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.

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).

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.

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.

I come to video production from a background in computer animation and photography. I took two video editing classes in school and have used Avid, Final Cut Pro, and Premiere. I’ve animated in Lightwave, 3D Studio, After Effects, and Avid Media Illusion so the post-production is really where I’m more experienced and most comfortable.

I have no formal training in shooting or sound recording, so it’s the hands on, nitty-gritty of getting good source footage that I’m most concerned about.

I would be glad for thoughts and feedback on the approach I’m planning to take.

The Haven of Hope Documentary

I want to shoot on miniDV tape with a two man crew. Whenever Brian is available that is — otherwise it’ll just be me.

Camera: Panasonic DVX100B, PAL version. Tripod would be a Manfrotto 756B with 503 head. Of course I’ll need lots of batteries and tapes! I’d really like to get a graduated Neutral Density filter to help get some well-exposed shots of the Nigerian plains — don’t want the sky to come out all white. I don’t know if I should get a matte box to hold such a filter or if I should just go with the screw-on variety. I also want to get a power inverter so we can charge batteries in the Landrover.

Sound: Rode NTG-2 with Rycote Full-Softy wind protection. Boom or pistol-grip mounted when Brian is available to help, camera mounted otherwise. I’m thinking about getting a used mic preamp with a headphone amp so Brian can hear what he’s getting and position the mic and tweak it’s input level accordingly. I’ll also use a Sennheiser EW 112-p wireless lav kit for a few formal interviews and probably more applications such as unobtrusively getting a mic close to villagers in the marketplace. I want to get some adapters to use the lav mic as a wired mic for situations where it doesn’t have to be wireless — this should give the best sound — one of our potential suppliers, H. Preston in the UK, say they can make an adapter like this for me. So, all this kit seems to be the most economical route to high quality sound. I have no idea what kind of mic preamp or mini-mixer to get — they are so expensive! Update: H. Preston can supply us with an ART ProMIX for £125 which is much more affordable than the ‘low-budget’ standard-bearer of field mixers, the $670 Sound Devices MixPre. These are really in diffent leagues and don’t deserve to be compared, however, the ProMIX does offer what I need — a level control for the mic and a headphone amp. It doesn’t have a good preamp like the MixPre and can’t even supply 48V phantom power but since the Rode NTG-2 mic can be self powered this potential deal-breaker is not an issue. Another interesting option that Andrew Stewart of Australia pointed out to me is the $65 Rolls PM50 sOB which is a headphone amp but has no level control for the mic.

Lighting: I’d like to produce these videos at a reasonably professional level — ideally, the experience for the viewer would be just as good as a creative, well-executed TV show or low-budget film documentary. I know that lighting plays a very important role in crafting the esthetic of any photographic medium so I want to give adequate attention to it. Lighting, however, is where I have no experience at all. I know enough about it to know that there is lots to get wrong and that the video will not “light itself”. My plan so far is to get two very small lights with stands that can take 300-650W bulbs, and a reflector with its own stand. I think I’ve found the ideal products in the Ianiro Gulliver and Lilliput lights and a collapsible reflector from Lastolite. The Ianiro lights are fairly simple, open-faced (as opposed to lensed) lights. The Gulliver is focusable and has a dimmer option (230V only?) but apparently only accepts 300W bulbs. The Lilliput is fixed-focus but has the option of taking bulbs up to 1000W and it costs less. I’m thinking about getting one of each. It appears that they both run on 120/240V which is important because, although Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo use 220-240V, It will be good to be prepared. I’d also get a set of barndoors for controlling light spread and some gels for adjusting the light temperature for situations where I need to match my lights to daylight coming in windows. I think it would be good to have a battery powered on-camera light for situations where available light is not sufficient and either I don’t have the other lights with me or don’t have time to set them up. I know it’s going to be tough to fit lights into my luggage, but they will make a huge difference in the final quality of the work.

Post-production: Apple has good pricing on Final Cut Studio for non-profit organizations so we were able to take advantage of that. So editing and sound mixing will be with Final Cut and Soundtrack. I’ll need to do some reading and figure out the best way to log and keep track of the sixty-plus hours of source footage that each project will have. I think I should get a good PAL/NTSC production monitor so I can get a good idea of how the video will look on a typical home television and adjust the colors and brightness accordingly — can’t trust the computer monitor. I will probably do some voice-over recordings and I’d use one of the mics from the sound kit above and record directly into Final Cut or Soundtrack. All the sound would be mono split to the left and right channels except that I might use some music and that would most likely be stereo.

