Harnessing the Visual Beauty: Catholic in 3D

CatholicTV recently launched a new feature on their continually improving website: 3D online videos.

This is just one more great example of Catholics truly using the visual web to its potential. And it is an innovative way to make video more interesting and to better explore the visual beauty of our Catholic faith. Hopefully you can check it out with some old 3D glasses lying around from a recent viewing of Avatar in 3D or something. It’s pretty neat stuff.

But most importantly, I hope it encourages Catholics to use the visual power of the web a bit (a lot) more.  I get excited thinking about all of the impressive ways we can share the visual beauty of our Catholic faith through New Media. We often get caught up on the words or the audio content. This can’t be overlooked, to be sure. But we can get that same thing on the radio or in a book.

Too much of Catholic video programming has just been audio programming with a camera turned on. That can work. It can also distract. Most of all, it misses an opportunity.

For many people, “Seeing is believing” and a “picture speaks a thousand words.”  Good thing for us our Catholic story has a very powerful visual element to it.  The art. The architecture. The love in action. The people. We need to tell that story. And new media technology gives us the ability to tell it like never before.

Whether it is using a big HD or 3D production or just a kid at home with a webcam or a mobile phone camera, God has given us the script and the set. We just need to capture it, sometimes translate it, and share our experience from our point of view. I can’t wait to see what we as a Church are going to do with all of this cool stuff next.