2nd Anniversary SALT Celebration Post!
Hello, to all our Brainy Blog fans!!
Welcome to our continued celebration of ONE HUNDRED Shine A Light Today (SALT) review articles!! And, coincidentally, today is also our 2-year anniversary of SALT! Two years since our first review (Godzilla: Minus One) and one hundred pieces of Christian and secular media assessed, analyzed, and reviewed for your convenience!
This Saturday we took a look at our Top-Rated pieces of media (you can check that out here), but today we’re pulling back the curtain, so to speak, on what goes into a SALT article. Ever wondered if there was a rhyme to our reason when it came to SALT’s funky acronym? Well, wonder no more! I’m here to explain everything. Hopefully this special article will reveal a little of SALT’s purpose and overall philosophy when it comes to reviewing books, movies, and stories of all kinds.
Summary
Summary serves as the synopsis of the media we’re reviewing. Here we try to include all the basic information of the media, including format, intended audience, genre, basic plot or character information, or anything else you can find through a quick google search. We might include hints about our opinion on this media in the word choices we use, but for the most part this is just an overview.
Assessment
Assessment is where we start analyzing the piece of media dispassionately. The focus of this section is on two aspects: value and quality. It asks the question “is this story worth your time and money?” in a straightforward, unbiased sort of way. There is so much media — in both the Christian and secular realms — that sometimes it feels like wading through a needle in a haystack to find something worthwhile. Even on the Christian side of things, sometimes stories are not quite what they’re advertised or they are as advertised, but are blatantly promoting sin, or the storytelling quality leaves much to be desired. This section is designed to help navigate those questions in an unbiased, analytical way.
Also included in this section is a brief overview of the story’s theology — i.e. what it says about God and good, Biblical morals; either overtly or covertly — and it’s cleanliness level. While most pieces of media have already been either rated or have clearly stated their intended audience, the Brainy Bunch steps in here as an outside assessor. We’re not going to get too deep into the weeds about rating and story content, but we like to provide a brief overview of things we spy in the story, particularly for children’s media.
Light-o-Meter
The Light-o-Meter is our quick-and-easy look at how a piece of media stacks up against the “ideal”. Since we review more than just books or movies, each type of media will have different categories in the Light-o-Meter depending on what we want to assess. The Light-o-Meter might have as many as 7 categories! It is also getting a little bit of a makeover in future articles, explained more below…
Overall — Here is our overall rating of the media out of a scale of 7 Little Lights!
Story:
Voice Acting:
Animation:
Music:
Quality: This is our assessment of the media’s overall quality; this might include physical quality (such as construction and printing for hardcopy media) or it might focus on the overall quality of the storytelling, character development, plot, theological message, or prose depending on the piece of media.
Theological Message: Arguably one of the most important element of analysis when it comes to Christian media, this is where we ask the question “what does the creator of the story have to say about God and His rules?” We make this assessment without getting into any deep theological weeds or denominational opinions. The foundation and ultimate tool of comparison for this is the Bible. We are not at all looking for perfection, but to figure out where the piece of media lies on the messaging spectrum. Secular media gets an automatic “Not Applicable” or “N/A” rating in this category, since we cannot expect the world to willfully include a theological message.
Age Appropriateness — Here we confirm whether or not a piece of media matches it’s declared audience. This is an unbiased confirmation or denial of the media’s “rating” as stated by the production or publishing company. It’s rare that a piece of media is incorrectly rated, but it can happen, especially with independent publishing.
Talk
Arguably my absolute favorite part of the article is the Talk section, because here is where the Brainy Reviewer gets a chance to speak their mind about a piece of media! Typically, it results in a few paragraphs outlining what the reviewer did or did not like in the story with a more personal flavor. This section is supposed to read like you’ve asked a friend their opinion of a story and they are giving it to you honestly. There is plenty of room for personal interpretation for the media — which the Brainy Reviewer will make allowances for — so some of this section can be taken with a grain of…well…salt…
(Talk is also the section where the reviewer can crack jokes.)
The Talk section is also where the reviewer gets a chance to explain or defend some of their earlier comments from the Assessment section. The initial assessment is designed to be on the quick-and-easy side; outlining the story’s value and quality in a way that if anyone didn’t want to read further they wouldn’t have to. However, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for detailed what’s and why’s. This is where the reviewer — in the least spoiler-y way possible — can describe exactly where they did or did not see value in the story.
It’s also where the reviewer has a chance to geek out about the things they really, really enjoyed about the story, which is important in the uplifting and encouraging environment Brainy Pixel is looking to foster!
Where to Enjoy
The Where to Enjoy section is pretty self-explanatory, it’s where we give you the resources you need to find the particular piece of media in this review! Even if the media gets a mid-to-negative review, we’ll still have the link here because we understand that all reviews come with inherent bias and just because our reviewer didn’t like something doesn’t mean everyone reading the review will feel the same way.
And, by the way, Brainy Pixel isn’t paid for these reviews or sponsored to post links! At most we may receive a piece of media for free, but whether or not we review it and include links to buy is entirely up to our discretion.
The only media that will not get any links is anything that promotes heresy or is in some way so theologically flawed that we can’t in good conscious recommend it (fortunately this has only happened once in our over one-hundred review articles!).
A Note for Parents
A huge percentage of what Brainy Pixel reviews is kids’ media. Whether that be books, comic books, movies, TV shows, or even video games, Brainy loves to see what’s going on in the realm of kids media and provide you, the parents, with the knowledge you need to make good decisions about what your kids are exposed to. With that, the SALT philosophies with kids media are slightly different; the stories are scrutinized a bit more, the meta of the story’s messaging is analyzed in finer detail, and the rating is judged a little more harshly. We want you to be confident in our abilities to review and critique the media you want to give your kids.
Additionally, if we are reviewing a series of some kind — be that book or TV show — we try to review the entire thing or at least all of the available pieces of it. So many series (meant for kids or adults) start off on one foot then switch to the other as time goes on, occasionally resulting in a series that’s good for the first few books or episodes, but slides into bad messaging as it goes on. For anything for middle grade and younger, SALT will try to cover the whole series whenever possible.
(We assume adults can make their own decisions about series meant for them if given a good review of the first installment.)
A Note for Christian Creatives
We here at the Brainy Blog LOVE your stories, media, and artwork!! If you have a piece of media you would like us to give an HONEST review of, please do not hesitate to reach out to us and recommend it! Now, we also know that having the project you have slaved over for so long assessed can be a little daunting. While the Brainy Blog will always be honest in its reviews, we also approach the whole review/critique process with an eye for encouragement. Encouraging the good we see in media and making sure not to fixate on the bad. We are not going to call out every undotted ‘i’ and typo we find…partly because we really don’t have time for that. We will treat your piece of media with respect and dignity because we value YOU, our brother or sister in Christ!
Additionally, if you are a debut author or artist (i.e. you recently have had your first piece of media officially published and out to the world!) our reviews are going to factor in potential. Few creatives nail it on the first try and we at Brainy Pixel completely and totally understand that. We’re not going to grade your media on quite the same metric as we would media from a creative or company that has been around the block a few times. There is absolutely room to grow and the SALT review will reflect that!
We hope you have enjoyed this peek behind the curtain of all things SALT! Thank you SO MUCH for supporting the Brainy Blog, we really appreciate you!
Now, go out and Shine A Light Today!
