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The previous blog in this series focused on “long shot” (“big picture”) editing, specifically, revision tasks related to changing scenes and cutting. This final blog in the series zooms in to “medium-shot” and “close-up” editing. I realize that not all preachers have time to focus on revisions every week. While I cannot offer extra time, I can offer recommendations from filmmakers to preachers who have only 30 or 45 minutes to revise their sermon prior to Sunday morning. Medium-Shot Revisions Choose one major move/section of the sermon and focus on setting the scene with vivid language that sparks a variety of senses. The preacher does this by first visualizing the scene and providing a “thick description.” Filmmakers can be helpful guides since they make hundreds of choices in order to provide scenes that create the desired impact on the viewers. Looking carefully at their craft can hone the preacher’s skills for description. Try this exercise: Choose a scene from a favorite film. Press pause and write your responses to the following questions. Where is the scene? How do you know? What objects appear in the scene? What details give you clues about the characters in the scene? What is the major color scheme in the scene? What mood does it create? What do you think happened just prior to this scene and what is likely to happen after? What in the scene involves your hearing? your sense of smell? Now go back to the major move in the sermon and describe your scene using the same prompts. This process helps you visualize the scene so that you can describe it in a way that helps your hearers visualize it . . . without a screen. Writer Janet Burroway summarizes this well: “The first requisite of effective setting is to know it fully, to experience it mentally; and the second is to create it through significant detail.”[1] One caveat: refrain from getting carried away with details that don’t actually advance the main trajectory of the sermon. In other words, not everything from the exercise will appear in the sermon. Keep only those descriptors that move you to the next section. Close-Up Revisions We now zoom in on individual phrases and words. The art of choosing just the right word is not lost on the preacher. In fact, sometimes we agonize over just the right word. I would like to recommend that preachers spend time on the particular phrases that serve as transitions from one major move (section) to the other. Once again, films can assist. Take a segment of the film you engaged above and watch the film until you’ve identified two to three scene changes. Once you’ve done that, take a closer look at the transitions themselves. How does the filmmaker guide us from one scene to the next? Are there hints in the previous scene that we will be moving to a new scene? Or, is the scene change abrupt? If so, why? What effect does an abrupt scene change have on a viewer? Once you’ve engaged the transitions in the film, return to your sermon draft to analyze its transitions using similar questions. The first step is to make sure that there are transitions. Second, identify the roles the transitions play. In his book, The Witness of Preaching, homiletician Tom Long suggests that connectors (his word for transitions) accomplish four communication tasks: provide closure for previous segment indicate how upcoming section is related to previous anticipate the content of the next section helps listeners adopt a stance Finally, be creative and not clichéd. There are common transitions that belong specifically to the genre of sermons, for example, “In today’s gospel reading . . .” You’ve heard it. You’ve said it.  But why not be more creative, especially since when you begin to talk about Peter, we know you are referring to the section of scripture that was just read. Instead, if you are transitioning from a contemporary story to something that happened with Jesus and disciples, try this: “We weren’t the first to be in awe of Jesus’ capacity to calm the treacherous seas of life. The disciples saw it first-hand . . .”  Again, while I cannot gift preachers extra time, I hope these recommendations, gleaned from the wisdom of filmmakers and their work on the screen, might at least offer some editing possibilities if and when preachers find they have extra moments once they’ve got their “rough cut” on the page. [1] Janet Burroway, Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft (147).

