Reviewed by Matthew Cordle

This DVD is the fifth in a series entitled "Precious Moments" which proclaims to marry "Breathtaking worship alongside scenery from..." various locations. This volume comprises a variety of scenery from across Wales set alongside 10 recordings of songs from various Keswick Bible Weeks. Having spent some of my life in Wales I know some of the beautiful locations included, such as Betwys-y-Coed, and the production team has obviously spent a good deal of time travelling around Wales. Amazingly they managed to capture a few moments of clear blue sky along with the many rain-filled cloudy skies! The musical recordings are not especially vibrant, although there are some rousing moments such as "How Great Is Our God," but looking at the DVD as a whole I have one overriding question - "Why?" Why set beautiful, slow moving landscapes to these songs, many of which aren't particularly reflective? Why is the footage not cut to the music, transitioning on the beat, looking as if it's been thought through? There is no obvious programmatic link between the lyrics of the songs and the shots used and it looks as if the songs have just been plonked on a timeline under the edited footage. Maybe it's just me - as this is volume 5 in the series there must be a market for it, but why? There are some lovely timelapse shots, but some of the slomo shots don't really work so well - in order to avoid the juddering they really need to shoot these sequences at higher frame rates before slowing them down. The DVD menu has been neatly put together with fades through to the first frame of a selected song, along with the ability to select the lyrics as subtitles. Minor details that shouldn't have slipped through quality control are the momentary visual artefact on screen around 03:03, and a number of spelling errors of Welsh place names on the back cover. All in all, pretty average.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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