The production team that introduced Rob Bell to a new audience in NOOMA, Flannel, is teamed up with Cornerstone Church (Simi Valley, CA) pastor Francis Chan for a minimum of seven DVDs under the series name, BASIC.
The differences are somewhat superficial, but there are a few of them: Switching from sky blue to basic beige, modifying the packaging by including a color booklet, adding a second feature, and changing distribution from Zondervan to David C. Cook are some of the differences.
The similarities are the more striking, and they are but two:
First of all, the good news: Chan’s message about fearing God merges well with the film production team at Flannel pulling out all the stops for an elaborate production that is visually very simple, but guaranteed to evoke one of the primary fears we all have, fear of water. The musical score is also of the quality we came to expect from the Bell videos. You almost wonder out loud how they did it, and you are rewarded with one new feature, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the video that is as visually engaging as the film itself.
Second, the not-so-good news: The BASIC series will do for Francis Chan what NOOMA did for Rob Bell in terms of awareness and publicity, but for those of us who knew a pre-NOOMA Bell and know a pre-BASIC Chan, it’s easy to wish that instead of these short-form teachings, they simply packaged up some of Chan’s best sermons into quality teaching, long-form DVDs. Where NOOMA doesn’t represent the “Best of Bell,” neither is BASIC necessarily going to give the world the “Best of Chan.” Both are phenomenal communicators who can’t be contained in a 10-14 minute video.
In other words, just as a few of knew there was more to Rob Bell than we saw in Dust or Luggage or Rain; so is there so much more to Francis Chan than we get to see on Fear God. However, having said that, I think Chan has a better chance of allowing his teaching to transcend the short-form film medium.
There are some great discussion options available here to youth group leaders, who made up the core of the NOOMA market. They should find BASIC equally useful in preparing youth and young adult meeting theme preparation, and like NOOMA, it will probably bleed over into an older demographic as well, and even the occasional Sunday morning service.
I’m looking forward to seeing this series develop.
Thinking Out Loud 
The other differences are the Scripture saturated nature of Chan’s message and his allowing Scripture to interpret itself rather than presenting his spin on Scripture.
Comment by Stephen — August 10, 2010 @ 8:50 am
True. I tended to look at the product differences here, just assuming people knew that there is a whole different tenor to Chan’s ministry. I’m sure the people at Flannel, the film production company, quickly learned they were dealing with a whole different commodity when they first met with Francis Chan!
Comment by paulthinkingoutloud — August 10, 2010 @ 9:42 am