseverance and above all: energetic teamwork.