Jer3miah: A Good Watch

I remember seeing Star Wars Episode 3 in theaters as a 17 year old on the night it appeared in theaters. When it was over, I felt like it would be so cool to be a character in a storyline so epic and grandiose. Then, while on my mission, I finally realized that I was involved in an epic story, and I think Jer3miah captures that feeling. It parallels the eternal struggle that we are all in and makes it relatable and entertaining.

The story is full of mystery and I think it’s executed well. Mystery surrounds the box, Jeremiah’s mission, and even Jeremiah’s very identity. It definitely kept me interested and wondering what each episode would reveal. I think the plot develops well and moves forward at a good pace. I like the emphasis on lineage and Mesoamerica. It has a lot of potential for rich eternal identity and purpose, while having a constant appeal to the Book of Mormon.

I was very impressed with the way that the series was able to create an emotional impact on the viewer. I seemed like I could understand what Jeremiah was feeling during the intense moments in the story. This adds to the story's epic feeling and helps create a more authentic response in the viewer. The drama was interesting and well executed: It ranged from car accidents to cave adventures to interrogations. I was impressed with how far they were able to push the narrative while maintaining a sensible plot.

My only negative response is that the story is set in Provo and surrounds BYU campus and activities. Not that I don’t find that interesting! I just feel like the story has the potential to reach a larger Mormon audience than the specific audience it seems to initially appeals to. But I could be totally wrong there. It does makes sense that the students who made the movie were attending BYU at the time.

Overall I liked it and would recommend it.

Jer3miah: It Has Potential

The video series The Book of Jer3miah tells the story of Jeremiah Whitney, a freshman in college whose world is turned upside down when he becomes involved in a conspiracy theory and learns of his religious/supernatural purpose in life. The series consists of multiple video clips, each about five minutes long, that tell Jeremiah's story in short segments. The video series is filmed from a hand-held video camera, giving the impression that the video is being "told" from the perspective of which ever character is holding the camera. It's a unique idea with a lot of potential; however, it still has a lot of bugs to work out.
I've never watched a web series before so I was not prepared for or used to the short clips and segments Jeremiah's story was told in. It made the story feel choppy and disconnected as each segment ended. This caused jumps in the plot line and there were times when I felt I'd missed something when in reality it was just the end of one episode and the beginning of another.
A big problem with the series for me was its lack of character development. From the beginning of the series bad things start happening to the main character and yet, I don't know why I should care. Within the first ten minutes of the show Jeremiah has found out his birthday is actually in April as opposed to December and his parents are both killed. While these are shocking events, I don't know enough about Jeremiah to care about the fact that his world is no longer what it seemed. I want to know the characters better so I can understand what is going on and its impact on the characters.
One thing that did, to some degree, help with character development was the the shifting of the camera from one character to another. Seeing what different characters focused on as they recorded showed me their personality which helped me get to know them and start to connect with them. However, this base is not strong enough to carry an entire web series.
Overall, I think the web series had a few issues, but it was unique and attention grabbing at its attempt to do something new. It's laid the foundation for similar efforts in the future that will potentially have less bugs and carry the concept of an LDS sci-fi web series even farther.

Image from Pixabay.com

Jer3miah: The Mormon Web Series

The Book of Jer3miah is a web series filmed right in the heart of Provo, Utah. The short three to five minute clips follow the unique, mystical story of Jeremiah, a college freshman. Jeremiah's story is not that of your usual college student though as he becomes involved in a strange and puzzling conspiracy theory.

I have never been an avid watcher of web series, so the way in which this story was told was very different for me. As each episode was very short, it took incredible talent to cram a lot of information in for viewers in just minutes. For example, in the episode where Jeremiah flies to New York and attends his parent's funeral, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the producers handled it. I thought that a funeral scene could easily take the whole three minutes but then that would have been the entire episode and no one wants to watch a whole episode of just a funeral. There would be no drive to watch the next episode. They, however, handled it well, in a way that is was both artistically pleasing and story-driving.

