Thousands of people work behind the scenes every six months to help share the messages of each general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A behind-the-scenes series of videos shows those people and what they do.
The four previous videos showed what goes on behind the scenes for general conference with the broadcast team, staging crew, guest services and interpreters.
The fifth video, released Saturday, Sept. 27, on the Church’s General Conference YouTube channel, introduces viewers to those who put together the Church magazines.
The Liahona magazine prints each entire address from each speaker in its monthly issue following the general conference — April’s messages are in the May issue, and October’s messages are in the November issue.
The general conference magazine issues are unique because the work is condensed, explained Michael Dunford, the art director for the Liahona.
“It normally takes us about 10 months a cycle from the beginning of collecting the content, the writing, the words, the articles and then the visuals and putting it all together and getting it translated,” Dunford said in the video. “And for general conference, we’re literally doing it in just a few days.”
Jeanette Andrews, the art director for the For the Strength of Youth magazine, said during the last general conference, photographers were in 30 countries.
“We comb through the photos for hours and hours and try to feature a youth from each country in the magazine. I love trying to create designs that help get the message of our Savior into their hearts,” she said.
The video showed the staff members working on the layout and design on their computers, looking at printouts pinned on a board and other parts of the process.
DB Troester is the managing editor of the Liahona.
“The content goes through three edits: substantive edit, which is the first deep dive edit, a copy edit, and then there is a proofread at the end. And then it goes to design,” he said.
Chad Oldroyd, the press operator, demonstrated how the magazines are physically made with a press, 2,000-pound rolls of paper and printing units. Each printing unit prints a specific primary color, then the pages go through an oven process to dry the ink, and then a chill roller to cool the ink.
“Then it goes through a series of rollers into what we call a folder,” he said. “And then it goes out to the bindery department, which is where the magazine is then put together.”
Garry Garff, Liahona multimedia editor, said the Lord is in the details.
“If you look at the fact that each conference issue is twice as big as a regular issue, and yet we’re putting it together in a fraction of the time. It’s a small miracle that we get that out,” Garff said.
Others from the magazines staff, including YA Weekly and the Friend, are also interviewed in the video.
Even if people don’t know everything that goes into the magazines, Dunford said, “What is most important is that the spirit of the Lord is in it, and that’s our goal.”
The 195th Semiannual General Conference will be Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 4-5, with five general sessions originating from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. The Church News will provide talk summaries of each talk during each session, in addition to a downloadable PDF of all the summaries in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