In the first blog of this series (readers are encouraged to read this introductory blog, “Nobody Goes to the Cinema to Read the Screenplay,” HERE), I noted that I’ve tried to boost my multimedia literacy by becoming a student of the cinema and seeking convergences between filmmaking and homiletics. The second blog introduced the importance of audience impact in filmmaking (and especially “impact teams”) as a model for encouraging preachers to find out the impact a sermon actually has had on their hearers’ lives (find Part II HERE). It’s time now to turn to editing, an important step in both filmmaking and preaching. As effortless as it might seem, “a film is a universe where chance is never an excuse for anything . . . it is a series of hundreds of very particular decisions, and every single one of them must be felt. That is the agony and the satisfaction of the process.”[1] The same is true in preaching. (Unfortunately, sometimes the “agony” bit as well.) Instead of chance, we might talk about the Holy Spirit. But even then, it is often said that crafting sermons is “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” Part of the 90% is coming up with content, but another part is the arrangement of that content. That’s where editing comes in. Two big picture editing tasks have to do with changing scenes and cutting. Scene changes A lesson in scene changes begins with the script. Look at a film script and you will find that screenwriters indicate a scene change as such: INT. NIXON TEAM OBSERVATION ROOM – DAY – (1977) Soon thereafter might be a similar notation: INT. FROST TEAM OBSERVATION ROOM – DAY – (1977) Every time the scene changes (even simply from the interior of a room indicated as “INT” to the exterior indicated as “EXT” or, in this case, from one interior observation room to another), the screenwriter makes such a notation. In the homiletics classroom, it is instructive to have the screenplay in hand while watching the scene to become more observant of these changes. When the editor has done a successful job, we hardly even notice such changes when immersed in the film. While preachers want hearers to have this experience, it will not be a seamless one if, in the crafting process, preachers are not aware of the scene changes and the sense-making they serve. Therefore, literally inserting scene directions like these in our sermon scripts (as a reminder, I call them scripts) is one step (and not a very time consuming one) in the revision process. This helps us see if scenes are changing too often or not enough, or if they are in the right order. So, for example, one might see the following in a sermon script. EXT. SEA OF GALILEE – DAY – (30 C.E.) After a move highlighting the disciples strengthened relationship with Jesus, the preacher might remind her congregation about a recent congregational gathering organized for the purpose of strengthening their relationship with Jesus. The preacher would add the following to the script:  INT. FIRST LUTHERAN FELLOWSHIP HALL – DAY – (2019) It often comes as a surprise to preachers to see how many times they flip back and forth between the 1st c. and the 21st c. in only one paragraph of writing. The result creates a kind of “homiletical jet lag” for the hearer and, therefore, needs to be edited. If preachers do keep the back-and-forth nature between centuries, transitional phrases become very important as “establishing shots.” Unlike the filmmaker, the preacher typically does not have a visual to suggest such a change. The visual must be created with words. A common (if not somewhat cliché) transition is, “just like the disciple, we . . .” At least this serves to move the hearer from the 1st c. to the present. Cutting Pardon the violent imagery, but “Kill Your Darlings” is the phrase used to exhort creatives to get rid of one’s pet (some say “self-indulgent”) scenes in order to serve “the greater good of the work.” In the same way that filmmakers know that movie-goers will not sit for a 4-hour film (nor will their budgets allow for it), preachers know the time expectations of their parishioners. A one-hour worship service likely requires a sermon that is no longer than 15 minutes. So, using best practices from filmmaking, teachers can teach the following steps to student preachers. First, return to the importance of impact; in preaching, this is called the sermon’s function. Make sure each move of the sermon advances that hoped-for impact and cut everything that does not. While that opening joke might get a laugh, if it does not guide people to a deeper relationship with Jesus, cut it. Second, rethink too much exposition of background story. Think: less is more. The film editor discovers it may not be necessary to run through a montage that begins with the moment of the protagonist’s birth, followed up with a wide shot of a current house before getting to the argument with one’s kids in the living room. Staying close on the body language during the living room dialogue, with an occasional shot of the photographs on the mantel, will give us the idea that there is a backstory. The same is true in preaching. The preacher need not reiterate the entire story that was just read a few minutes earlier. After offering an “establishing shot” followed by a transitional phrase, zoom in to the action of the scene of the living room. Let the hearers fill in the surroundings after you’ve given them what they need in order to do so. Now, I suspect many preachers hardly have enough time just to come up with something to say Sunday after Sunday, much less spend time in the “editing room.” As a teacher of preaching, I tell students that while I cannot give them time, I can teach steps for revising if and when they have even small bits of time. If nothing else, I encourage them to watch more films with an eye toward editing and impact, and perhaps some tools will serve their homiletical practices. [1] Jon Boorstin, Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker (Los Angeles, Silman-James Press), 6.

