Digital Evangelism Issues

In all the hype about the Oscars, and the deserved accolades for The Artist, you may have missed the Oscar for best animation. It went to The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, a quirky allegory about the healing nature of story. (And due to be released as a bookand phone app.) Watch the full 15-minute animation below, and after it, prizewinning The Porcelain Unicorn.

Both stories reflect a truth also demonstrated in The Artist – that it is possibly to tell effective stories with (virtually) no words. Immediately, this enables films to communicate across language barriers – making conversation-starting and evangelistic film usable in a wider range of contexts.

Indeed, in watching The Artist, I noticed that because our brains do not have to simultaneously process sound, color, 3D, crane shots/fast pans (ie. acting as dual-core or quad-core processors), there is more space to process the essentials of the story.

Alma is another compelling prizewinning silent animation. All three contain conversation-starting parallels that point to eternal truths.

Tell It Your Way contest

Legendary British film director Sir Ridley Scott launched a global film making contest for aspiring directors, titled “Tell It Your Way”. There were over 600 entries.

The film could be no longer than three minutes, contain only six lines of narrative and be a compelling story. The winner was Porcelain Unicorn from American director Keegan Wilcox. It’s a story of the lifetimes of two people who are totally opposite, yet, very much the same – all told in three minutes. You can see why it won – enjoy!

Watch below or at the Porcelain Unicorn site.

Animation is a powerful medium, either for starting discussion, or creating directly evangelistic material. Read more.

Perhaps God will call you to make animations or other forms of storytelling? There are a huge opportunity. One place to learn more is the School of Cartooning and Animation.

You could try making a stop-motion short, with modelling clay or Lego models, even as a youth group project. It is surprisingly easy, with a normal digital camera, tripod, and careful lighting.

Sharing on social networks

One-click posting of conversation-starting video shorts onto Facebook and other social network pages, is a great way to share faith. Videos at YesHEIs.com, GlobalShortFilmNetwork, and Focus are intended for this.

You can also download video shorts onto smartphones. And the Talking About Jesus iPhone app draws together some video shorts from key international speakers.

This charming animated short illustrates some of the strengths of the genre to communicate well, especially without using dialogue. Animator Wesley Lewis has previously worked on Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist.

Drawing Inspiration from Wesley Louis on Vimeo.

Animated snapshot stories like this allow the audience to create their own mental narrative and backstory, identify with one or other character, and formulate some lesson or thought to take away. As conversation starters in a youth group, one-to-one discussion, or online, they are unique.

Blessings also to Aalma Productions, who are just launching bible-based children’s animations.

Of course, animated shorts are ideal to load onto a mobile phone. Check also the potential to create comics as apps for mobiles.

We have other blog posts about cartoons and animation.

Book competition

To celebrate the 200th issue of Web Evangelism Bulletin this month, we are giving away a number of Christian books and other resources. All you will need to do is blog/tweet/Facebook about them. Watch out for more news next time.

“The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new” – Samuel Johnson

Photo credit: Exper Giovanni Rubaltelli | Creative Commons/Flickr

He saw the book in the shop. Had even heard well of it before.

But it looked strange. Poetic prose. Although he liked the cadences of poetry read aloud by others, he always found it hard to recreate these by reading from the page himself. And so, he put the book down again. His loss.

Over the years, he occasionally saw the book referenced. Then one day, a glowing blog recommendation sent him to Amazon, the great river of books.

And it blew him away. It was, as described, a “classic retelling of cosmic conflict”.

A book that would also communicate to outsiders. To the hurting. To those put off by ‘same old’ formulaic gospel presentations, by churchiness and jargon. To those with a New Age sense for words, stories and the cosmos. To those of other religions and none.

He has few words left to say. Get it. The Singer, by Calvin Miller. Beg, borrow, buy. Now.

Storytelling is so strategic. The Christian Storyteller releases a monthly story and tips. They also have a June conference in Georgetown KY. Here’s this month’s story:

Storytelling is a vital skill to learn. Watch a gifted storyteller to observe how it is interactive, not just a one-way reading, with the audience being drawn in to the story.

Note that Christian storytelling does not just mean bible storying, important as that is. Jesus did not usually retell OT stories to outsiders, he embedded biblical truth within stories of everyday life.

There is a big revival in secular storytelling too, with many clubs and meetings. Of course, face-to-face storytelling is still widely practiced in many cultures.

More on stories

Read The Parable of Parable, and how babies are hardwired for story.

Remarkably, it seems there are only seven basic story plots, as Christopher Booker suggests in his remarkable book The Seven Basic Plots.

Of course, YouTube is an ideal medium to delivery short stories.

