One thing that people are fascinated by are reading articles about different places and nature. They also like to watch the travel channel and discovery channel for these reasons. Perhaps you can create a separate brand and film really cool places.

My idea came from the fact that I enjoy reading about different travel locations on Wikipedia and other sources. And I love to learn about different destinations. And the Travel channel was very successful at this whole thing on cable TV a few years back. Regarding how it would work for you would require some marketing research to see how popular the idea would be with people.

Personally having the affinity for travel and going to new places, the idea really appealed to me. However, I haven’t seen nature videos being used as anything except for encouraging people to visit a city, testing camera equipment out simply practicing in the craft of motion photography.

When I saw the email the following videos came to mind.

This first video is by Paul Frederick Productions located out in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. He doesn’t have that many videos up, but some of the ones he posts up are visually stunning. This video here was produced I think with a Canon 7D.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This second video here is by Preston Kanak of Canada. Preston has an interesting project going on where he shoots and uploads a 3 minute short film every day and is doing it every day for 365 days. His goal is to perfect his abilities as a filmmaker. This is one of the nature videos he shot with a DSLR HD camera that really caught my eye.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve always had this thought of profiling the mosques of America as a project either in documentary form or simple motion photography as shown above. That’s was just my thought.

For me, when I produce something, there has to be some sort of motivation behind it. It’s either for practice, communicating a message or at least telling some sort of story. Art without purpose is of no benefit to people. But that’s just me.

I’m curious as to know what you think? What would you like to see that would have a lot of “replay value?”

Umm Musa, was told to throw Musa in the river,
Yusuf was left for dead in a well,
Maryam (May Allah be pleased with her) delivered a child alone,
Ayesha (May Allah be pleased with her) was accused of a terrible sin,
Yunus (peace be upon him) was swallowed by a whale,
Ibrahim (peace be upon him) was thrown in the fire,
Muhammad (saw) lost the love of his life Khadija (May Allah be pleased with her),
and Umm Salamah (May Allah be pleased with her) thought no one could be better than Abu Salamah.

Yet look at how it turned out for them in the end.. So don’t worry, Allah has a plan for you.

I think the best place to start would be to collect some of the most inspiring gems from the AlMaghrib seminars

UPDATE END -

I sure you’ve heard of the book series “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” It’s a compilation of 101 motivational stories contributed by people and published as a book. The end result was that people loved it and they benefited greatly.

My Idea:

Produce a series of motivational kinetic typography videos that are released weekly to the subscriber as a means of getting their week started with the right mindset.

Short rants, quotes, gems and stories meant to really pump you up.

Example video style I have in mind:

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

–

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

–

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

–

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

–

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

–

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

–

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

[ 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 ]

–

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)

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

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).

A word on ideas, a business executive said:

If you need validation, look in the mirror. Business has no set rules. You’re only as good as what you’ve created next.

Think of yourself as a lumberjack in the Redwood Forest. If you’re focused only on knocking that tree down, you wont last in that career. If you focus on the process and enjoy the chopping, you will thrive.

In truth, you may or may not knock down the tree, but you have to enjoy the process. At the end of it all, you’ll be back where you started, hitting up a new tree.

I want to make a change to that statement. The only rule in business is keeping within a framework of that is pleasing to Allah.

–

Few weeks back I started a 3 x 10 idea generation discipline (three ideas for ten days). I did keep with the discipline but I had difficulty posting it on the due to traveling and not always having access to the internet.

The following are my ideas so far:

• Produce a documentary about NYPD cops that are Muslim. Tell their story of fitting in with the other cops. Dealing with their own diverse back grounds and Muslim identity and facing danger at times for the protection of innocent people.

• Produce an online video series that in an entertaining way address the issue of calendar holidays. For example, Valentines day: Its pagan roots, the legend of the Valentine card – a priest who married soldiers to women which was against the empires wishes and resulted in his death and a note to a woman who took care of him in his tortured state. Series would address the affect of these holidays on our culture and Islamic well being.

