Why Did I Just Watch Nine Minutes of a Church Service?
Despite its freakish length, OpDoc ‘Drive-In Jesus’ is an absolute triumph. Here’s why.
Drive-In Jesus, the newest Op-Doc from The New York Times, is long.
Okay, by Op-Doc standards, it’s about average length: 9 minutes, 11 seconds. Certainly, by web video standards, it’s long.
What’s significant about this web video, directed and photographed by Lauren DeFilippo, is that not a single one of its 551 seconds is dedicated to a talking head, a voiceover, a motion graphic or even camera movement; it relies on not one of the typical devices used by videographers to advance a story and, supposedly, captivate viewers.
So why couldn’t I look away?
By the time I was halfway through the opening establishing shots I was anticipating a voiceover cue followed by a talking head, maybe a sit-down with the pastor explaining what I was seeing.
“Drive-in church is just like regular church,” he might say in his nasal southern accent. “Our sanctuary just has a higher ceiling.”
That doesn’t happen. Instead, an usher tunes his radio to some organ music. A gentle, enthusiastic pastor delivers a welcome, and a congregant with a weathered voice recites Psalm 24. The pastor delivers a sermon about purity of heart, complete with dad joke-level references to Roombas and The Jetsons. The parishioners honk their horns in lieu of Amens. It’s perfect, and I’m glued to my screen.
It’s a novel setting, but a nine-minute video can’t live on novelty alone. What keeps this story alive are two things: Liturgy — that is, the ancient craft of weaving the recollection of spiritual mysteries into an ever-evolving participatory gathering, one that employs the poetic elements of repetition, oration, song, and call and response all culminating in one climatic moment of communion, an art form that is at the foundation of our collective conception of narrative story form — that, and really good sound design.
Drive-In Jesus has the benefit of a built-in story arc delivered in the form of a church service. The producers don’t need to tell us what we’re watching, or why they do it this way, or even where the church is located. At least, they don’t need to tell us any of those things through exposition in order to keep our interest. The liturgy is designed to hold our interest, with a logical narrative flow from setting (opening prayer) to climax (communion) to resolution (benediction). On its own, liturgy may not be enough to keep us awake through a three-hour Mass or graduation ceremony, but nine minutes is just fine.
For me, what Drive-In Jesus accomplished through its preference for liturgy over exposition was a more immersive experience. There I was sitting at my computer, chuckling at these converts in convertibles, listening to the familiar hum of engines and open-door dings, slowly realizing that I was participating in the same kind of seated virtual liturgy they were. This wasn’t a video about people finding peace at a drive-in church — I was finding peace, an unpretentious, completely unironic calm and quiet — at a drive-in church. I was there. This video took me to church.
This is why I say that virtual reality storytelling isn’t new, or limited to 360° video — it’s existed as long as good storytelling has.