“YouTube is celebrating its sixth birthday this month, and the Google subsidiary is doing it partly by sharing some big numbers that underscore its overwhelming dominance in the online video streaming space,” says TechCrunch blog. YouTube is now delivering a staggering 3 billion viewings a day, with 48 hours of new video being uploaded each minute (double the amount this time last year). Check TechCrunch’s analysis of the stats.

Our visual age

Our new digital communication age is highly visual. The video clip has almost become the default means of effective communication, and therefore is essential in evangelism …

• This is why TruthMedia.com have switched the emphasis within their PowertoChange outreach site from text to video.
• This is why YesHEIs.com was launched this year, to enable Facebook users to post a growing range of appropriate conversation-starting video clips onto their pages with one click.
• This is why Global Short Video Film Network are developing conversation-starting video clips.
• This is why Mobile Advance encourages the use of downloaded video clips on mobile phones, for evangelism in the Majority World.
• This is why Visual Story Network advocates the use of storytelling in the context of video.

Why is the video clip so important?

1. It’s visual and therefore memorable.
2. It can be shared with one click on Facebook, Twitter, email, or embedded into blogs and web-pages, and discussed face-to-face using downloads on a mobile phone.

3. It’s an ideal medium for storytelling.
4. Jesus used storytelling, not bible exposition, to reach outsiders. None of his parables embedded the entire gospel – instead they communicated byte-sized elements of truth, in a conversation-starting, thought-provoking, open-ended, contextualized, visual story. (Visual in the sense that a good storyteller paints a visual picture in the minds of the hearers.)

But surely I need lots of training and expensive equipment?

There’s free training and editing software available – and like most things, we learn by doing. Even an average digital camera or high-end smart phone can produce very acceptable video: watch the videos here, all shot on mobiles.

Check these Top 10 Video Production Tips. Among them: Keep It Short. 5 minutes is plenty long enough for most purposes. 3 minutes often better. Less is more. Watch how tv adverts can tell an entire story in 30 seconds, with much of the message embedded in the visual action, sets, and facial expressions, rather than the dialogue. (Not that outreach video should have the sense and feel of an advert, but we must learn from the experts of this storytelling style.)

Creatives, youth groups, missions – let’s start making clips!

Churches, why not demonstrate how to embed YesHEIs.com and Global Short Film Network video clips into Facebook with one click. A 5-minute live-web digital-projector session during a service will help members understand just how easy it is.

Free ebooks – last call

Last call to get free e-book downloads during May Digital Outreach Month – for instance Netcasters, Craig von Buseck’s valuable study of the opportunities of digital evangelism, and God Space, Doug Pollock’s vital explanation of non-formulaic, non-preachy, non-offputting conversational evangelism, equally applicable to online and offline sharing, and many more.

The highly-recommended Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk is now available, as a free Kindle download. Sorry, this download offer only applies to US residents accessing the Amazon US site, and not, as I had hoped, worldwide. If you try to access it from other countries, and use the one-click download, you will be charged the normal price. Don’t click the download button unless you can see the price showing as 0.00 – unless of course you want to pay for the book.

Note: if you do not have a Kindle, you can still download Kindle books. Just install the free software from Amazon onto your computer, Android device or iPhone, and you are ready to go. Amazon offers a number of free classic titles, and these are surprisingly easy to read even on a mobile phone.

Please tell others on Facebook and Twitter

Please tell others about these books, using these ready-made one-click links for Facebook and Twitter. (You can change the hashtag in your tweet to reflect any interest group or community you belong to.)

Christian media producer CVC is exploiting the exponential growth of social media and online video. Their new YesHEIs.com website offers Christians a categorised range of third-party evangelistic video clips. Here at last is a one-stop source of approved conversation-starting video clips we can easily share on Facebook (or other social media), embed in a blog, or download to a smartphone to share one-to-one.

This resource is strategic and powerful, because it combines the power of visual story as video clips, with the opportunity to start conversations within an existing social network of relationships. I cannot over-stress its significance for biblical, relational, discussion-based evangelism.

At last! And no technical knowledge needed

Of course, posting video clips into Facebook is not new, but up to now, few people would have known where to find suitable video clips, or even how to add them to Facebook along with their own introductory comments. At last, here is a one-stop site for every Christian Facebook user, that requires zero technical knowledge.

Why not take 5 minutes to demonstrate YesHEIs.com live on digital projector to your church members during a meeting? And share it as widely as you can – you are welcome to republish this blog post. Join their Facebook Group too. The team are planning more developments and enhancements which will be announced there.

Read YesHEIs.com’s brochure and news release.

