Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

This past weekend my Canon HFS100 and Azden SGM 2x shotgun microphone was stolen.

I was setting up to do recording for a video I’m working on with AlMaghrib and it was my mistake to not notify some of the people there to keep an eye on it while I go into the seminar room to make a note of which people I’d be doing recordings of. 20 minutes later I come back and find my equipment missing.

As it was a major bummer to find my equipment stolen, I figured it’s a great opportunity to upgrade.

The following setup is what I’m considering :

The breakdown of which is:

• $1,600 – Canon 7D body
• $350 – Canon 50mm EF f 1.4 lens
• $600 – Tokina 11mm-16mm f 2.8 wide angle lens
• $318 – 1 meter Glidetrack
• $125 – Manfrotto Tripod head
• $150 – UV and Neutral Density Filters
• $100 – Hoodman Loupe
• $140 – Battery and 32 GB memory card

Total cost: $3383.00

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I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on the setup:

Reading time: 7 – 12 minutes

About 10 days ago I started an exercise on coming up with ideas to help Leechon grow financially and in social capital for this next year. The following list is what I got with your help.

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1 -
Develop a financial processing system
for processing company transactions to ensure timely execution of reimbursements and accounts receivables

2 -
Find funding sources for clients
where the funding for video comes from the organization’s member/subscriber base. This way more organizations can actually benefit form the service and more people can be engaged.

3 -
Relaunch Secrets of Video Production with affiliate partners,
separate from the full Message Mastery membership while also giving new courses and content to existing members.

4 -
Produce a sound loops and scores product without musical instruments
by partnering with a sound designer to sell as digital downloads as a means of helping Muslim indy producers.

5 -
Start a slate of three feature projects budgets at $30K each
with on demand distribution model and private funding partners to finance it.

6 -
Online product launch of 20 minute short film
with educational content partnered with a specific organization

7 -
Setup speaking engagements
followed by paid live-in-person workshops with Message Mastery on topics of marketing, strategy, social media & video

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8 -
Outsource all projects with budget under $1500
to Pakistan or India

9 -
Release case student of past projects
via Message Mastery. Price would vary based on depth of coverage and time spent on project.

10 -
Perodically release fun merchandise for people to buy
What type of merchandise would people be keen to pickup? t-shirt? gear? dvd?

11 -
Decade of Dawah good will project to invite bloggers & orgs to share their achievements
major events and accomplishments for last 10 years – (response to idea) – RT @shMuhammad @khanb1 I was reading one of those “decade in review” and thought: how about a series on AlMaghrib’s growth? Who’s interested?

12 -
Build segmented email lists and databases for smaller and/or Start-ups
via permission marketing – to increase social capital and lead base for Leechon and the organization

13 -
Release Tufaan not only as a film, but also with uncut interviews
as direct download and/or cinema-on-demand

14 -
Organize an indy conference on novel topic
Produce all it’s lectures in professional quality with a short documentary on the subject/topic. Sell it online as a complete package in Direct Download and/or DVD

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15 -
Remake Egyptian film “Tito”
adjust story to relate with American Muslim youth and with similar flair of action and drama.

16 -
Instead of selling Tufaan, release it for free as a lead generator
and a place to build a larger fan base for future film sales

17 -
Start a restaurant review show with Zabiha.com
traveling across the country

18 -
Map out a 50 year plan
of where Leechon, Message Mastery and how it will impact Islamic dawah in the following years

19 -
Produce a children’s show
on a full investors budget complete with merchandising and maybe an online social game.

20 -
Produce discussion videos
on contemporary topics featuring a numerous prominent people

21 -
Enter film competitions with a cash prize

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22 -
Team up with a grant writer
and apply for grants on specific film projects.

23 -
Upload content for monitzation
via ads for blip.tv views

24 -
Have lunch of coffee with at least one executive producer ever month
in NY to role model & draw map for personal dream of being one

25 -
Produce a DVD with general appeal and narrow focus
and go door to door selling it.

26 -
Stat a blog site to collect and follow all news on Prophet Muhammad-sal Allahu alayhi wasallam bio pic

27 -
Solicit other Major Islamic organizations for video services
After the internship, map out major Islamic orgs with already existent shows (means they have the money, equipment and workforce to sustain it) offer to do one episode / video free and show them the difference that can be made in terms of quality and affect. Then bam, we charge this much, here’s the profit / increase in hits you will make.
- submitted by RizaK

28 -
Start a reality show
A reality show behind the scenes of Leechon, a Muslim media (giant inshaAllah) in the 21st century in an ever changing word etc. etc. I’m sure it can be dramatized a bit. It will basically showcase the difficulties of doing something that hasn’t really been done before, at least not on this scale. Paving the way for the future inshaAllah. Feature film. Distribute… ??? …. PROFIT!
- submitted by RizaK

