Biblical Artist Series: Jon Collins from BibleProject

Episode Summary

Dr. Dru Johnson and Celina Durgin talk with Jon Collins, Co-Founder of BibleProject, about using animated videos to teach viewers how to read the Bible. BibleProject is a nonprofit animation studio with the goal of helping people become students of biblical literature through short explainer-style videos. In this episode, Jon provides a window into their creative process, from background research, to designing the images, to creating soundscapes.

Along the way, they discuss the broader role of art in helping us understand Scripture. Jon describes the difficulties of presenting a complex and difficult idea in a fun and interesting way, and how to solve these difficulties with certain artistic choices, such as a dialogue script and accurate representation of biblical characters. They also explore the “Prince of Egypt problem,” how BibleProject seeks to unify the church, and even Gilmore Girls.

Chapters

    • 0:00 Understanding biblical themes

    • 3:43 Researching a BibleProject video

    • 7:09 How art can help us understand Scripture

    • 10:47 Stylistic inspirations for BibleProject

    • 15:18 Avoiding the “Prince of Egypt problem”

    • 21:52 Using dialogue in explainer videos

    • 24:57 Sound editing

    • 27:08 The greatest contributions of BibleProject

    • 29:38 Creating students of biblical literature

Videos mentioned in the episode:

Transcripts are AI generated and are not guaranteed to correctly reflect the content of the podcast.
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Jon Collins

Jon Collins is the Co-Founder of BibleProject. He was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and is proud to call Portland home. He has been married for 11 years and has two boys.Jon received a BA in Bible and Theology at Multnomah University. After working overseas in Christian ministry and then serving for a year as a pastor, Jon stepped into the marketplace to explore digital communication. He started two digital communication companies and worked with clients ranging from Google and P&G to Silicon Valley startups and nonprofits. In 2009, Jon’s first company, Epipheo, introduced the business world to “explainer videos.” Jon has a long history of creating shareable videos that spread messages organically on the internet.In early 2016, Jon ended his participation in former business ventures to work on BibleProject full-time. He is thrilled to be working on something so meaningful.

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