"Hymnalogues" For Christmas & Fall/Winter 2017 Updates

Hymnalogues

3-minute color films with classic Christian hymns enhanced with miniatures, produced in Hollywood.

As an older millennial, it is hard to imagine a time when Power-points or some sort of screen images weren't used in musical worship. It turns out that the church has used devotional film aids a lot longer than we might think.

The Hymnalogue films were short visualizations of church hymns created by Neil McGuire Productions and the (ADA) Audio-visual Devotional Aids of North Hollywood. Four were released in the fall of 1945* for Christmas: O Little Town Of Bethlehem, Silent Night, Jingle Bells, and O Come All Ye Faithful. Three of these shorts seem to be in the public domain and appear in various Christmas video collections. If anyone has seen the "Silent Night" film, please contact me.

The earliest mention I could find of these films was in the August 1944 issue of Home Movies Magazine, in which they were credited to "Song Book of the Screen of North Hollywood". It is likely that they became ADA a year later since they were also distributed by Post Pictures.

Each short features singing by a quartet called the ADA Crusaders while the words go across the screen. Clever miniatures and limited motion graphics enhance the meaning of the song. This technique was called "action-minature" and is credited to Neil McGuire (1893 - 1972), a film director and producer. McGuire and ADA produced at least 29 of these shorts for church use all distributed by Post Pictures Corporation of New York. According to the 1949 Educational Film Guide some titles were: Onward Christian Soldiers, God Be With You Till We Meet Again, and In The Garden. Only the the 3 Christmas shorts seem to be available today.

Please check your church basement! Also it would be fun to try McGuire's technique of filming Hymns with miniatures, even in this age of Adobe products.

* On IMDB these Christmas shorts are dated 1950, but this is incorrect according to film bulletins and magazines.

- Most of this information is from the September 1945 issue of Film World News, pg. 267

UPDATES FOR FALL/WINTER 2017

There are a lot of great new additions to the FBSM blog. 4 new pages have been added to the blog site for the history of Bible based storytelling, to make your Christmas merrier and for the teaching and study of the Bible.

FBSM Theater
I am excited to announce a theater page were I am showing prints of rare and incredible films made by Christian filmmakers across the 20th century. These films come from the Gospel Film Archives,  and I am extremely grateful to film historians Bob Campbell and Ron Hall for sharing a digitized print of the landmark Christian drama The Great Commandment (1939) for the debut of this page.

Christmas Library 2017 
In 1994, an interesting news article revealed an all too obvious truth about media during the Christmas season. That scarcely any of the many Christmas specials on television acknowledge the birth of Christ as central to the meaning of Christmas. So with that in mind I have tried to create a log of family programming to help parents be aware of Christmas specials that focus on the birth of Christ on television, radio, home video and even free downloads from the Golden Age of Radio.

During the Christmas season there will be new blog entries on films, children's books, crafts and more to teach and inspire during this most wonderful time of year.

Apologetics & Education 
While the main focus of FBSM is creative Bible storytelling, because of the urgency of our times I've created a page specially for the study of Apologetics, Christian History and Education. This page features the best radio ministries that broadcast weekly or daily in the United States and around the world.

Bible Study
I've also created a Bible Study page with links to some of the best online resource of edification in the Word of God.

Facebook! - Family Bible Storytelling Media
This is a bold new venture for me, so the page will gradually look better.

YouTube too! - FBSM YouTube Channel