In the first blog of this series (“Nobody Goes to the Cinema to Read the Screenplay"), I noted that I’ve tried to boost my multimedia literacy by becoming a student of the cinema and seeking convergences between filmmaking and homiletics for the purposes of enlivening the preached word, communicating the gospel, and impacting hearers and their/our world. One of the most delightful ways of boosting cinema literacy is by attending film festivals and their accompanying “talks.” At a recent documentary film festival, I heard about “Impact Teams,” and knew immediately that this is one of those impactful (!) convergences between filmmaking and preaching. Preaching professors guide students toward paying careful attention to their hearers and identifying what impact their preaching might have on them. Noted homiletician Thomas Long encourages preachers to identify a one-sentence “function statement” for each sermon.[1] This statement identifies what a preacher wants the sermon to do to/for the hearers in light of what the biblical text does and in light of what is known about the hearers and their lives. In other words, the preacher identifies the hoped-for impact of the sermon on individual hearers, the church, and maybe even the world. Often the first weeks of introductory preaching courses are dedicated to helping novice preachers get to a faithful function statement in order to craft a sermon that will do what the preacher (with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of course) hopes it will accomplish (e.g., inspire, comfort, challenge, motivate, encourage, etc.). A good place to begin is to help preachers identify the impact sermons have had on them. Because this task does not come easy (surprising as that might be), getting some distance from the discipline of homiletics altogether is often a helpful starting place. A Film’s Impact on the Viewer Have you ever wondered why the majority of people have a conversation with someone about the films they see and the majority of worshippers (so it seems) rarely talk about their worship experiences with another? Somehow, we’ve been culturally formed to identify a movie’s impact on us beyond “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” We’ve developed a sense that movies are supposed to affect us and in this age of expanding cinematic literacy we’ve gained the capacity to articulate such effects. The preaching classroom is served by taking the discussion one step further and exploring with students what created the impact, e.g. lighting creates mood, camera angle forces point of view, the pace of dialog might create a sense of immediacy. “The filmmaker organizes shots, camera movement, editing, and music to elicit certain reactions so that viewers will respond right on cue precisely as intended.”[2] Learning the techne of filmmaking points to the intentionality of a filmmaker seeking (unapologetically!) a hoped-for impact on the viewer. A Sermon’s Impact on the Hearer Grasping the cinematic intentionality of a filmmaker aids recognition of the homiletic intentionality of the preacher. What tools do preachers have to create mood or to adopt a point of view, for example? How can preachers choose and use these tools to accomplish the sermon’s hoped-for impact? Even beyond homiletical techne, students begin to develop an appreciation for the power of preaching. In other words, with some intentionality, sermons can do things. (It’s worth noting that intentionality can be Spirit-led and, therefore, need not be equated with manipulation as some have been led to believe.) Sermon Impact Teams While many preachers learn to embrace the need to identify their sermon’s hoped-for impact, far fewer preachers embrace the encouragement to find out what impact a sermon actually has had on their hearers. Preachers can learn from filmmakers in this regard as well. Not only do filmmakers work toward a desired impact, but they often have “impact teams” to find out how films affect their viewers. It doesn’t take blockbuster budgets for preachers to adopt sermon feedback practices in order to find out how their sermons are received by their hearers. •  Consider soliciting responses to two or three written feedback questions posed on the back of the bulletin. • Designate one table at the coffee hour following worship as the sermon roundtable where members of the “sermon impact team” facilitate conversation. It is important to remember that this is not the occasion for the preacher to receive ego strokes or ego strikes. Instead, consider asking simply, “What happened to you during the sermon today?,” “What in particular made this experience happen for you?” With a bit of coaching, congregation members will soon embrace the power of the pulpit for their lives. What has been said about the screen can most certainly true about the pulpit: Movies change us. . . We can benefit, in other words, from an honest dialog with movies that probe the affairs of life, even unpleasant or disturbing events and conditions. And we become better critics with deeper self-awareness through spirited post-movie discussions that make us consider our values and refine our point of view, and even sometimes challenge us to think differently.[3] [1] Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching, 3rd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), chapter 4. [2] William D. Romanowski, Cinematic Faith: A Christian Perspective on Movies and Meaning (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2019), 55. [3] As noted by Los Angeles film critic, Justin Chang. Romanowski, 26.

