Pigeons, I was thinking about preaching for the camera and thought I’d record my thoughts on camera! You know, just a li’l chit chat on a Sunday night while I sit too close to the camera and look like a cow head (I’m not insulting myself – the camera really does distort your schnoz).
PeaceBang’s Big Old Talking Head On Preaching For the Camera
You are so brave. Even with the self-critic dunning you, there you are, talking to us. And on a Sunday night, no less. Who wrote that wonderful thing for the Christian Century a few years ago, telling us that Sunday night was invented specifically FOR THE PREACHER TO LET GO OF HIS/HER SERMON. Eg., getting over yourself – how disappointed you were, how fab you were, how you wish you’d said…
And so here you are, not only doing that, but starting a new conversation. Yay! As you were winding up, talking about how much video preaching can fall short, be too distant, artificial etc, I could see how authentically YOU were coming across in this video. I was reminded of writing advice from Brenda Ueland’s 1939 book, “If You Want to Write” – one of my all-time faves. She says to write as if you are speaking to someone who loves you. Someone who is curious about what you have to say, who encourages you to say more. She was writing that to scared beginners to snap them out of their stiff, self-conscious, worried writing. Which is exactly where lots of us – who are pretty confident writing and preaching – may be in doing a new medium, like video. (Okay, lots of us = me.) In this video, you were speaking to us that way, and it would seem like a great approach for the video sermon. Which someone, somewhere, is going to call a “vermin”, and then we will have to shoot ourselves.
That’s all.
I second the Right Rev Gidget’s opinion.
You do project warmth and connection in your video. Why I just want to take you down to the coffee house down the block and let’s go hang out and tell stories. And isn’t that how theology starts, by us telling each other our stories?
BTW This is a good idea to develop in both ordained and lay church leaders. Who knows when the local camera crew is going to show up at your Food Pantry when you’ve just dashed off on a pastoral call to the hospital leaving your deeply loved, reliable and trusted congregants in charge?
No, no, dear Right Rev. Gidget. If some wiseacre call this kind of sermon a ‘vermin’, we will have to shoot THEM. With a water pistol containing really *horrible* perfume….that;ll teach ’em..
picky comment but the glasses you were wearing didn’t show up as clear in the video – to me it looked as if they were the kind that darken in the light –
otherwise I could see that I would appreciate a well done video sermon – I liked it that you were close up so I didn’t get that talking head feeling- I felt as if you were talking directly to me
Agree with the previous kudos and add how impressed I am with your self-discipline in keeping your eyes ‘on us’ — in other words, NOT looking down at the screen at the little box of yourself. That seems to be a common problem for many novice online videographers and is awkward to watch.
Hey PB! I’ve been reading you for years, almost since the start of my vocational journey, and I’ve continued to read even after I got a ‘no, the ordained ministry is not for you’ because you’re so brilliant and engaging and wise and funny. [Thank you, sweetie! – PB]
Your video was really interesting, and the reason for that is: you.
Your warmth and connection to us, your making eye contact (lens contact?), your coherence and lack of pauses and ‘umm’s (did you edit it, or was that all in one take? Because if the former, wow, that was pretty brilliant.*) [That was BRILLIANT? WOW!! I will so take that!! Thank you!! I feel like my blinks are 20 seconds long and other awkward things. – PB]
You are wonderful.
I’ve done lay preaching and I’ve done video reviews, though I’ve never done video preaching, but a lot of the stuff I did wrong (oh, so wrong) when I started making video reviews applies to video preaching too. Like Over Enunciating. Every. Single. Word. I’ve mostly stopped that now.
I’m guessing technical issues are probably not what you want to talk about?
In which case, there’s only one thing to say to aspiring video preachers (or…televangelists, I guess):
Practice. And then watch. And keep watching till your automatic cringe factor stops kicking in (it will happen, I swear). Then practice and watch some more.
I make my reviews from scratch: the writing, the presenting, the editing, everything. After four hours editing a video, you get pretty used to your presence on camera and the sound of your own voice.
Having watched and practiced and watched, get someone else (who’s tactful but honest, preferably) to watch and give you pointers.
For the physical setup of the shots, anything from closeup (just your head) to medium shot (from the waist up) works, depending on what you want to do (and how much you want to gesture too)
*Ooh, and, also, if you can’t do the whole thing in one take (which is totally fine) then ask whoever’s editing to take out the pauses. Not all of the pauses, obviously. Not the ‘I am giving you time to think about this’ pauses. But the ‘I have forgotten what I was saying and need to clear my throat and look at my notes’ kind. They can do that.