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August 2009
Why Short Films Don’t Work in Church
by Stewart H. Redwine
For most of our lives, almost every American has been part of an enormous classical conditioning experiment. We have learned how to view, appreciate, and enjoy watching TV and movies. I’m not talking about the types of programs we watch, but rather the way they are delivered to us. Whether we know it or not, we expect a television show to be 30-60 minutes in duration, with commercial breaks; and, a feature film to be somewhere between 1-3 hours in length. Like Pavlov’s famous dogs salivating at the sound of a bell whether there was food or not, once a short film starts playing in a Church service, powerful conditioned responses kick in.
I experience this “Ring the Bell/Feed the Dog” moment myself every time someone wants to show me a video on YouTube. Because the content medium of YouTube is so new, I have no conditioned response for what to expect. The first place my eye goes is the total running time. I want to know how long the video is. My guess is you do the exact same thing. Since we know how long a TV show or movie “feels” we can pretty much gauge how far along in the story we are at any given time. Unless of course the mounting tension or brain numbing boredom of a TV show or movie is more then we can bear. Then we check the clock, we want to know how much longer we have to endure before we find out who falls in love, dies, or gets voted off the show.
The problem with short films shown in a Church service is simply this; no one knows when the video will end. The only things remotely close to short films in mainstream media are music videos and commercials. Since MTV introduced the music video to us almost 30 years ago we have all grown to accept a fundamental truth of the medium, a song drives almost every second of images on the screen. The conditioned response here is, if a video is 3-6 minutes in length it must be driven by a song. Therefore, if we happen to watch a short film and there is no song driving the visuals, we are salivating for a meal that will never show up. Then there is the commercial, 30-60 seconds to make a point stick. The guys selling soap do it in 30 seconds almost every time. The conditioned response, why in the world would you need to make a “short film” any longer then a commercial? Ruff!
Six years ago, I was on staff at a church, and I would watch the congregation watch my videos. It typically took them about 15-30 seconds to get into a video, and it took just as long for them accept it was longer than a commercial. They had no idea what they were watching. Of course they knew they weren’t watching something as long as a movie or TV show but beyond that they were at a loss. It was then that I began to encourage the Pastors to set up each video in more detail. I had a hard time getting my point across; people don’t know what they are watching.
The dangerous assumption was that the congregation was made up of people from a media saturated culture so they would figure it out. No one wanted to insult the congregation’s intelligence by holding their hand through a viewing experience. But that is exactly what needs to be done in order to overcome the deep-seated conditioned responses that are re-enforced every other day of the week. If you are going to show short films at your church I would suggest you or your Pastor do these six things.
1. Pray that watching the short film benefits you and your congregation.
2. Tell the congregation how long the video is going to be and that there will be 30-seconds of silence after the video to allow people to think about what they watched and read a scripture passage related to the video.
3. Explain to them what they are going to see and/or put a description in your bulletin. Remember, they aren’t choosing this short film - you chose it for them.
4. After the video plays, allow 30-seconds for them to think about the video and read a scripture passage related to the video.
5. Explain what you just watched. And if you are up for it be willing to field a couple questions.
6. Continue using short films.
Think of short films as more than just programming or content for your service, this is a cultural vehicle waiting to be driven. The medium of short films is truly an emerging art form and Christians are uniquely poised to become leaders in how they will be defined. If we continue to use short films and demand them, more Christian filmmakers will emerge and learn the skills they need to get the jobs in Hollywood, where they can impact culture to a greater extent. A few hundred years ago stained glass could have been used for anything. But if you ask Pavlov he’ll tell you stained glass is the unique artistic territory of the Church. Ring the Bell. Feed the Dog.
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