On Sunday Looking Closer had a link to The Johnny Cash Project. The project is creating a music video for Johnny Cash’s haunting song Ain’t No Grave
I think this is a fascinating example of both collaborative artwork, and also of the power of interaction and integration in using the internet, two keywords that I think are key to engaging people on the net today. (See my earlier post on this topic.)
A few years ago
I had the privilege of discipling Tim, a Canadian who was doing an exchange year in Hong Kong. Since then he has joined staff with Campus Crusade in Canada (which is called Power to Change there) and is now the assistant to the President there. A couple of months ago he let me know about the new evangelism campaign they were running in Canada, called My Cravings. Last month, at a conference in Singapore I got to talk to a couple of Canadian staff who have been part of the team developing the campaign.
They freely admit that the basic premise of the campaign is borrowed from the UK, who borrowed it from NZ ( “Are You Connected?”, where I was part of the team that put the campaign together.) But I am really impressed with what these guys have done, they have really brought things into the 21st century (“Are You Connected?” was in the 21st century – just, but the world has changed a lot in 9 years!) and have made some changes and developments that I think are really key in reaching this generation of students.
To start off with I think their theme is awesome. They have structured the whole campaign around the idea of “Cravings”, that we all have cravings, or deep desires for things in life, and how these cravings flow out of our being created in God’s image and our deepest desire, to be connected to God. They use a small book and a video by Erwin McManus called Soul Cravings to communicate these ideas very professionally.
They have plans to produce testimonies, videos and other resources related to eight major cravings that they have identified, and have started on the process of that. During university orientation they have been collecting responses from students as students have signed up for a prize draw, and they can see which of these cravings have the greatest interest or resonance on different campuses. This is a very intelligent approach and one which I am sure will bear fruit further on down the line. You can see some of the videos on their vimeo channel.
The first instalment of the MyCravings campaign has involved a contest across Canada’s university campuses called Paid vs Aid. Students enter a draw to win $1000 that can go towards their tuition or one of three charities to provide, water, shelter, or help orphans. It has certainly helped start conversations on campus. The University of Alberta newspaper has produced a lively opinion piece on it.
So, in summary why do I think this is a successful campaign, and what can we learn from it?
No. I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth, but things have been a bit too hectic over the last few months to do much in the way of blogging.
Anyway, I read a post from Tony at Digital Evangelism Issues that reminded me of some ideas that had been stirring for a while.
The post was about the interactive music video The Wilderness Downtown from Arcade Fire’s song We Used to Wait. They have integrated some personalised elements to the music video through Google Streetview and Google Earth and a response box. I think it is a very creative way to encourage interaction from their audience. But don’t take my word for it, go and check it out for yourself (You need to use Google Chrome for the best experience.) Or watch this clip …
I can foresee that there will many more such media clips over the next few years. I think there are two key ideas that could see this sort of thing become the norm in how we view media.
The first is integrated media. Actually we already have integrated media to a degree. A music video is a media form where video an music is integrated. With devices like the iPad and Kindle becoming popular, we can expect to see that books and magazines become less of a print-only medium, but begin to integrate more of other media, especially audio and video. When you start to think about it, you can see the attraction of a vook, where you can click on a video or audio element in a book on your iPad, as opposed to the traditional magazine or book communicating to you only through text, or perhaps pictures as well in some cases.
As we look to communicate the gospel we need to think how we can communicate our gospel stories using integrated media – text, image, video, music, etc to create a message that truly engages our audience.
And there is one element that can do more to engage the audience than any other:
Interactivity
As a child of the 80s I remember well the Fighting Fantasy and Pick-Your-Path books where you got to make choices and turn to the page which represented your choice. And some of the first computer games were interactive fiction, and computer games have developed down this path over the last few decades to the immersive games of World of Warcraft and so on.
But with Web 2.0 being all about allowing people to interact with the content they see on the internet, interactivity is going to be more and more important in any communication we have, and especially as we communicate the gospel. The Wilderness Downtown allows the users to write a message to themselves as a child, and to post it on the website as a postcard. Imagine an integrated media experience, with video, image, text, music, and also being interactive. What would it look like? What would a gospel themed media experience like this look like?