Looks like the Visual Bible's got competition. WorldNetDaily.com is selling a 12-DVD set called the WatchWORD Bible New Testament which features all 27 books of the New Testament "with dynamic text on screen, inspiring narration, thousands of scenes, special effects, original music and sound effects."

What that all means in practice, I don't exactly know, but apparently you can buy The Book of Revelation on its own, since it "won two awards in its prophetic premiere at the 2000 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival," which would seem to suggest that this isn't JUST some church-ghetto product. FWIW, the NIIF&VF website describes the film as "the world's first true cinema book," so who knows.

Interestingly, running a search for "watchword" at Amazon.com turns up only The Gospel of Mark, which can apparently be bought separately; and a search for "revelation" turns up a baker's dozen of films, but not this one.

So ... anybody seen any of these? got anything to say about them? know of any reviews?

I know nothing, but the Gospel of Mark sounds interesting, as its the only book not to have been done elsewhere.

I've actually been mulling over the idea of editing together a Mark using the orginal bits of VB's Matthew. Then I realised that the bit that interested me was thow to film the ending (e.g. including all the endings, but using different voiceovers, and editing techniques for the final shots).

This is all in an imaginary world btw. I'm not a film maker and wouldn't rip off VB except perhaps for my own amusement. Besides its way too much hassle, but it could be fun if it were easier to do. Its a fun idea, eventhough it would probably be really tedious. Actually it would be the filming of all the scenes which would hacve to feature "Mark" instead of "Matthew" that would be difficult


Anyway...

I found this quote from that link interesting

"The WatchWORD Bible is compelling to watch – a chapter a day or more! Instant chapter selection on DVD"

Its interesting that this really is framing itself as a visual presentation of the bible rather than a film (as the visual bible does). It has no pretensions of this being a complete thing you'd sit down to watch. it just watching the bible rather than reading it.

Also wondered if banging them off in a short period of time means that they'll all have the same Jesus? FWIW the IMDb is listing Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus (Jesus from Gospel of John) for their "Gospel of Mark"

Matt

Interesting idea for Mark. Where are you gonna find the naked guy in Gethsemane?

The bits that get me about this WatchWORD thing are phrases like "dynamic text on screen" and "the world's first true cinema book" -- it's not really clear to me just how much of a FILM this is. Will there be ANY actors? Or just extras in costumes, wandering about here and there? How will this compare to Johnny Cash's The Gospel Road? That sort of thing.

It sounds like a theoretical nightmare. I have a hard time thinking of scripture outside of the act of reading, and even outside of the act of reading within a community of interpretation that has already been formed by the text. Your question PTC as to whether this is really even a film is a good one. Just another example of the Christian consensus that films are just "easy books."