For me, even though The Book of Jer3miah was interesting and compelling to watch, it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. I had a hard time connecting to this strange mix of mystery and conspiracy theory all bundled up in Mormon doctrine and traditions. I don't know if I was reading too much into it, but as I watched I had flashbacks to reading Orson Scott Card's novel, The Seventh Son, which deals heavily with magic and the mystic and alludes to the story of Joseph Smith. The story of young teenage Jeremiah receiving an object from ancient America and then traveling to NY was just a little confusing and misleading for me.

In general, web series can be an effective method for sharing stories. People these days are looking for instant gratification when it comes to entertainment. If you only have a few minutes for some down time, a web series is a great choice because you get enough of a story to entertain you, but it doesn't require you to sit through an entire movie or a whole book all at once.

Reflections on Jer3miah

The Jeremiah video series following a young boy named Jeremiah Whitney who is a college freshman.  He learns that he has a supernatural/religious purpose he is supposed to carry out and said purpose often puts he and those around him in danger.

This video series was definitely something.  I have never really watched a video series before so this was a new medium experience for me; each episode was probably no more than ten minutes and I enjoyed the breaks the episodes provided to a two hour total watch time.  Like I said, watching Jer3miah was an interesting experience.

At first, I did not know if I liked that the perspective of the series was through a video camera.  However, it does provide as opportunity to see through the eyes of Jeremiah.  We got to see how he interacts and how he sees the world and people around him.

I did think the mixture of religious and mystical elements provided for an new interesting genre.  However, I thought some of the elements were hard to follow.  The inclusion of mystical, supernatural elements sometimes seemed out of place and I often felt like I had missed important plot events that led to places such as the magical cave place.  I felt like there was more focus on including supernatural elements rather than developing the plot and I wasn't always sure why the mystics were needed.

I also wish there would have been more character development.  I really wanted to care about the characters more than I actually did.  They seemed a little flat.  That being said, perhaps the purpose was not character development but creating a sphere where religion and the supernatural exist together.  Though I desired more from the characters and even more explanation for certain elements and plot elements, this series did peek my interest.  I hadn't noticed such a peek until the two hours ended and I was left wondering: what happens next?  This video series has not been continued and part of me hates that I won't be able to continue watching and see how it ends.

Jer3miah: Lots of Action

The webseries The Book of Jer3miah follows a college Freshman as is so-far very normal life becomes shrouded in mystery and racked with action and suspense. However, the interesting part of adventurous plot is that it's presented in clips of under five minutes. Therefore, the creators of The Book of Jer3miah had the challenge of making each clip entertaining and suspenseful.

Since I viewed several episodes one right after another, I'm not sure I got the full webseries effect. When watching these tiny episodes altogether it almost seems silly when something outrageous happens every 2 and half minutes. A project like this should be enjoyed as it was intended.

That being said, I noticed many areas in which the creators were successful.

The tight plot introduces several characters, but keeps them involved enough that the viewer wouldn't forget them from week to week. In one of the earlier episodes, a girl name Claire introduces herself to Jeremiah, and I love story develops between them even though Jeremiah is often absent, busy speaking with mysterious men and getting beat up every other time he opens a door.

The creators trust the viewers to piece things together. For instance, when Jeremiah's parents die the camera shows smoke while Jeremiah screams there names. The audience figures out for ourselves that they are dead, and that's enough until a conversation reveals further information (that his parents were hit my a semi) in a later episode.

While plot intensifies, the viewers are reminded of the normal everyday occurrences still  happening. Sometimes books and movies (and presumably webseries) seem to imply that the world stops when one of their character is facing challenges, but in Jer3miah, the insertion of Mormon activities such as ward pray and family home evening lessons into the plot grounds this over-the-top story in some reality.

Overall, I seem to be one of the few of my demographic who has not caught on to webseries in general (Lizzie Bennett Diaries, anyone?). I can't seem myself being interested enough in a story to wait a week to catch another 3 minute segment, but if I wait for the whole series then I face the problem that they were not really meant to watched fluidly. So, for me and my friends at the old folks home, webseries in general aren't for us, but all you smart phone users and YouTube enthusiasts out there should probably give this series a try.