Try it out, and add your feedback using the ‘Comment’ link below. Avoid the temptation to overkill! Less is more. Choose clips wisely, and post appropriately. Not-yet-Christian Facebook friends are unlikely to feel positively about a constant stream of new clips. Neither do they want to sense that they are your ‘project’. Video is not a substitute for relationship building.

4-min video about YesHEIs.com:

Cartoons, comics and animations are a key means of evangelism, as ‘The blind missionaries’ cartoon itself portrays clearly. Why are they so important? I suggest because:

• Visual is memorable and understandable: “The soul never thinks without a picture.” – Aristotle
• Visual story is often the best way to communicate anything – that’s why Jesus always used it for evangelism to outsiders, painting pictures with words.
• Many people are not comfortable with reading or learning through text. Oral communication cultures have always liked visual stories, and our digital communication culture is increasingly visual-story based.
• In many cultures, eg Japan, cartoons and animations are used for adult fiction rather than for children’s stories (eg. Toy Story) that adults can also enjoy.
• Single frame cartoons are a great way to make humor visible, and humor is a biblical way to communicate and smuggle truth into people’s hearts. See our page on humor with two free e-books about humor and the gospel.

Training

There will be a School of Cartooning and Animation for Missions starting 1 July, 2011, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The application deadline is May 31, so if you plan to take the school, it’s good to start the application process early. These are vital skills for evangelism and discipleship. More details:

Check also Comix35 offering regular shorter training sessions around the world, plus other links and resources. They will be doing manga/anime workshops at the Reaching Japanese for Christ conference this week, and at the bilingual Comics Event 7-10 April, Lac-Brome, Quebec: details from Martine: martineb [at] evqmedia [dot] com

They produce a comic book for Francophone Africa (by Africans, for Africans) in partnership with Publications pour la Jeunesse Africaine (PJA) and ‘Jouv’Afrique; and are launching The Christian Manga-ka Contest – it’s open to all Japanese who are amateur Christian manga creators.

Try it yourself

There are various ways to create short animated video clips to post on YouTube and Facebook etc. Great project for the creatives in a youth group, for instance. Stop-motion or time-lapse is easy with many cameras, and fun to do. Clay-mation (example: Wallace and Grommit), is time-consuming but rewarding. You can also use services such as Stickfigure animator, Pivot Stickfigure or Stykz for stick figures, or XtraNormal, WebAnimator or FluxTime to build other short animations. Think ‘story’, ‘question-starting’, ‘humor’, ‘dialogue’, not ‘preaching’, ‘presentation’ and ‘altar call’.

Examples

The Manga Bible uses the Japanese manga style to communicate the Bible, a hugely significant initiative. (It’s also available in English.)

Short animations (and other video clips) have huge potential as conversation starters, posted on YouTube, blogs or downloaded into mobile phones for face-to-face discussion.

Alma, a prize-winning animation by Rodrigo Blaas, is hugely compelling. And chilling. A visual metaphor of entrapment. A real discussion starter – it would be useful to show, for example, to a youth group. Or as a embedded clip within a website, asking questions. There is so much to see and analyze within it, with spiritual parallels and warnings. ‘Alma’ means ‘soul’ in Spanish.

Check the excellent video resources from Global Short Film Network. These take the same approach – thought-provoking, question-starting video shorts.

Anime

The anime style of cartoon animation is very popular in Japan and throughout Asia. Essentially, it is animation drawn in the manga style. In the West, it is probably best known through the wonderful films from Studio Ghibli – here’s a trailer compilation of their full-length films:

Finding parallels

By transporting us to a magical world that is not quite our normal reality, perhaps animations have a special opportunity to engage with our hearts and express spiritual truths, even unintentionally.

Here’s last year’s mainstream movie release The Illusionist, by master animator Sylvain Chomet. (Don’t confuse with the 2006 movie of the same name.) Painfully beautiful, and quintessentially French (though set mainly in Edinburgh), it expresses the French melancholy (la tristesse) of lost opportunities, isolation and pain. There are various spiritual parallels to be drawn from the story, which can be used in reviews, blogs, Facebook, or face-to-face. Hollywood Jesus offers some lessons from the film. To me, one parallel is the short-sightedness of taking up faith as a teen, only to lay it down again when ‘something better’ comes along. Another is that lost opportunities and isolation can be healed in Jesus. You will doubtless perceive more.

Further extracts are available in a longer trailer containing interview with Chomet; check also the (French language) official site (the film is available in both English and French though in fact there is very little dialogue).

In Europe, The Illusionist 2010 has now been released on DVD. North America will have to wait (though pre-order is possible) as movie theater release was later, in December.