• Refocus Tufaan to address not so much the hurricane, but the overall human struggle and adjust the artistic approach of the movie to something more eye candy such as motion graphics.

• Produce an animated feature documentary about the last years of Malcolm X’s life as a Muslim (post hajj)

• Develop an online learning system for new Muslim converts where they can go from A – Z and be up to speed on what they need to know to be totally functional in their deen.

• Produce a movie guerrilla style for under $30,000 starring local youth.

• Produce a low to mid-budget ($50,000 – $500,00) motion graphics based movie covering the story of the Israel-Palistine conflict starting from 1900 – Present time. Story would cover the Fall of the Ottoman Empire, the establishment of Middle Eastern states,  Involvement of British and French in turning Muslims against each other, Establishment of Israel to the Palestine-Israel conflict.

• Produce a short video for online distribution based off of the letter of Umar ibn Abdil Azeez that was passed out in the Torch Bearer’s seminar.

• Develop a Qabeelah training module within Message Mastery. Think AlMaghrib’s teacher training system by sensei on steroids.

• Produce a “docu-lecture” – Every since I saw “Legend of the Furious Five” (extra DVD from Kung-Fu Panda) I got excited about producing a lecture DVD that’s designed to be on video. Imagine recording a Halaqa studio-cinematic style with short stories cutting in and out of the lecture visuals. Its almost like two paralel stories…sort of.

• Secure a partnership with a national or international client that specializes in educating people in the area of deen, language, self development or halaal financial mastery and launch an online learning system that is subscription based and membership focused.

• Produce a short film titled “Sunnah Smile” for the purposes of laying out a case study for Message Mastery students. A story about a little girl that gets bullied on her way to school. Bully always takes her lunch money. She tries to confront the big bully but ends up in the trash. She follows up with a new plan which leads to a flowery twist ending.

• Incorporate Leechon in Canada so that it can take advantage of the money that the Canadian government has laid out for film projects. The questions that come to mind are: (1) What are Canadian business tax-laws? (2) What are the different ownership structures? (3) What are the different type of banks that are available and what sort of fees and benefits do they offer? (4) What are the different types of government grants that are available and how does one go about getting them? (5) Where can I go to learn more about the business of film in Canada?

• Contract a professional graphic designer to produce a course focused on graphic design and its principles for Message Mastery.

• Produce a short film titled “License on Empty” about a young kid who gets a drivers license and goes partying everywhere. He runs out of gas and ends up having to by for gas, maintainance as well as insruance – learning about responsibilty.

• Produce a promotional “profile video” of each AlMaghrib instructor.

• Produce a movie that documents the journey going cross country with Tufaan screening it in every major city in North America.

• Start an education campaign with some organization meant to educate people on zakah and wealth building.

• Produce an adventure-horror-thriller – Story about three guys going mountain biking in the smoky mountains in North Carolina. One of the guys disappears, another guy gets hurt and their vehicles wont start, leaving them stranded in the mountains. They soon realize there is more to their predicament than meets the eye. Story of survival.

• Produce a TV Show titled “Brown-tourage – brown people doing funny stuff. A project that starts off with funny skits that start off online, which ultimately lead to a feature film.

• Scavenger-Hunt – Reality show race. Three teams, each with a camera. A race to the finish line and collection of items.

• Sci-Fi Film – The human race of one planet has declared war on the human race of another planet. They intercept communication from the “enemy” nation and use their computers to try to decipher the message. According to computer analysis, “This communication (Quranic ayat) couldn’t have been done by a human.”

• Short film – “License On Empty” – Young kid just gets his licenese, goes partying everywhere. Gas runs out and ends up stranded in the middle of nowhere. In the end learns a valuable lesson of self responsibility.