Introduction to the Series The cinema has become an important means of cultural communication, a contemporary language in need of understanding and explication . . . Some even believe that cinema studies is positioned to become the new MBA, a means of general preparation for careers in fields as diverse as law and the military.[1] Although multimedia literacy is not one of the accreditation standards for theological schools (yet!), add theological studies to the diverse fields mentioned in the quote above. As seminary education continues to follow the higher education trend toward online teaching and learning, instructors are recognizing the need to enhance their multimedia literacy. Minimally, it is important to note that many of our students are already literate in the contemporary language of cinema. Many students would agree with the following:  Movies serve not simply as a commodity but as a primary storytelling medium of the twenty-first century, interpreting reality for us, providing us with a common language, and acting as a type of cultural glue.[2] For many, “image” has replaced “text” as the central tool of communication. This substitution challenges theology’s centrality of the Word (text) and revives a longstanding love/hate relationship between the pious and images. The obstacles are especially palpable for an oral/aural ecclesial practice like preaching. After all, faith comes through hearing (Romans 10:17), not seeing, right? Despite such challenges, the Reformation spirit asks us theologians to embrace new means of communicating the gospel. Cinematic competency seems to be today’s printing press. So, in an attempt to meet students where they are (and teach others along the way), I’ve tried to boost my multimedia literacy by becoming a student of the cinema and seeking convergences between filmmaking and homiletics for the purposes of enlivening the preached word, communicating the gospel, and impacting hearers and their/our world. Part 1: Nobody Goes to the Cinema to Read the Screenplay Despite numerous obvious differences between the two fields that might render them too dissimilar for comparison (for example, films take years to produce and preachers generally have to squeeze sermon preparation into 6 busy days; films are primarily visual experiences, sermons are primarily aural experiences), preachers have much to learn from filmmakers. In this 4-part blog series, I will propose elements, concepts, and techniques from filmmaking that can serve preachers. We begin with this week’s reminder: Nobody goes to the cinema to read the screenplay . . . or even to hear it read. In the same way, nobody goes to worship to read a written sermon . . . or even watch the preacher read it. Oh, yes, people in the pews have become accustomed to the latter, but they should expect more from us preachers. You see preaching is inevitably a kind of performance. These two “p” words are often considered to be at odds since preaching is not solely for entertainment or to heighten the performers ego (to be sure, performers in a variety of arts, including film, expect their performances to move beyond these two outcomes as well). However, preaching is a performance in that it “completes, carries out, accomplishes” something, as its Old French etymology suggests (par-fournir). Indeed, preaching brings an experience to life. T.S. Eliot noted that “Literature was turning blood into ink.” Preaching, on the other hand, turns ink (the written biblical text) into blood; that is, it intends to bring the sacred text to life. Therefore, a sermon is a road map or a blue print for a transformational experience. “Road map” and “blueprint” are often used for screenplays as well. Preachers would do well to consider the following analogy from a screenwriter. However brilliant, [a screenplay is] always in a state of becoming, forever on the way to being something else—a film. You can admire a cocoon for its marriage of function and form, but ultimately it’s the butterfly that will make its way in the world.[3] Or, as another puts it, “. . . screenplays don’t really exist until they’re made into movies.”[4] In the same way, one might consider that a written sermon doesn’t really exist until it’s preached. So, how does this connection to the digital world guide the teaching of preaching? First and foremost, simply making the analogy explicit quickly resonates with preachers-to-be. Therefore, students are challenged to make their “scripts” (yes, I call them scripts) a means to an end, and not the ends themselves. Sermons that pay attention to sermon delivery from the beginning of the writing/crafting process tend to create more of an experience for and with the listeners. Such preaching has more of a chance to turn ink into blood and “make its way in the world.”   [1] Robert K. Johnston, Craig Detweiler, and Kutter Callaway. Deep Focus: Film and Theology in Dialogue, 11. [2] Deep Focus, 10. [3] Dan Gurskis. The Short Screenplay: Your Short Film from Concept to Production (Aspiring Filmmaker's Library), Kindle Edition, xii. [4] Joel Engel, Oscar-Winning Screenwriters on Screenwriting (New York: Hyperion), 2. 

