Resource Review - Videos/TV Shows/Toons That Teach

(This is part of a year long series of resource reviews I've been doing. 52 resources in 52 weeks. You can see all the reviews in one place here)

Videos That Teach, TV Shows That Teach, Toons That Teach A series of books to help use video clips in your youth ministry.

OVERALL - Three resources that all offer the same help. How to find and use video/TV clips in your ministry as ways to approach topics and start discussion

WHAT'S IT ABOUT? Videos That Teach started all this with Doug Fields and Eddie James doing the first book of 75 movies. That series is now up to four volumes. Then Eddie teamed up with his partner from The Skit Guys(who probably should have gotten their own review in this series, sorry guys!), Tommy Woodard, to create the TV Shows That Teaches with 100 episodes to draw from and then Stephen Case (author of The Book of UnCommon Prayer) jumped in with Toons That Teach (75 clips). All of these guys are top quality and well known folks. And this can be a great resource to keep on the shelf. You get a variety of options on topics for each clip, suggested questions plus the exact timing to find the clip when you need it. Very complete and very useful. Check out the multiple formats you can get these in as well (paperback, ebook, etc)

RESERVATIONS Hmmmm, don't know. Sometimes the topics don't seem to match my thoughts on the clips but that's hardly their fault. Really nothing too serious to question at all.

RECOMMENDATION I'll be honest and say I've only used the first Videos book personally. The quality of the authors leaves me with no reservations at all about recommending the entire bunch however. This is a great piece to use as a regular part of your ministry or to keep as a last minute emergency resource too (not TOO last minute, you still need to get a copy of the video or whatever!)

Perfect expression of my geekiness

This pretty much covers most of what makes me a geek. I love it!




I don't know if it will work here but on the home page for XKCD if you hover your cursor over the comic you get a pop up window that reads : "Moments later, the White Witch rolls up and, confused, tries to tempt the probe with a firmware upgrade"

Which just makes the whole thing that much better.

Yes, I'm a geek.

Peace

The View from the Phlipside

These are the scripts from my weekly media commentary program on WRFA-LP Jamestown

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the movies and more. I love 'em and I hate em' and I always have an opinion. Call this the view from the Phlipside

There's an upside and a downside to being a cult hit. The upside is that since you're a cult hit you can get away with a lot of things that a mainstream show or whatever simply couldn't do. The advantage of being the quirky, ignore the rules kind of a thing means you can do whatever you want. For example, imagine being a TV program that actually requires replacing the lead actor every so often. It's actually part of the whole "reality" that you've created. You never have to worry too much about actors getting too demanding or having other projects on the side. If they get too problematic, poof, they're gone. And the show keeps on moving.

The downside is that fans of these kinds of shows tend to be even more fanatical than your common garden variety. I mean they can just be nuts. You thinks fans of "Lost" are crazy? They've got nothing on this next group. All of this is in relation to what? One of the most successful, off the wall, go its own way TV franchises of all time, you should pardon the expression. I'm talking Dr. Who.

For Dr. Who it's all about different people playing the Doctor. It's all about the Dr. having different looks, different personalities, different eccentricities. It's also all about people arguing over who was the best Doctor. Jon Pertwee? David Tennant (who is certainly the most popular and with good reason)? Maybe like most American viewers you have a soft spot for the first Doctor to be seen in this country, Tom Baker. If so I've got some good news waiting for you in the Tardis.

At 75 Baker isn't really up to jumping around and racing in and out of trouble with that scarf any more. So they've created a new way for us to get a fix. Baker will star in a series of audio adventures of the Doctor. The first will be available from the BBC in September with at least five total planned.

You'd think Dr. Who fans would be ecstatic. Well some of us are. The rest are arguing about where these stories will fall in the "official canon". These are folks who will argue about who is a proper Doctor and who isn't. Now we've got a proper Doctor but do these stories have a proper place among the proper stories? It's enough to make a Time Lord's head spin.

And let's face it, a true fan of the Doctor's wouldn't have it any other way.

**********

So this is what the end of the world looks like. The very apocalypse is upon us and as befits then ending of all things it comes from an unexpected direction. A marriage proposal in a comic book.

I was utterly, utterly appalled to hear the news that after almost 70 years at Riverdale High, constantly being chased by two classic comic beauties Archie has finally broken down and chosen one over the other. That's right Archie has finally decided to spend his life with just one of the two girls that have had their eyes on him longer than your humble commentator has been alive. On September first the latest issue of the long running comic book hits the stands appropriately with only a couple hands, a diamond ring, an enormous valentine's type heart and the words "The Proposal" on the cover. In case you haven't heard by now Archie will propose to the dark haired beauty Veronica Lodge.

