AI Summary
5 min readThe Ten Commandments video series from BibleProject began not with a polished script, but with a raw, unedited podcast conversation. The animation team was handed the audio of Jon and Tim talking, complete with pauses, "hmm"s, and moments of genuine discovery. This decision—to preserve the texture of live dialogue rather than rewrite it into a tight script—became the creative engine for the entire series, forcing the artists to ask a new question: "How calm will a person allow themselves to be to really take it all in?"
The Story Sprint: Finding the Core Metaphor
Before any drawing began, the animation team gathered for what they call a "story sprint"—a week of deep collaboration to define the tone, mood, and central symbols of the series. The key insight from the sprint was that the Ten Commandments should not be presented as a checklist of rules to follow for God's approval. Instead, each commandment is an "entryway into a broader understanding of wisdom." The team needed a visual way to show that wisdom is inside the commands.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:33) **Introducing the Story Sprint Process** - Jon hosts the creative director (Bot) and series director (Everett) to explain how they kick off video production.
- 2 (05:29) **Discovering the Core Metaphor: Wisdom Inside the Commands** - The team identifies "wisdom" as the central theme and visualizes it as a hidden treasure.
- 3 (06:53) **Finding the Mood: The Collaborative Art Book and Sketchbook Aesthetic** - The team chooses a scrappy, hand-drawn style to match the conversational, meditative tone of the podcast.
- 4 (10:22) **The Lo-Fi Hip Hop Soundtrack** - The music is deliberately chosen to match the calm, meditative tone, featuring original compositions.
- 5 (12:50) **The Key Visual Technique: Flipping the Icon** - The optical illusion of turning a negative command into a positive one becomes a central motif.
- 6 (15:51) **Visual Development: Creating the Art Book's Constraints** - Story artist Rose and senior 2D artist Nisa explain how they unified the "collaborative art book" look.
- 7 (20:59) **Visualizing Wisdom as Highlighters** - The abstract concept of "wisdom" is given a concrete, animated form as colorful markers.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
The 10 Commandments E17 — We just finished exploring the 10 Commandments, or the 10 Words as they’re called in the Bible. In community, we’ve sought God’s wisdom in these 10 Words, first through Jon and Tim’s conversations and then with your questions in the Q+R episode! And this communal reading approach also extends to how we make videos with our animation studio. The artists start with a blank slate, wrestle with ideas from the podcast recordings, and then formulate a plan for how to make it all come to life through animation. So what is their process? How do we move an idea from podcast to script to video? In this special behind-the-scenes episode, Jon talks with a few artists from our animation studio about making the 10 Commandments video series.
CHAPTERS
- The Story Sprint With Bot and Everett (0:00-15:01)
- Visual Development and Storyboarding With Rose and Nyssa (15:01-26:58)
- Animation With Greg and Josh (26:58-40:44)
- Concluding Thoughts From the Artists (40:44-44:58)
OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
View this episode’s official transcript.
REFERENCED RESOURCES
- Watch the 10 Commandments video series here.
- Find the 10 Commandments full collection of video, podcast, and written resources here.
- Everett compares the storytelling approach of this video series to our Sermon on the Mount video series.
SHOW MUSIC
- “Solace” by Lofi Sunday feat. ahmo
- “Strolling Through The Park” by Lofi Sunday feat. Goodiegumdrops
- “The Commands” by Lofi Sunday feat. Oly.Lo
- BibleProject theme song by TENTS
SHOW CREDITS
Production of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty is the creative producer for this episode, and he also wrote the show notes. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins. Special thanks to our guests from the animation studio: Bot Perez, Everett Patterson, Rose Mayer, Nyssa Oru, Greg Stewart, and Josh Espasandin.
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