Jer3miah: What an introduction

Your birthday is actually April 11th . . .
Oh no! You lied to me, and now everything is changing!

Photo by ClaraDon

Duh duh duh duh! (moving into ominously lower tones)

This post is going to focus on the opening of the web series because beginnings are important to me. So my first impression included a little gagging at the stereotypical Mormon jokes and shallow characterizations. It seemed to me that the director expects a lot from his audience because his audience must be really specific to understand the jokes or even find them funny: faithful member, often male-specific, freshman-in-college-age, and undying patient. Fortunately the first few episodes also include some tactful foreshadowing, making the jumpy transitions less startling. But it is still jarring to enter non-stop fast cuts, constant danger, and surprising revelations at almost every moment. I mean, I get that it is supposed to "suck to viewer in" but really it just feels like a bad soap opera. This is also problematic because those who aren't looking for constant danger or fast-paced cuts find themselves not at all invested with the characters who are either still relatively shallow or dead by 33 % into the series, or those who don't mind the pace find themselves with too many questions, no information, and little hope for information.

Now let me pause here and say it gets better. Unfortunately though, the first few episodes don't set it up well.

Let's back up to characterization again. The main character is problematic because there is literally no reason to like him or think he is special other than the story is about him and we were told he is. That, in short, is frustrating. As a person who will always prefer characterization to plot, I find it frustrating to only ever see what is done to him, instead of who he is. Same with his parents. They were really back and forth with how they treated their 18 year old son and a bit cliche. But no worries, they're dead before we get to no them so as the audience we feel no sorrow. (Yes, that was biting. But my biggest pet peeve is when things should matter and they don't because of lazy characterization.)

Let's end with a few nice things about the opening episodes. I liked the moment when the roommate puts a blanket on Jeremiah and lets him curl up in bed silently. It is a nice moment of unspoken characterization. I like the fact that they took a risk with the filming and let is all be seen through the hand-held recorder. Yes, it made me motion sick, but hey, it was innovative. The Joseph-Smith-esque allusions were a bit trite, but at least they made an allusion when talking about the box and the dangers and the three things he must do.

Overall, it was hard for me to watch. But, I did watch it with my husband, so we had a fun time listing out the pros and cons as objectively as possible. 

"The Book of Jer3miah": A Page-Turner?

I slid the DVD into the player wondering what to expect. I’d never seen a Mormon webshow before. What I watched was an intriguing, mysterious, and action-filled series about a BYU freshman who learns about suspicious connections he has to the Book of Mormon and the ancient societies described in it. It certainly caught my interest. 

In thinking about the web series, though, I had difficulty deciding how much praise “The Book of Jer3miah” is really worthy of. Its characters are pretty shallow, for one thing. I was especially disappointed that we didn’t get to know Jeremiah better; I’d have liked to either hear more of his thought processes or see more outward expression from him. I did enjoy Porter, though—I felt like he was more enjoyable and three-dimensional than the other characters. And I liked the connection between him and his ancestor Orin Porter Rockwell, although it felt a little overdone. 

I also had some issues with the plot. Jeremiah’s experience with being prompted to kill a man was identical enough to Nephi’s to—at least in my opinion—cheapen it. Again, I’d have preferred a more subtle connection between historical characters and “Jer3miah” characters. In addition, the fact that other BYU students, none of which could’ve been much older than 20, got so negatively involved in the conspiracy surrounding Jeremiah and his special mission seemed pretty unrealistic.  

Overall, the episodes caught my attention, but not my admiration. I’m not sure that I would recommend it as literature or even particularly good entertainment. Not to say that “Jer3miah” is of terrible quality or not worth any consideration. It does seem to have an edge—if not a monopoly—on the Mormon Sci-Fi Thriller, and could perhaps spark the beginning of a new genre. But is “Jer3miah’s” novelty enough to redeem it?