The Bible as a Screenplay - 2

FILM-MAKING HAS LEVELS





Recently I went to a 10 day film school - and to be honest I was out of my league with some of the folks there, but I learned heaps.

I came away feeling better equipped in the opportunity of making short films for a ministry context, but better than that, the time gave me an insight into the art of film-making and how it can serve as an excellent paradigm for spiritual formation.

The first thing to realize is that there are so many levels to this art - writing, producing, directing, cinematography, acting, audio, editing ... not to mention the myriad of roles on a film crew and then the response of the audience.

This multiple-faceted nature of film-making alone attracts me to the notion of seeing the Bible as "the screenplay of God's story", but the three key levels of this process are what's most helpful.

1. Level one - the screenplay - this answers the question, "what is the story?"

2. Level two - the shoot - this answers the question, "what can this story look like?"

3. Level three - the edit - this answers the question, "how do we best tell this story?"

There are some immediate objections that arise in my mind if the metaphor of film-making is used for the story of God, especially around our understanding of screenplay and editing. Keep reading this series and help me deal with some of these objections.

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