Whitsun in Corona times: Church services were allowed under prescribed conditions, but the number of visitors was set to a certain number, which corresponded to the size of the church, the space available and the distances in the pews.
One possibility: The service was recorded on video and broadcast directly to the households.
Altenstadt
- "It is the most wonderful opportunity to celebrate Whitsun at home at this time," said Altenstadt's pastor Sebastian Schmidt, while he looked over Rainer Siegl's shoulders at the many controls and buttons on his control desk.
Siegl, who has been the head of the "SiLight Partytechnik" company in Schwabbruck for 25 years, checked his control system one last time before the service began.
All threads came together at Siegl.
He controlled everything technically and "mixed" it so that not only was a secure transmission guaranteed, but he could also record the entire service.
Because this means that this Pentecost service can always be “taken from the can” later on.
With a very personal assistant
While Pastor Schmidt gave his acolytes and helpers the final instructions on how and when petals should fall from two openings in the ceiling onto the believers, Siegl checked all the images from the five installed cameras on the preview monitor.
As Siegl learned, four cameras were permanently attached, while one camera in the chancel could be remote-controlled.
For this Siegl had a very personal assistant sitting next to him: his son Johannes (12).
He had been given this part.
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The two pastors (from left) Sebastian Schmidt and Siegfried Beyrer, who celebrated the service, with the altar boys on their way to the basilica.
Past the director's desk in the passage to the sacristy.
There, father and son Siegl "twirl" on the controls.
© Herold
It was impressive how dexterously he had the controls on his remote control under control.
“It's actually like driving a model car safely over a route.
But the car is the camera here, ”explained the self-confident boy.
Incense makes for a worse picture
In order to be able to safely record and broadcast the service, which lasted over an hour, Rainer Siegl and his team of helpers had to relocate quite a bit of technology the day before.
"As invisible and trip-free as possible," is the abbreviation of the company boss.
This mainly affected the various cables that had to be laid in the chancel and the gallery.
Three of the cameras and a few microphones were set up there.
Since the believers were not allowed to sing during the service, the musical accompaniment of the service was provided by an organ and a decimated choir - at a distance, of course.
And the microphones should definitely not overlap.
An unpleasant background noise would have been the result.
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On this picture you can see the preview monitor and mixer in the control room.
Siegl has the image on the monitor, which he transmitted to the living room.
© Herold
A good 500 meters of the various cables had been laid in advance.
Power, video, audio or adapter cables, all color-coded.
Nevertheless, for the layman, an orderly confusion.
All the end plugs came together in the mixer at the large control desk in the passage to the sacristy.
The technical heart of Rainer Siegl.
There he also took over the sound of the church sound system.
Siegl wanted to do that, because the built-in atmosphere microphones could not take over the pleasant surround sound on their own.
Gradually forget everything around you
For exactly one hour and 18 minutes, Siegl broadcast the service on “Youtube” in the living room of the believers who could not find a place in the basilica.
Brigitte Thoma from Altenstadt was one of them: "It was definitely worth it that I got involved," was her comment.
The first few minutes took some getting used to for her because she was sitting alone in the living room.
But the image guidance with the various recordings was so perfect for her that she gradually faded out everything around her.
"Only from the middle of the service did the images become cloudy," Thoma stated.
However, that was not due to the technology, but Pastor Schmidt had meant the incense in the basilica too well.
Hans-Helmut Herold
