Well, Hillsong Conference finished up yesterday. My has it been a crazy week. I'm still trying believe such a mammoth event is over now and my first semester of college is officially completed.
Monday was an 11 hour rehearsal at the Sydney Entertainment Center. I was allocated to be the camera 1 assist (the one on stage behind the drums) for the entire conference. Basically, it was my job to make sure the person working camera never had to worry about tripping on his cable. It wasn't required that I be there on Monday, but I went anyway just to help out for a few hour and ended up staying the entire day. It ended up being a good thing though because I got a chance to learn my way around ahead of all the other assists that came in the next day.
The days went as followed: We would wake up around 5:30am and be at the Hillsong campus by 6:15 to get on the bus. The bus ride was about 45 minutes to the Entertainment center in down town Sydney. We would have a rehearsal for about an hour and half, then have maybe a 20 minute break before meeting back out on camera and start the opening session. During a transitional video between praise and worship we would dismount of the stage and I would be given the camera. I then would go under the stage and hand off the camera to a operator on the other side. The first time I did this I tried crawling on my hands and knees like I normally would. I then tried cradling the camera in my elbows like I had seen solders do in trenches under barbwire. Eventually, I was just laying on my back and squeezing the camera between my thighs as I used the crossbeams under the floor of the stage to pull myself across. After the camera was handed off, I had an hour to myself to sleep while the pastor preached on the stage above me. There were three sermons a day with rehearsals in between, so us folks on camera rarely even left the auditorium to see daylight. Most of our meals were ran to us while we hid behind monitors back stage. There were many occasions were I had sandwich in one hand and a coil of cable in the other. I defiantly feel like I have gain more dexterity in my hands over the past few weeks. We normally finished around 10:30pm, then get on a bus, go home, shower, sleep and start the day over again.
There were a few highlights however. One time, during an opening song I got to ride the stage lift (the had it set up to make it so drums could rise up out from under the stage. It made me feel like a rock star even though I was dressed completely in black, crouching down and trying my best not to be seen. It was just an honor to be on stage with bands like Hillsong United and Jesus Culture. In fact, the hallways back stage were filled with Hillsong celebrities. One time I was walking down a crowed ramp when some dropped their water bottle and I swooped down and picked it up as I walked by. I spun around and slapped it in the open hand that had dropped it, as I looked up I was faced with none other than Brian Houston...I shouldn't have been shocked seeing as I see him every Sunday, but I was a tad star struck regardless. Also, all the openers were pretty awesome. Although I didn't get to fully see all of them because I was on stage, it was cool to see some of the videos I had helped film up on the jumbo-tron.
One of the biggest struggles for me this week would probably be trying to keep a cheerful attitude. The communication (or lack of) is astonishing to me here. Maybe it's the culture I was raised in or perhaps it's just my personality, I want things to be concrete and know what's going on. Unfortunately, that's not how they run things here. I don't want to vent heaps about it, but it was something I had pray for patience and that God would help me get over myself by giving me a good attitude.
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