What can be done in Soundtrack Pro that can’t be done in Final Cut? After forcing myself to use Soundtrack Pro to finish a short documentary and a short film, I think I finally get how Soundtrack can fit into a Final Cut Studio workflow. For me, it boils down to this. Do as much sound work as possible in Final Cut. Use the best possible take for each shot. Don’t think you’ll choose a better take later in Soundtrack because the tools in Soundtrack are suited to fixing audio, mixing, and applying filters, not choosing takes. Fill in any gaps while still in Final Cut. Again you don’t want to go hunting through your footage when you’re working in Soundtrack for wild sound to fill in gaps – the tools in Final Cut are much better for that. Add sound effects in Final Cut. Some of them might be temporary but at least get them in there. Set your levels in Final Cut, then tweak them in Soundtrack Pro.

So what is Soundtrack Pro good for? Well, other than giving you fits, Soundtrack is good for adding sound effects, either from it’s huge library of effects or from some other source – even recording them right into the timeline, foley style. Soundtrack is good for fixing audio problems that require a waveform editor, such as noises that need to be removed. Soundtrack is good for adding eq, reverb and other filters. It has good tools for previewing filters and it’s real-time filters are good. Tweak your levels in Soundtrack. It has good tools for getting the levels right, such as a continually updated numerical db meter that lets you know exactly where you are peaking. You can also use submixes and other audio specific stuff but I haven’t tried that yet. So in summary, don’t leave Final Cut too early – save Soundtrack for the final effects, fixing, tweaking and sweetening of the sound.

It should be a simple thing. Make any website you’re reading more comfortable to read. Unfortunately this isn’t easy – it’s a mess. I was reading A Logic Named Joe and wished I could have some more leading (more space between the lines of text). I thought “great, I’ll just download a style sheet that will give me some more leading”. After searching for more than half an hour, the best I could find was User Agent Style Sheets: Basics and Samples with links to default style sheets from the W3C. I’ll have to download one of them and tweak the leading to my satisfaction, then tell Safari to use it. Thanks Jens Meiert for the article. I think a better way to do this sort of thing would be for Safari and other browsers to have a more robust set of appearance controls rather than just text size.

Grzegorz Stachowiak and Tomasz Rola, in a scene from No Signal. We shot this short film in Dublin, edit is nearing completion. More soon!

So here’s a little video we made while we were in Poland. It also has Lidia’s mom in it. It was good fun and a good opportunity to practice shooting handheld with the DVX100b

Bonus points to anyone who can say who I’m quoting in my title to this post. Yes, I’m back many moons ago from my journey to Nigeria and Hoorah, the DVD is made! What a joy to see 12,000 of these DVDs on their way to folks around the globe. I pray that God will bless the work at The Haven of Hope and that this DVD will be useful.

So, point at hand, my next big project is… Making a catalogue. Then! Making another movie. But whilst I’m making a catalogue I’d really like to… Make a movie! A movie of my own. Some quick Googling terms like “cheap film school” and “making movies” turned up some good resources.

One person said “One way or another, when a filmmaker goes out to make a film, he should be trying to save the world in his own Peculiar way”. I liked that. Another, purportedly Robert Rodriguez, (Mexican Hollywood film director), said “How do you make a cheap movie? – Look around you, what do you have around you? Take stock in what you have. Your father owns a liquor store – make a movie about a liquor store. Do you have a dog? Make a movie about your dog. Your mom works in a nursing home, make a movie about a nursing home. When I did El Mariachi I had a turtle, I had a guitar case, I had a small town and I said I’ll make a movie around that.”

So coming soon to a DVD player near you: A movie about Ireland, people with accents, green grass, the sea, and (grimace) Pitney-Bowes folding machines. I have a guitar case too supposing that doesn’t work out. So, hope you enjoy, and look out world prepare to be saved. (Hopefully not for the worse).

Before we left for Nigeria, Jim gave me some stuff to read about adjusting to other cultures, culture shock, and how to live with other cultures. One of the articles I read was about what to do when the foreign culture starts to get to you and you begin to get unsettled by it. The writer recommended bringing along some items from your own culture — books, magazines, photos, etc — and finding some solace in their familiarity. I thought that a two month trip into Africa wouldn’t be too big a deal, and generally I was right. We were in good company. Our hotels and food were decent. There were even comfortingly auspicious “Internet Cafe” signs in almost every town. But, two months is a long time. And cultural realities began to sink in when I heard people saying “Internet Calf” and realized they were referring not to WiFi enabled baby cows, but someplace to check their hotmail accounts (provided the electricity was on). We had to buy water. Every bit of food was suspect — we dared not eat anything local unless it was prepared by “foreigner friendly” cooks.

