After the First Run

Throughout the service, I was timing everything. I wrote down the time at the end of each line in the liturgy, and after every song.

By the time we were halfway through the first hymn, I could tell that we were going to end early.

I had already decided to, since I had so much ambivalence about how the images would play in concert with the service, have the projection end before the sermon, and then maybe do something different later.

Halfway through the first hymn, I realized that my timing guesses hadn't been great: I had read the liturgy aloud and sung a hymn by myself in the lonely little editing room beforehand, but hymns vary so much and the tempo of any given piano player could make them vary even more.

After conversations with Harry, Marcia & Michele, I decided that I would definitely end with a still that would remain projected throughout the service.

I didn't really hear much feedback from anyone, afterwards, partly because I didn't want to: I hid in the basement where Lynn was in charge of three year olds. I kind of didn't want anyone to have the pressure to say anything to me, and I just wanted to be able to fix it before anyone felt that pressure.

The only feedback I did get was from Phil, who commented that the first sequence made him think about the fact that in all these years of working at a hospital, he's always wondered what it would look like to be wheeled down the halls on a gurney: now he knew.