Distribution: I’m planning to use Apple’s DVD Studio Pro and Compressor to make PAL and NTSC DVDs. Here is where it gets interesting. I’d like to shoot 16:9 at 25 progressive frames per second using the DVX100B’s digital-stretch to accomplish the 16:9. I believe I can then edit this natively in Final Cut. When I make my DVDs, I’m under the impression that I can actually put my 25fps, progressive, 16:9 video on the DVD and that the end-user’s DVD player will decode it and add the fields at the right frame-rate and the correct letterboxing, if needed, so that it plays correctly on their TV. If this is true, then it seems like some kind of magic. The only difference for the PAL/NTSC versions would be the image-size — 720 by 480 for NTSC and 720 by 586 for PAL. I could be way off on this (I hope not!), but this is how I understand it so far. This is still a long way off but I should probably get into the manual for DVD Studio Pro and figure this out as it could influence other decisions further upstream.

The Emmaus Corrector Training Series

Camera: I’d like to shoot the training sessions with two cameras. The main would be the DVX100B, focused on the teacher, and camera two would be my own Sony handycam, focused on the students and operated by Brian. I’m planning to shoot this in PAL 4:3 interlaced. One potential problem is that my handycam is NTSC so it might not be very smooth to put video from the two cameras on the same timeline.

Sound: The training will be in a classroom setting. The only additional sound gear I’d like for this is a Sennheiser plug-on transmitter so I can use a handheld XLR mic to record the students questions to the teacher. The teacher would have a wireless lav.

Lighting: I hear that we’re not sure we’ll have electricity at all our locations so lighting could get really interesting. When we have electricity I’ll just try to get the speaker evenly lit and use daylight if possible, with the little lights on stands to even out dark areas so that the contrast on the speaker isn’t too high.

Post: Same as above except I’d be editing 4:3 rather than 16:9.

Distribution: Interlaced PAL DVDs. Togo might be using SECAM equipment, but I wonder if they actually use SECAM DVD players there or if standard PAL gear there can output SECAM signals. Perhaps web distribution would be useful in the future.

Well, that’s it! Or at least most of it. This stuff can be made very complicated — I’m trying to keep it simple, but to go for as much quality as I can afford. I’d be glad for advice from someone who’s been there.

This training for english speaking Africa would often fall to Jim Gillett and his colleagues. The idea behind making training videos is that they would cut down on all the traveling that Jim does and would make training available as soon as it is needed. It would make scheduling training sessions much more flexible.

I think it’s a great idea, but sixteen hours of video is a lot of video! We’ll need eight DVDs for all the training. This is going to be quite a project.

Stay tuned for my thoughts and questions about the technological tools and production methods I’m looking into for making these videos. Ever heard of a “c-stand“? I hadn’t either.

Hope Nursery — a four acre farming project

When Jim floated the idea of making a video about the Haven I jumped at the chance because I think that the medium of video will be a great way to communicate the vitality of the work there at the Haven. My goal quickly became to make a documentary about the people and activities at the Haven Of Hope — to make a video focused on people and what they are doing rather than on facilities or statistics. I want to cover the clinic, the college, the various outreaches and services to the local community, and the character of the people working at the Haven as well as a little about the locals.

My target audience is english speaking believers around the world — especially those that are already interested and are praying for us. I don’t like to limit a production like this though. I want to present it in such a way that it will be interesting to anyone who’s interested in something good being done as it is said in Matthew 5 and I Peter 2. The work at the Haven is Christ at work through those those that follow him and I want the documentary to be accessible and interesting so that the goodness of Christ himself can shine through.

My purpose in making the doc is that Christ might be praised and that his redeemed people will glorify him as they see the work being done at the Have Of Hope! I hope it will be an encouragement to the viewers in their relationship with Christ and service for him. I want people to be more informed as they pray for the work, support it financially, and tell others about it.

Ireland Outreach was instrumental in building a combined medical clinic and Bible college near Jos, Nigeria called The Haven Of Hope. The project began in 2002 and is still under construction although the medical services and Bible instruction are already well underway. I have been asked to make a video documenting the activity at The Haven Of Hope, primarily to show to our supporters. I hope that the resulting documentary will help people to appreciate what is happening in Nigeria and to give God thanks for what he is doing through those at the Haven.

While I’m admittedly most excited about doing the documentary about the Haven, the training video for the Emmaus Correctors might have a further-reaching impact. When Jim travels through various english speaking countries in Africa, one of his primary activities seems to be to teach these training workshops. Many Christian leaders in Africa are keen to use materials such as the Emmaus courses but lack the relational, administrative and technical know-how to get such an effort going. Jim provides them with instruction and further resources and support. Sixteen hours is lots of training and it takes lots of time to travel from city to city and set up these workshops. Our goal with this project is to capture the essence of the workshop by shooting at several live presentations of the material and editing it into sixteen hours that form a cohesive whole. The resulting set of DVDs can be sent via post wherever and whenever they are needed.

These projects will require trips to three (perhaps more) countries in Africa and, as it stands now, we (Brian, Jim, and myself) are scheduled to get on the plane towards the end of February — probably on the twentieth. I’m still in the process of getting all the gear together that I’ll need to accomplish the shoot, and the postproduction work — I’ll be writing about how that is going shortly.