We drove many miles during our stay and as the weeks drew on, I became more and more thankful I had my (usually) trusty old iPod with me. While we were driving for hours at a time I listened to some good American music. AMERICAN. Yes, with all it’s problems, America, sorry, “the United States”, is a really great place. As I gradually began to believe what my eyes were seeing in Africa, I also began to contemplate some of the positive aspects of America. It might be the best country in the world. Seriously, anyone who lives there, don’t take it for granted. Actually, there is nothing sacred about the USA. But — but — it was founded on principles of respect for God and Man by people in whose political history stands the Magna Carta and who’s spiritual heritage shines with the light of John Wycliff’s Work. Those principles have had a wonderfully lasting effect. There are people who this week risked their lives and people who’ve labored their whole lives for a chance to get in. So, I guess I was glad to have a little bit of home with me.

Beneath or above all the rubbish that passes for popular music in American there swim or fly a thousand beating hearts. These are musicians that have left the cliches of the past and the tunnel-vision fixation on the tv and radio and are boldly going where only a few have gone before. They are the songwriters and bands typically called “indie” as in independent. When I hear what some of them are coming up with I can suffer a little secret American pride. The highlight of my experience with these fine folk is undoubtedly the man from Michigan, Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan (Soofyan, I think) and his crew of musical accomplices were great to have along with me during those long drives in Africa. In addition to Stevens, I also listed a lot from Ester Drang and The Magnetic Fields. So just in case you’re interested (you read this far, so… ) I thought I’d give you a few links. Sufjan is one of those incredibly creative and productive people. He made available a song just for a radio show on NPR. You can also download The Henney Buggy Band and Saul Bellow from me — these are songs that were CUT from his latest album called Illinoise because they didn’t fit in with his vision for the record. Ah, and here is Christmas favorite (actually I’d never heard it afore) Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming. One cool United States of American guy is he.

Maybe this will work. I’m going to try to post to my blog from my
mobile phone using the txt2email feature that glo offers. If it
works, then I’ll be able to post from anywhere that I have mobile
service. Well, we’re currently at a hotel in Asaba and we’re planning
to head to Lagos tomorrow. I’m in a cyber cafe at our hotel, testing
this text –> email –> blog thing to see if I can get it to work.
Just a few feet away from me, someone is sending out spam emails by
hand, copying and pasting huge groups of email addresses from a text
file and dumping them into the To field of his hotmail account. Ah,
Nigeria. Well, on a brighter note, we had an Emmaus graduation
yesterday in Port Harcourt and more than one hundred students were
graduated!

For some reason I’m finding it hard to write about my experience so far. Perhaps it’s for the same reason that I’m hesitant to let people see me taking pictures here. Life is hard in Nigeria. The work is hard, the climate is harsh, living conditions are backward and unsanitary, disease is a problem, and political corruption is rampant from the highest levels to the lowest. If I take a photo here it is not for beauty but for documentation — to help me think.

We left Dublin on Monday morning and arrived in Lagos at about nine in the evening after a stopover in Amsterdam. The airport in Amsterdam has an impressive people-centric architecture and I really appreciate the seamless and focused graphics that tie the whole complex together. The Airport in Lagos is a contrast to it in almost every way, however I was heartened to see that the signage there, at least near our gate, was like a mini-replica of that in Amsterdam, right down to the color and the typface. Jim said that the small moving walkways they have are new also. I think that little things like this are signs of positive social change.

The highlight has been meeting the wonderful friends that Jim has here in Nigeria. I’ve met Noah and Yemi, two men who are dedicated Zonal Coordinators for Emmaus Bible Centres Mission in the Lagos area, Sule Moses Abu, who we’ve been traveling with and who is the National Coordinator, and good friends Esther Haruna, Philip Ebikwo, Dan Itodo, and Ocholi James.

Tuesday morning we got up early and got a taxi with Yemi, who’s mobile phone rings every five minutes, to go pick up the Land Rover. This took us right through Lagos and gave me and Brian a good chance to get our first real look at the city. If there are three things that stand out to me as a foreigner in Lagos they would have to be the heat, the dust, and the masses of people. It seems like society is linked to the roads here. Everything happens on the road. People walk, sell, buy, drive, hang-out, eat, and even sleep by the side of the road. There is constant cacophony of people shouting, horns blaring, engines roaring, and every few thousand feet, cone-shaped speakers on poles blasting music. That’s a sign that there is a generator somewhere nearby. Electricity is intermittent in Lagos, one of the biggest cities in Africa with a metropolitan area population of around 17M. Seventeen Million.

The video work is going along nicely so far. I’ve shot about five hours of Emmaus Training and also done a few light and sound test setups for interviews. ‘Net access will be pretty hard to come by but today I’ve discovered that there is an open wireless network in the lobby of our Sheraton hotel in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. We’re only able to stay here because of a special concession Jim is able to get from the company so I’m going to try to make the most of it while it lasts.

Ah, one more thing. Brian has become Keeper of Land Rover Doorlocks. Our friend Sule was pulled from our vehicle on friday (an incident he handled very cooly) and so now as soon as we get in the car Brian is on about locking our doors. Good job Brian! Thanks be to God we’ve come safely so far and have been able to keep to schedule.