iBible: The Good Book Gets a Smartphone Age Update in a Screenlife Series
Why are social media and popular apps the best thing that could happen to the Bible today?
In a new iBible series, God records voice messages and uses a smartphone to create the universe. Viewers don’t see God — only his smartphone screen. That’s where his greatest creations find a digital imprint. Instagram, Google Maps, Tinder and YouTube — all the apps we use every day on our own smartphones — become both the tools and the scene to tell the greatest stories from the Book of Genesis in a way they’ve never been interpreted before.
iBible is nothing more than an imitation of the Good Book: with YouTube and Instagram creatives Jesse and Simon Brooks recreating the famous Biblical stories in the visual language of popular apps and social media.
The explainer-style show delivers the smartphone rendition of biblical stories in bite-sized episodes. Each episode is a two-minute dive into a famous story from the Book of Genesis: Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Cain and Abel, David and Goliath, Ten Commandments, etc. Screenlife guru Timur Bekmambetov created and directed the pilot episode and brought Jesse and Simon Brooks, creators of Instagram’s and YouTube’s Phony Texts that fictionalizes text conversations, to co-write and co-direct other episodes.
iBible is produced by Timur Bekmambetov and Majd Nassif who have been experimenting with mobile vertical formats over the past couple of years, starting with Buzzfeed’s Future History: 1968 web series, which let viewers experience historical events through the lens of social media and going on with Snap Originals hit series Dead of Night shot in the screenlife format for in-app smartphone viewing by Snapchat users.
The SWSX 2021 Special Events screening will be premiering the first five episodes. iBible will show twice on the SXSW Live Channel on Tuesday, March 16 at 9:30pm CT and on Saturday, March 20 at 3:30pm CT. It will go on-demand on SXSW Online after the first screening at around 10pm CT on Tuesday, March 16. The entire project is set to be released later this year.
Meet the Filmmakers: iBible Creators Talk About the Upcoming Premiere at SXSW
Bible in the Screenlife Format Is Premiering at SXSW
About Screenlife
In a Screenlife film, viewers see the action play out from the POV of the computers, tablets and smartphones used by the characters.