Entertaiment

Here’s a look at some of the latest video and DVD releases that are available in the LDS market. There’s quite a mix to choose from.

I Will Go and Do

Making a musical out of The Book of Mormon: You just knew it had to happen. Okay, it’s not the first time it’s been tried, with various levels of success. But with the latest flurry of interest around productions adapted from The Book of Mormon (i.e., The Book of Mormon Movie, Vol. 1: The Journey, the announced but still unproduced A Voice from the Dust series of films, and a “music drama” production at BYU – hey, Wagner used that term to describe opera too – based on the story of Abinadi and King Noah which will be taped and broadcast by KBYU at some point) it couldn’t be very long before another Broadway musical-style attempt came down the pike.

In a way, a Broadway musical Book of Mormon production has the potential of getting kind of silly. Instead of fighting it, however, filmmakers Aaron Edson and Dennis Agle Jr. decided to take that silliness and run with it. Think of a Book of Mormon version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and you get the idea. Add the fact that the direct-to-video production is focused mostly on kids, and you find that you have a combination that works.

I Will Go and Do is the story of a young boy named Spencer (played by child actor Garrett Summers) who has a hard time paying attention during a Primary discussion of the story of Nephi and his brothers returning to Jerusalem to get the brass plates. One of his leaders – it is unclear (and really unimportant) whether she is his teacher or one of the Primary presidency – takes him out into the hall to talk to him. This leader (played by Joy Gardner who also had a role in The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd) suggests that he use his imagination to make the scriptures come to life, and when he does this, they come to life in a big way. Spencer is soon surrounded by a dancing and singing version of Lehi’s family with whom he can even occasionally interact – remember we are inside his imagination after all.

Don’t be fooled by the child-centric premise of the story. Adults can enjoy it too – and in fact, that is one of its real successes. Families will be able to sit down and enjoy this fun look at a familiar story together as it seems to appeal to every age group. Even my two-year-old sat still for the first couple of songs, entranced by the colorful costumes and music.

Also you shouldn’t go into this show expecting a realistic portrayal of the story direct from The Book of Mormon. The show is littered with delightful anachronisms from costuming that isn’t authentic to an accordion player who happens to work for Laban years before the development of the accordion, to staging that is quite obviously a soundstage, not a real desert. It is clear that these choices are not only done on purpose, but are essential to what the filmmakers are trying to accomplish and to add to the fun. And besides, we’re inside a young child’s imagination. Anything can happen.

Of the songs, the upbeat pop-style ones are the most fun and most effectively produced. The ballads are sung from the heart, and although the quality of the production in general isn’t quite up to the standards of higher-budget music videos or Broadway productions, it isn’t that far off. If you watch it expecting something about the quality and level of entertainment of a BYU Young Ambassadors production you won’t be disappointed. First-time filmmakers Edson and Agle have not embarrassed themselves in any respect, especially since they produced the entire thing for under $100,000.

I Will Go and Do also features Jared Young, who is currently serving an LDS mission in Georgia, as Nephi, Lawrence Bagby (Hocus Pocus and the upcoming Saints and Soldiers) as Laman and Merrill Dodge (who was last seen as the multi-level marketing father in The R.M.) in a very kooky version of Laban. Which brings up the question – even while you’re watching the film – how in the world could Zoram and Nephi’s brothers possibly have confused the two when Young and Dodge are not built the same in any respect and look nothing alike? But that just adds to the silliness of the film.

This is one of a series of planned musical videos based on The Book of Mormon titled Liken the Scriptures. (Yes, that makes three announced Book of Mormon series.) Episode 2, based on the story of Ammon, is scheduled to begin production in early 2004. The running time of I Will Go and Do is 45 minutes.

Because Sunday Is Special

Because Sunday Is Special is a short animated video from Covenant Communications. It features the story of Josh, a young boy who is invited by his friend to go to the local amusement park but is not allowed to go because it is Sunday. As a parent, I had a harder time watching this video. The dialogue – especially between the kids – is mostly quite natural, but the super-low-budget, low-quality animation which means that a characters mouth and eyes move while the rest of the picture is basically frozen, I found very tiring to watch, even though the film is only 20 minutes long. It just didn’t have the charm that I would like to have as a parent, so that I can enjoy it too while I watch it with my kids. (If you want to know what I mean, just sit down and watch an episode of Sesame Street or Blue’s Clues.) I was also quite dissatisfied with the ending, because like countless other shows catering to children, the main character somehow has his feelings magically resolved by an advice-giving adult instead of giving kids credit for being pretty smart themselves.

However, my children seemed to enjoy it. My kids actually thought it was too short, which is good, because it does present a good message – that Sunday is a day to visit with our friend, Jesus. Still, for me, a successful children’s video will get parents sitting down to watch and enjoy with their children, and I’m afraid on that measure, this one just doesn’t fit that bill.

