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Nobody is operating this on the day — the shot you set is the shot people watch for the whole service. Twenty minutes of thought beforehand is the whole job.
Three things are worth doing in advance, and all of them are quick.
Most chapels and churches do this all the time and will point you straight at the spot that works. Worth asking where their speakers are too — if you have a wireless lapel mic, sitting one transmitter beside a speaker is the easiest way to get clean sound.
Almost every disappointing stream breaks one of these. None of them cost anything.
Mount the phone in landscape — the wide way. Everyone watches on a laptop, a tablet or a TV, and an upright video leaves two black bars and a stripe of picture. This is the most common mistake and the most annoying to discover afterwards.
Set the camera a little higher than the seated congregation — around 1.4 to 1.6 metres. At seated height you film the back of the person in front. Slightly above, and you look over everyone to the front of the room.
A phone's zoom is mostly digital, and digital zoom just enlarges and softens the picture. Every step closer with the tripod is free quality. Get as close as you can without being in the way, then leave the zoom alone.
Point the camera away from windows wherever possible. If there's a bright window behind the celebrant, the camera exposes for the window and the person becomes a silhouette. This is the single biggest visual mistake, and it's invisible until you look at the screen. Facing a wall with the windows behind the camera is almost always better.
Nobody can adjust the shot mid-service. Leave room for people to stand up, step to the lectern, move to the coffin, walk down the aisle. A shot framed perfectly on an empty chapel is often wrong the moment the service begins.
Specific starting points by occasion. Adjust for the room, but these are the positions that work most often.
Centre aisle, three to five rows back from the front, on the aisle end of a pew or just behind the last occupied row. High enough to clear heads. Frame to include the lectern and the coffin together, with a little room above and to each side — a celebrant will move between them, and family may come forward to speak.
Stand further back than feels necessary and frame wide. A graveside is a small, tight gathering and a camera close in reads as intrusive to everyone standing there. Distance with a wide frame is both more respectful and more watchable.
Back of the nave on the centre aisle, or a side aisle if the centre is needed for a procession. Watch for pillars — they're easy to miss when you're looking at a phone screen and very obvious in the recording. Frame the pulpit and altar together where you can.
Off to one side, a few rows back — never in the centre aisle, which belongs to the processional and to the photographer. Frame the arbour or altar wide enough to hold both partners and the celebrant with space around them, and remember the couple will turn, move and be joined by others during the ceremony.
Centre, as far back as still gives you a decent size on the stage, and elevated if there's a balcony or a raised area. Frame the full stage width — performers spread out, and a group moving into a shot framed for one person is a shame afterwards.
As high as you can get — a stand, a clubhouse balcony, a slope beside the ground — and on the halfway line. Frame wide enough that play develops inside the shot rather than running out of it. Players will look small; that's the trade for never losing the ball out of frame, and it's the right trade when nobody is panning.
Once it's mounted, look at the phone screen from where you're standing and ask four questions.
Once the framing is right, stop touching the phone. Every adjustment during the service is visible to everyone watching, and a nudged tripod is much harder to fix than to avoid.
Aim to be set up and finished half an hour before the service starts, so you're not adjusting anything while people are arriving.
In the app, under Settings → Larix Tuner, turn on “Pass control to Larix Tuner” and confirm when asked. Without it we cannot start your stream remotely, and the service won't go out. It's a flagged item on the checklist for that reason.
Do it last. Handing over control disables Larix's own menus, so anything you haven't already done — scanning the setup code, clearing an overlay, changing a setting — can't be done on the phone afterwards. If you do need to change something later, turn remote control off, make the change, and turn it back on.
After that there's nothing to do. On Hands-Free we start the stream at your booked start time and monitor it throughout; it runs for the duration you booked. On Self-Drive you press record when the service begins and stop it at the end. Either way the page, the recording, the hosting and the download are handled.
Send us a photo of where the service is and we'll tell you where to stand the tripod.
Ask about your venue