Transforming Times Square Church’s workflow

Located in the heart of Manhattan, with an attendance of more than 50,000 people every year, Times Square Church prides itself on pushing the boundaries of filmmaking and video ministry.

The church’s lead filmmaker, Austin Allen, is no stranger to Atomos having worked with their monitors for over eight years. “After not using a Shogun for a while, it was very easy to jump back in. Their monitors are very user-friendly, and I think any church implementing these will see a big difference,” he says.

Allen was keen to put the monitor through its paces, employing it for live production, studio use and smaller projects. “It doesn’t really matter what type of camera you have, the Shogun offers many different recording options. We’ve also been really impressed with some of the features that we were able to try out.”

One of the key features Allen explored was Atomos’ Camera to Cloud connectivity, which is integrated into Shogun, and enabled Allen to simultaneously send high-quality H.265 files directly to the cloud while filming. This allows editors working off-site to access the files straight away. “If you’re filming a church conference or Sunday broadcast, and you have an editor or social media person who’s not with you, usually you would record, physically go to your computer, edit the files and then upload your content to social media or another system,” Allen describes. “Uploading to the cloud simplifies that process, making it very beneficial for churches.”

Allen explains that using Camera to Cloud can also be used for redundancy, or to simply speed up the process of getting high quality footage into a format that is easy to use for social media or even an online broadcast. “Maybe you don’t need full 6K RED files or full 4K ARRI raw files, you just need really good H.265 files to upload to YouTube or your website. That’s where the Shogun comes in handy. As well as being a great monitor, it gives you an additional means of output for your camera,” he enthuses.

“As well as being a great monitor, the Shogun gives you an additional means of output for your camera.”