A short allegory on seeking non-seekers:

Read story online: it can be freely reproduced in print or online.
Other short stories available: The Lost Keys | Desperately Seeking Lodgers | Golf Parable | Digital Rivers Newtown | also available: free articles.

Right-click to download video in WMV format: HD 1080p (20Mb) | HD 720p (14Mb) | 640×480 (10Mb) | Mobile 320×240 (8Mb) | more free mission challenge videos to download.

David Kiern writes, “I directed a Christian adventure documentary titled Journey to Everest that is premiering worldwide in churches on July 11. It is free for any church to show the movie, plus they can use the film as a fundraising tool and raise money for their church or missions trips.” Watch trailer

Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be released in December at long last. It is said to stick much more closely to the book than did Prince Caspian. Watch trailer.

And if you like French cinema or Studio Ghibli, there’s a treat in store – The Illusionist, a new animation by Sylvain Chomet. Hand-drawn, it’s getting excellent reviews. (Don’t confuse with the 2006 movie of the same name.) Nag your local cinema to show it! Watch trailer below or on YouTube:

Further extracts are available in longer trailer containing interview with Chomet, and the (French language) official site (the film is available in both English and French).

The film will surely contain embedded spiritual parallels – because almost all stories do – thereby giving us yet another starting point in popular culture. The plot (judging from the advance reviews), seems to have echoes of Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico, a sensitive and evocative author who could convincingly create French and Italian settings as well as those in England and Scotland. Some of his titles are still in print, all are widely available second-hand. Full of spiritual parallels too. Treat yourself. Or family and friends – then borrow them back! Sad that it’s many years since his stories made it to either big or small screen – in this medium he is only remembered for The Poseidon Adventure, which was doubtless specifically written as a Hollywood disaster blockbuster, and is very different to his smaller whimsical personal plots. It would be good to see some of his books on screen. C’mon Walden Media and BBC Drama, or animation studios! You can do it.

If you watch Everest or Illusionist, please add your own review using the comment link below.

It’s not often that a completely new town is built on unused open land. But that’s where Digital Rivers Newtown was constructed, in a previously undiscovered valley. People soon came flooding in to live, moving from surrounding settlements such as Printville and TVtown.

A new ethos of communication quickly developed, with its own dialect. The immigrants took a little time to learn it, but for their children born in Digital Rivers, it was as natural as breathing.

Alongside the new housing came shops. Quite soon, the Broogle store developed into the biggest and most popular on main street. Its biggest competitor, the BingHoo mall, had a smaller share of the market.

Broogle had little interest in selling food and drink, and allocated no space in their building to such a frivolous pursuit. So everyone was pleased when a student started selling coffee and fruit drinks from a coffee cart on the other side of the road. Mike Zuckerbook’s Coffee became wildly popular and he was soon able to rent a new cafe opposite Broogle’s. His unique selling point was the layout of the tables, enabling customers to talk to a wide range of friends over their drinks. Mike was continually extending the cafe floor area to cater for the growth.

Then came developments that shocked Broogle’s owners. Mike started to sell some of the same products that they did, as well as others they had never thought of. No longer did residents merely drop in to Zuckerbook’s for a quick coffee after shopping at Broogle’s. People could often be seen walking down the street towards Broogle’s, notice their friends popping into Zuckerbook’s – or smell the coffee – and quickly cross the road. After an hour or so, they might emerge from Zuckerbook’s and perhaps cross over into Broogle’s for five minutes, if at all.

Digital Rivers was changing fast. Its residents were finding their own new incarnation of the interactive grapevine that has existed within communities for millennia.

This story, of course, references Google and Facebook (Google’s founders were Brin and Page; Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook). The phenomenal rise and rise of Facebook seems set to continue. Perhaps half of all web users will have Facebook profiles within a year, certainly the figure is already near 100% for younger ‘digital’ people.

Increasingly, Facebook is becoming a ‘web within the Web’ – a one-stop resource creating less need to go into the wider web world so frequently. (This is a reflection, in some ways, of the proprietary content that AOL and Compuserve used to offer to their subscribers in the early days of the Web.)

Recent developments by Facebook are enabling more types of third-party content to be integrated into Facebook profiles and fan pages. Expect to see further dramatic developments in this area, making Facebook even more of a one-stop universal resource. The opportunities for FB fan, community pages and groups will continue to expand.

Despite its various quirks, Facebook is now a powerful yet easy opportunity for any web user to share faith online.

FREE As with any of our stories, please re-use, with attribution, online or in print.

Check also this computer-related parable from Oikos Ministries.