New Testament Stories Now in Action
Digitally “cutting” parts of an illustration allows the individual parts to be moved separately from each other.
Article Highlights
- Stories from the New Testament Stories book are now available as animated videos online
- All of the New Testament videos will be available online in English by the end of 2010
- The videos will be available online in all of the 11 Internet languages later in 2011
“We’re doing this to help children become more familiar with and love the stories of the scriptures.”
—Robert Jex, director of scriptures coordination
In preparation for 2011’s New Testament curriculum, the videos from the New Testament Stories book are undergoing a makeover. The videos, previously available online as slideshows with narration, are now being animated using a method called parallax.
Using a computer program, illustrations from the 2008 revision of the New Testament Stories book are cut apart so that they can be moved as individual pieces rather than as a complete image. For example, in some scenes the background will seem to approach the viewer while one character retreats from the viewer and another character moves to the side.
Rob Jex, director of scriptures coordination, turned to Elder Neil L. Andersen’s address in the April 2010 general conference to help explain the change in the videos. Elder Andersen said, “The stories of Jesus shared over and over bring faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strength to the foundation of testimony. Can you think of a more valuable gift for our children?” (“ Tell Me the Stories of Jesus,” Liahona and Ensign, May 2010, 108). Brother Jex then explained, “We’re doing this to help children become more familiar with and love the stories of the scriptures, and this effect (parallax) increases viewers’ interest and attention.”
Most of the 65 New Testament Stories videos are completed and available online in English. All of the videos will be available in English by early 2011 as will audio MP3 recordings for each video in all of the 11 languages on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. The MP3 recordings in each language will be applied to the parallax videos later in 2011.
The New Testament Stories are also available on the Mormon Channel’s Scripture Stories program. Each Saturday morning, a new episode is aired. Children take turns reading parts of the story and discussing the principles involved. Each episode also includes children’s songs. Older episodes are available in the program’s archives.
To watch the New Testament Stories videos, visit the Scripture Stories page on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
