Again, we look at the youtube video homilies for the week. Each of the priests on Youtube have their own style and basically the style does not change from week to week. The one exception coincidentally is mine. I have experimented with styles in order to see which is best.  Basically, I have found that I have one style of preaching in the studio, another type when I preach to a congregation in church in English and yet another style when I preach to a congregation in Spanish.

In our homily reports, we see two of the styles: one is the preaching in video. Fr. Stevensonrf himself also reflects that style. As he says, he is a prison chaplain, so I would assume he would not be able to record himself celebrating mass for legal reasons. So he preaches, as I often do, in front of the green screen with a different background every week. If you look he preaches with basically a head shot, whereas I use an upper body shot. I think, that Fr. Stevensonrf’s upper head shot does seem to make for a more intimate approach to the video more directed to the one viewer, you. It is an interesting shot and he ends his video this week with a cute special effect. I always fade my videos out, though I have reflected on using a special effect instead, and I think Fr. Stevensonrf does his effectively.

He gives a good message as usual.

Fr. Josh Wagner gives his usual style and again, the video is audio homily with video pictures. As I have in the past, I would recommend to Fr. Wagner to use the Ken Burns effect, which is where the picture perspective moves. This is because video is an active medium and even a still picture needs an active presentation in video.

He speaks about the second reading and St. Paul’s desire to go to Heaven and his remaining on the Earth. Fr. Wagner has a style in which he paints word images to illustrate his point. He clearly has mastered this style and has mastered his craft in presenting his point. His theme is the important one of trusting the work of God’s work in our lives. Aside from the lack of the use of the Ken Burns effect, Fr. Wagner uses his words and images effectively in a homily style that presents well his points.

The unidentified priest who preaches at St. Joseph at Avon Lake, Ohio is a textbook model of an excellent video. The priest who speaks stands in one position as the camera moves as needed around the sanctuary, with 2nd camera shots of the church itself. The other aspect that needs to be noticed is that the video takes the audio feed from the sound system. This brings a well produced video with good audio to the fore. This is, as I said, is a textbook case of how to record a video in a Church. This is a job well done for the production crew. His point is that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.

You will notice always that the priest does not say the word “uh”once. He also delivers his homilies without a text and without a teleprompter or notes. This is clearly a parish that has not only a high standard of video production, but a high standard of homily delivery.

Fr. Carmel Polidano, administrator of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Hammonton, NJ preaches this week in the usual video style. This is the opposite style to what we see in St. Joseph of Avon Lake.

This is video done with one video camera and the sound is taken from the microphone of the video camera. This does not make for a bad video but with a few changes the video quality could be improved.Yet, I must reiterate, the video as a video on youtube is fine in the style it is. If it was the interest of the producer to continue producing in the manner in which the videos present themselves, this would not be an unacceptable route. However, if he or she wanted to add a few elements to make the video more easily watchable then a few steps below might be considered.

First we do not know the software used, or the computer used to produce the video, but if there is editing software involved and the camera person could take some shots of the congregation during the readings or even of the decorum of the Church, they could be edited into the video to add more variety to the whole production.

Second, of course is that, if possible, if the sound could be taken off the sound system that would improve the audio track of the video. If that could not be done, an external microphone placed next to the speaker could also improve the sound.

Lighting may be improved, however, that might cause a distraction and may not be worth the effort. The camera person seems to want to be as unobtrusive as possible in the “from the pew” view and that is important as the first and intended audience of this video is of course the parishioners present. In fact, you may notice that never does Fr. Carmel does look at the camera during his video. This indicates that clearly it is not his intention to make the video audience the prime audience. That is understandable, it is the parishioners present who are the intended audience. Where as both Fr. Stevensonrf and I make videos in studio that are only intended for the video audience.

Fr. Carmel takes a more traditional path to the preaching method and focuses on the call to improving our walk with Christ. In this video he lifts the role of teacher to be the prime ministry in the Church as it is the role of teacher to proclaim the gospel of the Lord.

Our final video comes from Fr. Richard Simon. He, of course, does not do video as much as records his homily and uses youtube to present it with his slide. Obviously, this is the easy way to present a video on youtube, if not the most effective use of the video medium. However, it is a way to share the homiletic message. If the slide is effective, it is so as a note to check out the website at http://www.fr-simon.com/ as one listens to his video.

However, like most of the other homilists Fr. Simon presents the video as it is addressed to the congregation and as the congregation as the intended audience.

He focuses on the issue of covetousness.