Some things are best expressed digitally. When the Wabash Center's "Teaching with Digital Media" Workshop challenged my preoccupation with using text to explain visual concepts, I decided to create a video rather than typing a "Dos and Don'ts" list for students in preaching courses. With the help of two savvy graduate assistants, we produced this VLOG. Spoiler alert: everyone survives!  

I have often assumed that students have more facility with technology than I do. Unfortunately, this assumption has been wrong and student learning has paid the price. So now, when there is likely to be a steep learning curve for some students relative to equipment (like recording on the iPhone) or a platform (like Vimeo) or learning management system (like Moodle), I integrate facility with technology into course assignments. For example, in a semester-long, face-to-face preaching course, students must record and post their third sermons into Moodle after preaching them in a local congregation. Unfortunately, I realized that even with weeks (if not months) of notice that such a requirement is upon them, many students would spend more time worrying about equipment failure than the sermon itself. Then after preaching they would spend hours trying to upload their sermon onto a video sharing platform only to run into trouble posting on the university’s learning management system. Even more, my teaching assistants’ available hours were being used up troubleshooting for anxious students and tech-savvy students were reaching the end of their willingness to assist classmates (and ashamed to admit some resentment).  Clearly an interruption in the cycle was needed and the onus was on me to be the interrupter. What follows is an iteration of my new m.o. I continue the practice of letting students know early in the semester (essentially, the first day) that they will be responsible for recording and posting sermons. But now, my very next sentence is, “And, know that by the time you get to sermon three you will have had numerous opportunities to increase your facility with the technology that is needed to fulfill that part of the assignment.” At that point, I turn the class over to a teaching assistant who introduces herself, articulates the extent to which she will be available to provide tech assistance, notes the portion of the syllabus that clearly outlines the technological requirements for the course, and distributes a “how to record and post videos of sermons” handout. Perhaps the most helpful change I made was to adapt an assignment in week three. I replaced the typical online text-based discussion forum with a visual post. In other words, instead of typing their response to the weeks’ reading, they posted a two-minute video. While this low-stakes assignment had a desired deadline, students were not penalized if they were late if they were having tech troubles. The TA was available to meet with students in pairs or groups of three to assist with their recordings and postings. Lo and behold, the discussion on the material was already beginning as students honed their recorded reflections. This assignment gave us a sense of how many (and who) might need additional tech assistance. We set up out-of-class tutoring sessions accordingly. By this point, everyone had already succeeded, albeit with some assistance.. Additional unforeseen blessings were 1) the posts were much more animated and creative than usual, which yielded more engaging discussion threads; and 2) students had begun to overcome the squeamishness of seeing themselves on video and hearing their recorded voices. A second major change is one I wish I would have discovered a decade ago. For the first two sermons in the class, I would operate the camera and a teaching assistant would post the videos. Of course, I got into this habit because I started teaching preaching before everyone carried around their own device (yes, there was such a time!). Now that nearly (!) everyone has such equipment readily available, it would be a wasted learning opportunity for students (and a waste of my energy and time) not to utilize it. Therefore, every student takes responsibility for being the camera operator for one peer. Not only is this valuable for the camera operator, but an additional benefit is that the preacher practices communicating his/her needs (e.g., location of camera, desired angle), which is good preparation for enlisting a helper in the congregation. While the stakes are getting higher, we set up a backup camera just in case a preacher forgets to charge his battery or a fellow classmate forgets to push “record.” Once again students have to transfer the digital recording to a platform that can be easily accessed on Moodle. At this point, we review and emphasize the handout’s recommended privacy settings.  After repeating this process for one additional in-class sermon, students are well prepared to plan for recording sermon three. They are enjoying a sense of accomplishment and getting credit for it! Even more, they can now focus on preparing faithful and impactful sermons for the congregational setting, instead of anxiously anticipating their technical demands.