Primary Song Sing Along – I Am A Child of God and Other Favorites

Also available from Covenant, this sing-along video uses many of the same illustrations that primary choristers throughout the church use to teach songs to the primary children. My children love sing-along videos and they were very excited to watch this one. For this one, I was curious to see if they would actually sing along with the video, since it has been my experience that most of the Disney sing-along videos that take up space on our shelves are watched but never actually sung with. In that respect, I was tickled to find that they all (from the two-year-old to the nine-year-old) actually did sing with this one, although not all the time.

The interactive menu on the DVD is especially nice, allowing the children to choose whichever song they felt like singing and to indicate whether they wanted to hear the songs with or without voices (so they could sing karaoke style if they wanted). It also allows you to play all the songs in random order or just play one song randomly selected.

That is not to say that I found everything about this video to my liking. Composer Robert C. Bowden, former conductor of the Mormon Symphony and Mormon Youth Chorus, has written wonderful arrangements for the accompaniments. However, due to the budget of the project, these are realized on synthesizer rather than by a full orchestra. This is particularly frustrating to me as a composer myself, because I can hear how vibrant and beautiful these arrangements would be performed by an orchestra instead of the synth with its mechanical performance and less-than-realistic approximations of the intended instruments. This is especially apparent in the “karaoke” versions of the songs. I, myself, have spent many hours on my own synths doing the best I can to tweak voicing and performance issues to try and overcome this shortcoming in some of my own arrangements and songs, so I know how much work it takes to make a synth performance as realistic as possible. In this case, I don’t think even that work was put in. Still, the synth performances are not in any sense annoying. It’s just frustrating to know that the music falls so far short of its potential.

The Book of Mormon on DVD

The Book of Mormon is finally available on DVD. No, that doesn’t mean that you can pick up your copy of The Book of Mormon Movie yet – that one hasn’t been released. And no, I’m not talking about A Voice from the Dust, which hasn’t even hit theaters yet, or even the Liken the Scriptures direct-to-video series (see above). What’s even better, in this version, you get the whole book in one three-CD set and don’t have to wait for the sequels to get the whole story. What am I talking about? Well, literally, The Book of Mormon on DVD.

You’ve heard of audio books. Well, this is like an audio book, but with the words so you can read along (and you don’t even have to wait for a bell to ring to tell you to turn the page, since the words scroll up on the screen right in front of you).

Okay, this immediately begs the question, “Why?” Isn’t the point of an audio book that you can listen when your eyes are too busy to do the reading yourself? At least that was my initial reaction when I heard about the DVD. But then after a little bit of thinking, I decided there are certain circumstances where having The Book of Mormon on DVD makes sense. For example, you can watch The Book of Mormon DVD while working out – that way you are exercising both spiritually and physically – and the nice thing is that you can exercise, listen and read all at the same time and your hands are free to do whatever you need to do as part of your workout.

The DVD comes with some rather nice features as well. Of course, there is the usual chapter index to get you to the point of the book you are studying currently, but the DVD’s also have the Sunday School reading from each of the Sunday School lessons during the year that the Gospel Doctrine class studies The Book of Mormon so you can at least be prepared for that class each week. The DVD also allows you to have the player select a random chapter to begin at, so you can watch a “chapter of the day” instead of going through the book cover to cover. It also has a reading planner so that you can see how long it will take to finish the entire book if you listen or watch (or both) for a certain amount of time each day. Another bonus feature is the talk by President Ezra Taft Benson “The Book of Mormon Is the Word of God” (audio only).

As anyone who has listened to audio books knows, the key to a good audio book is a good reader. This certainly applies to the DVD version, but happily, the narrator in this version is Rex Campbell, who does a wonderful job reading the text.

The display and menus are very attractive and professional looking. Overall, this is a very nice product. It’s not for everyone, of course, but The Book of Mormon on DVD can be a useful tool for some in trying to fit in that oh-so-important scripture study time into a hectic schedule.

Just a Word About the Future of LDS Cinema

I haven’t written reviews on these films yet – I plan to do so when they are finally released – but I have been able to attend pre-release screenings of Best Two Years, which will be coming out in February, and Saints and Soldiers, scheduled to come out in Winter 2004. I will say this: fans of LDS Cinema have a lot to look forward to. These are well-done films, despite their miniscule budgets. There are those who have lamented the lack of quality in LDS-themed films recently, wondering how long the genre can last if films do not perform well at the box office. Combine these two films with the upcoming (in December) Pride and Prejudice, which I haven’t seen but at least on a conceptual basis looks promising, Richard Dutcher’s God’s Army II (and possibly The Prophet – assuming the last bit of funding comes through) and The Work and the Glory with its impressive budget and experienced filmmakers and this next wave of films may just give new life to the idea of films by Mormons for Mormons. Granted, audiences still have to show up, but right now the future of LDS Cinema looks pretty bright.