Camera Woman

Twice a year, all of the local congregations of my church meet together for a special meeting called stake conference. No, not steak conference, though that would be awesome. Because the groups meeting at the church for stake conference are so big, there is a video camera system set up to broadcast the speakers to the large group in the back of the auditorium. Usually someone experienced with how the camera works is in charge of the whole operation. Today, I was.

Here's how it happened. I walked into the building with my sister, Katherine, and we ran into our dad right away. He is usually one of the people in charge of the camera. Our conversation went something like this,

Dad: You're in charge of the camera today.
Me: haha
Dad: No, really, you're in charge of it.
Me: Wait, whaaaaa?

The end.

So he gave me a really quick lesson on how to use the camera. The camera itself was situated high up on a wall, and the remote I was given was to control that. Thank goodness most of it was already pre-programed. For example, if I wanted to focus on the chorister, I only had to press "3"; if I wanted to focus on the speaker, I had to press "1" and so on.

The problem came from people being different heights. That's when I'd have to do some actual adjusting of angles and other tricky things that I was not trained for. Turns out the "up" and "down" buttons as well as the "left" and "right" buttons on the remote are EXTREMELY sensitive. So in trying to adjust the camera to be focused right on Angelina Jolie for example (this is purely an example - she did not speak at my church meeting today. I can't emphasize that part enough), this is what would happen:

It would start like this:

Then in trying to fix it, something like this would happen:

At this point, my friend on one side of me (who was enjoying my agony) would be saying, "it's too far over! Move it to the right! The right!!!" And I'd start tapping on the remote, palms sweating, to try to make it better when something like this would show up on screeen:

Then this:

Then finally, something I could live with:

The problem was, I had the devil on one side of me (sorry, Rob) and a couple of angels on the other side of me. Rob would say, "it's too far over to the right, tap it to the left" and I'd look at Katherine and Brady for confirmation and see that they were both shaking their heads, telling me it would go too far if I tapped it again, and that the people watching the screen were going to throw up if I adjusted it too much. So I would leave it.

And just as I would start to relax and enjoy the conference, a new speaker would get up, this one five inches taller than the last, and it would begin again.

Later in the day, I laid down to take a little nap. As I drifted off, I kept thinking about what I could have done differently and about the experience overall:

Why didn't I pan the faces of the choir? Would people have enjoyed that? Did anyone appreciate my camera skills today? Should I have zoomed out more when that one guy was speaking? Could I maybe have two or three cameras set up next time for better angles? Should I go back to school to learn how to be a better camera woman? Is there an award ceremony of any sort for best camera skillz at a stake conference? Would I be nominated?

With all that in mind, if anyone took notes today at the meeting, could I borrow them? I know there were lots of speakers there today but I'm not sure I heard a word they said.