At which point the world will end. I can't believe that Archie and the folks behind him will allow him to make such a monstrous mistake. Let's face it just on the surface this is easy to spot as the wrong choice. In the world of Betty and Veronica it's Betty. Just as in the world of Ginger and Mary Ann it's Mary Ann. Always. Every time. Surely that's obvious. Let's face it, Veronica is a spoiled rich brat who is all caught up in herself and her rampant consumerism. On the other hand we have Betty - star athlete who can not only whip up a great meal at home but can fix the car along the way as well. I just can't figure this one out.

The next several issues will show that the comic book is playing around with the story line. The proposal takes place some five years in the future. The multi book story arc will include the wedding (of course) and a couple of kids down the road. It is interesting to note that no one seems to rule out that this may not be the final story line here. Not to say that Archie might get a divorce (the mind reels at the concept) but that there may still be something up the creative team's sleeve.

So now we just sit and wait to see if the apocalypse is really coming.

***********

Pity the poor TV anchor person. It's not enough any more to just deliver the news in clear concise terms. You can't get by with a sterling voice and reassuring presence like Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow. No, now you have to have the right look. And not just your hair and eyes and firm jaw line. You have to wear the right clothes, clothes that make you look good and professional but mostly good.

Once upon a time a lot of stations did trades with local clothing stores. You may remember seeing credits at the end telling you where the anchors clothes came from. In the current economic situation fewer and fewer places will do that. If you think that the anchors all get clothing allowances you may want to think again about that too. No the clothing you see the anchors wearing usually is their own. Unlike you and I who can show up week after week in the same stuff they need to keep their wardrobe fresh. And that can get expensive.

Enter Jolene DeVito, former TV news anchor in Dallas Texas. She now offers a place where TV anchors can sell their old stuff and buy new stuff from other anchors looking for a cheap(er) way to freshen the look. The website is called TVNewsCloset.com and it's only been up for about two weeks but is already making sales.

I'll give them this much I think it's a great concept. Many local TV anchors don't make as much money as you might think. And with all due respect they need to do their shopping a little more upscale than the local J.C. Penney's. And that costs big bucks. DeVito is part of professional coaching firm for TV professionals. I'm sure she coaches the importance of getting the details right. Which makes the big goof right in the middle of her home page rather disheartening (she forgot to remove a place holder in her HTML editor when she designed the page).

In the end it's a pretty innovative idea at a time when news divisions are getting squeezed harder and harder. Sadly it's especially tough on female anchors because we insist on being much more pre-occupied by what they wear. I mean come on, if Walter or Dan or Peter showed up in the same suit every Tuesday for six months would we even notice? But somehow it's "important" that a female anchor keep her wardrobe "new". One more way that we've managed to forget about what's important in a newscast. You know, little things like facts and good reporting.

Call that the view from the Phlipside

The questions of our young people

Click image to enlarge. Courtesy of "The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus"

For our youth these are the normal questions of their age. I grow increasingly worried about how we are failing in our job in helping them answer those questions.

I see two major reasons for our failure:

We Want To Tell Them the Answers - We know who you are and where you should go! So just do as you're told and all will be well. That hasn't worked for several generations now so I'm amazed that some folks insist on trying it. We do it through badly done teaching styles where to goal is to impart knowledge/wisdom/tradition rather than share in an exploration of them.

We Want Them to Find Out For Themselves - Here's the deal. I'm going to drop you into the middle of someplace you've never been and have no referents for. You don't really understand what's going on, if you ask for help people will tell you to figure it out for yourself and you'll be entirely on your own. Do this where the language is kinda strange to you and with your perceptions changing very quickly of yourself and everyone else. The concept is idiotic but we're trying this one as well.

Is there a didactic portion to what we must do? Yes but we must guard zealously against pedantry(def. -a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules). We must allow our young people to question and to search, to even take the lead in that exploration. But we must also be there with them, prepared when asked to help them find the right direction.

This method of faith sharing is harder. It requires us allowing them to make decisions that will turn out to be wrong, to explore paths that have already been tried and found wanting. It means shutting up sometimes, waiting to be asked, walking next to them rather than leading them. Unless we do that we will share with them a faith that is not intrinsically theirs. It will be a shallow, thin veneer that will peel away under the least of stress. We must teach by how we live, how we make decisions, how we treat them and each other. It's always fascinated me that in one of the epistles the greatest burden, the greatest penalty for failure is placed on the teacher.

How we choose to answer those questions above is important not only for our young friends but for ourselves as well.

Soft Centres

Thanks to "The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus" for this

I do love my paperwork

This is DaYouthGuy on paperwork:

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.