by Len on January 18th, 2010 | 482 views |
Someone described to me the other day their disappointment with ‘Christian’ movies. They said, “I know it’s a Christian movie when I can see the end coming 5 minutes into the film.” Story isn’t nearly as important as Message. If worship were a movie, the church would feel the need to come down to the front of the theater while the end credits roll and explain what just happened. We just don’t trust story and image. Why is it that so many in the church are uncomfortable with the power of narrative?
Believe it or not, it may have something to do with our theology of the Bible. A good theology of the Bible can help inform one’s approach to worship, media, creativity, and communicating visually, as it is itself a form of communication. What does a theology of Bible have to do with story?
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by Len on July 24th, 2009 | 2,191 views |
“In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.”
- Alfred Hitchcock
Much of what exists in worship media today takes its cue from the feature film tradition: a compelling story is conceived, penned by script and/or storyboard, shot to match and edited. The term “mini-movie” has even become a sort of conventional wisdom for describing any kind of narrative video designed for worship.
They are popular because these sorts of short films, to some degree, are portable. They don’t contain characters, scenes, and references which bind them to a particular time or space. They can be produced for a local congregation and later sold/shared/given to other congregations to use. Mini-movies are often fashioned as short parables. Many make extensive use of parody and comedy to communicate clear messages about faith, doctrine, and principles for Christian living.
In spite of the increasingly high production values many of these “mini-movies” employ, I find myself unmoved by many of them. Today I realized why.
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