Yes, these guys are obsessed with stained glass windows. Maybe someone should print out copies of the windows from Saint Thomas for these guys to take home and look at as often as they want. Maybe then, they might tire of seeing windows after getting their fill of them. One can hope.

They call it “Project Gabriel.” It’s Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue’s (Anglican Communion) integrated 4K multicam capture and streaming solution, featuring 11 mounted Panasonic PTZ cameras and developed in collaboration with Iconoscope Productions’s James Sapione. Is he the guy responsible for this frustrating camera work and who does not understand the audience watching a Mass or Evensong from Saint Thomas?

I’m not sure who is directly responsible for the frustrating camera work where they seem to think that the parish’s stained glass windows, banks of burning candles, flower bouquets, the lens of the camera slowly scanning every crevice of the High Altar and parking the camera on statuary is what an Anglican Liturgy is about. It’s not. Oh they show the renowned Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys briefly but then seem to get bored with them — the same for the Organist and any slow pedal work (that camera rarely gets used) — so off the camera goes back to the stained glass windows for the umpteenth time which regular viewers have seen umpteen times, even though the Choir of Men and Boys is the subject at the moment. The camera crew seem to think that the Choir is “background music” — as if they’re trying to give an atmosphere of a monastery or something (don’t ask me why) even though Saint Thomas is a parish church, not a monastery. The Choir is an equal part of the Liturgy just like any other part of the Mass or Evensong.

In my mind and the mind of some of the people I’ve spoken with, the lens of the camera should be no different than the eyes of the people sitting in the pews. And I see no one in the pews craning their neck to gawk up at the windows, looking at bouquets of flowers, craning their neck to see the High Altar or looking around to find some statuary to look at. Instead, people are focused on the Liturgy — the service leaflet or looking straight ahead — which is none of these things.

I often wonder if this camera crew is in the right job. They seem to think their job is about short-attention span pop culture viewers but anyone watching an Anglican Liturgy does not have a short attention span — so in reality the camera doesn’t have to constantly keep moving as it does at Saint Thomas — which seems to be what this frustrating camera crew thinks: “Keep the camera always moving to keep the attention span for our pop culture audience.” But that is not your audience. Are they really that clueless? When they began this project, they were also ignorant as to what things are called in an Anglican church. They referred to the Nave as “the sanctuary.” No, that’s what Southern Baptists call it. Anglicans do not. So obviously the priests at Saint Thomas didn’t try to educate the production crew in any way.

Then production puts up this banner on the screen during the Offertory Anthem to “make a gift to support.” The banner covers up part of the Choir. They don’t care if the banner is blocking part of the Choir — more disrespect for the choristers — but they’d never put up that banner over the face or body of any priests speaking I can assure you of that. They also never show windows, statuary, flowers or banks of candles when any priest is speaking. No, it’s only the music they disrespect. Sadly and unfortunately, the choristers are not given the same respect as the clergy.

In a recent Liturgy, the camera showed an empty hallway with a statue at the end of it. I thought: Why are we looking at that? Then the camera later showed the ceiling of the parish. Nothing up there to see either; just an ordinary dark ceiling. Meanwhile viewers were missing what was going on in the Nave with the Liturgy. This is more insanity.

Lately, when windows are once again show in the video, I’ve been scanning through — and missing — some of the music just to get the video off of the annoying things I’ve listed here and back on the Choir. But unfortunately often the camera doesn’t return to showing the Choir until their last chord or the piece they were singing is over. Sigh, lord. What is wrong with these people?!

Watching a Liturgy should not be this frustrating to the viewers, but until a production crew takes over that understands an Anglican Liturgy and that the lens of the camera should be the same as a parishioner’s eyes, I live under no illusions that anything will change at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, because the current production crew doesn’t seem to have a clue. Again, they mistakenly think that the short-attention span pop culture is their audience. It’s not. Quite the opposite. Just like the people sitting in the pews are not of a short-attention span pop culture mentality. If they were, they couldn’t sit through a Liturgy for approximately 1.5 hours.