• Develop a few online seminars that can be sold for cheap

• Write a few e-books as a means of testing future markets

• Develop a profile video for each AlMaghrib instructor

• Make a movie about a road-trip distribution of another movie through major cities within North America.

• Produce a film with Bayyinah about the story of three people and their journey of learning to read Arabic in 16 hrs.
• Produce a film with AlMaghrib students which would fundamentally be a compilation of many short film put together as a feature.

• Make a video climbing the Pyramids of Giza sticking a poster sized sticker at the top saying “Belal Was Here {date}”

• Take a trip to Australia with multiple stops in Texas, Cali, Hawaii, Malaysia and finally Australia via first class. For every stop, record a time-lapse of a masjid in the local area.

• Produce a film An Inconvienent Truth style but instead of global warming as the problem being address, it can be the issue of people’s financial issues and the person addressing the issue can be sensei.

• Setup every major masjid in North America with screening equipment to layout the foudation for an independent distribution network for Leechon (projects, screen, speakers)

Sound designer David Filskov posts an interesting list of tricks he’s collected from other designers for turning common objects into audio trickery. It seems like a stretch, until you realize that movie soundtracks are rarely recorded from the source—often because doing so would be dangerous, impractical, or wouldn’t sound believable.

The sound of people walking on snow? It’s made by recording people in the studio walking on flour or cornstarch. If you live in a cold, snowy climate, you know how rare that perfectly crunchy and squeaky snow is. The sound of a naval depth charge? A toilet flushing at half speed, with a reverberation filter applied. Alien sounds?

Certain kinds of canned dog food make useful sounds as the food comes out of the can. The chunky stuff isn’t so good, but the tightly packed all-one-mass kind makes gushy sucking sounds when the air on the outside of the can is sucked into the can to replace the exiting glob of dog food. This sound can be used as an element in certain kinds of monster vocalizations, alien pod embryo expulsions, etc.

3 x 10 :: Day 06

• Produce a promotional “profile video” of each AlMaghrib instructor.  

• Produce a movie that documents the journey going cross country with Tufaan screening it in every major city in North America. 

• Start an education campaign with some organization meant to educate people on zakah and wealth building.

What’s this “3 x 10? thing? – See my post on focusing ideas:
http://www.leechon.com/focus-ideas-847.htm

I remember when I went to see the film when it was test screened, it was the first time I actually cried in a movie. The images on the IMAX are extremely moving. Reliving the hajj on the screen was as very strong moment and I’m sure those who have gone to hajj and saw the film can surely relate.

A sad moment during the film was right before the credits, when it said, “In memory of Chems Eddine Zinoun” who was the actor that played Ibn Batuta in this film. According to IMDB, Zinoun died in Casablanca, Morroco due to a tragic car accident in November 2008.

At first the thought was sad, but then on a deeper note I thought to myself,

He died at a great time where his last project was something that will resonate through time as calling people to fulfill their last pillar of Islam. When he stands up on the day of judgement, he can say to Allah-swt that this was a legacy that he left.

May Allah-swt count this project on his scale of good deeds on the day of judgement.

The following video is one the making of “Journey to Mecca”

– –

3 x 10 :: Day 05

• Incorporate Leechon in Canada so that it can take advantage of the money that the Canadian government has laid out for film projects. The questions that come to mind are: (1) What are Canadian business tax-laws? (2) What are the different ownership structures? (3) What are the different type of banks that are available and what sort of fees and benefits do they offer? (4) What are the different types of government grants that are available and how does one go about getting them? (5) Where can I go to learn more about the business of film in Canada?

• Contract a professional graphic designer to produce a course focused on graphic design and its principles for Message Mastery.

• Produce a short film titled “License on Empty” about a young kid who gets a drivers license and goes partying everywhere. He runs out of gas and ends up having to by for gas, maintainance as well as insruance – learning about responsibilty.

What’s this “3 x 10? thing? – See my post on focusing ideas:
http://www.leechon.com/focus-ideas-847.htm