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29 -
Start basics training course on Message Mastery
Simple video marketing training (lesser level than current MsgMstry course)
- submitted by Nahyan

30 -
Teach social media marketing
- submitted by Nahyan

31 -
Move beyond the Muslim space
working with bigger/smarter businesses with video marketing. Generally speaking, Muslim businesses aren’t that sophisticated to hire professional video people and pay adequately
- submitted by Nahyan

32 -
Video certification program
Complete DIY guide to video production, how to get clients, keep them, meet their needs, make a profit etc. You must prove yourself in order to graduate. Once graduation has finished you’re a Leechon certified video extraordinaire. You now have the option to work for Leechon or start your own business. (I may have lifted this idea from somewhere)
– submitted by RizaK

33 -
Tour AlMaghrib qabaail with short and sweet program on Video
Stepping up the Dawah Promo: Tour Qabail with a short and sweet program that peaks the interest of Muslims in video. Give them reasons to KNOW why video dawah is the future. Interest people and show them that it CAN be done with some effort. The basic idea here is to interest Muslims with the concept of video, create noise. Why? Leechon wil be the GO-TO organization for Muslim media bithnillah, thus they will come to Leechon for help. inshaAllah
- submitted by RizaK

34 -
Feature Film of the year
Call a bunch of organizations to find out common issues in Muslim communities. Then come back months later after the data is collected with a proposal.
- submitted by RizaK

35 -
Pitch to production houses and studios
risk it and start going to all the production houses that you know of [both Muslim and Non-muslim] and pitch ideas to them see if they pick it up. If not approach potential sponsers, i asuume that you probably have a few if not many contacts in the media and see if they would be willing to sponser a Muslim show which has a unique twist to it. [of course a concept paper for this show will have to be developed]
- submitted by Haris

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

[ UPDATE: 12.26.2009 - 3:41 AM ]

Turns out that there are several types of 3D development over the years.

The type that most people are familiar with is “3D Stereoscopic” which is basically capturing with two sources and then having it projects in two different colors (red & blue -or- red & green) and the goofy glasses would cancel out the non-overlapped colors to give the artificial depth.

3D Stereoscopic can be duplicated in a low-budget project, it just takes proper planning – mounting of the camera with the right measures – and understanding of how to sync two different video files and audio files together in the same time line so editing is fully synced.

The end product will be like your classic 3D videos.

In today’s day and age of digital film making – instead of the diffusion of red and blue colors, its the diffusion of light known as “orthogonal polarizing”

During production you have a camera that has 2 lenses mounted in the front where it records the video data in two separate streams, much like how stereo audio is recorded in two separate streams.

The final cut is then projected via dual lens projector where each projector lens has “orthogonal polarizing filters” mounted on the front of it so than when you wear the 3D glasses – which also have orthogonal polarizing filters on them cancel out the non-overlapping image ads an artificial depth to the video.

More on this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarized_3D_glasses

Question:
How does one jimmy rig two separate projectors with “orthogonal polarizing filters” to play back two separate video streams at the same exact time?

Is there a software out there that could output two video streams using a video card with two video outputs to a projector and the program sends two distinct streams onto a screen so viewers can watch the feature in 3D?

I’d love to hear your responses!

[ UPDATE END ]

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With the release of Avatar Ive been wondering, what does it take to produce a 3D film on a short budget and what knowledge is needed?

I found some links that might be a valuable resource: 3D Stereoscopic Production & Delivery

A couple more links that may prove to be educational:

• Shooting Avatar
• Panasonic new 3D HD video Camera
• 3D Film (wiki)

Reading time: < 1 minute

In the process of trying to get the whole Abdullah idea together, my wife and I realized that we need to come up with a theme song. Something that's catchy, memorable, makes people feel good and when they hear it they'll snap their fingers and say, "That's Ghetto Abdullah!"

Our first trial run of the song recording with Abdullah was a bit harder than we thought.

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

My wife has been wanting to do a kids show for a while. I naturally took the business approach and started doing reserach, industry analysis and looking up case studies to develop this into a potential profit project for the Muslim market.

Out of sheer fun she took the initiative to start doing some sketches of potential characters. I decided I’d join in on the fun. We came up with the following.

Yesterday she decided to go out purchase some supplies to make a puppet. Keep in mind, we had never made a puppet and just wanted to play around with the idea. Turns out my wife really liked the middle sketch – mine is the crazy chibi on the left.

After we got all the supplies from the store, I took a much need nap and few hrs later woke up to this:

Update & Notice:

Just a reminder – comments, advice and feedback are welcome and appreciated, however this isn’t a forum for fiqh discussion. If certain Islamic issues and principles come up and you feel strongly about it, its best to discuss it in a respectful manner in the appropriate setting (ie AlMaghrib Forums).