Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

“I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.”

- Stephen R. Covey

Last year Sensei started a thread on the AlMaghrib forums titled “Imagine a world without AlMaghrib.” One of the bullet points that I responded with was “I would have never taken the GoBeyond coaching sessions, and would probably be tens of thousands of dollars in debt.”

You’re probably wondering what GoBeyond is and whats that got to do with you “the reader.”

Leechon Films is the result of the coaching that I got at GoBeyond (now “DiscoverULife“) from Sensei. The very catalyst that moved me to do something extraordinary was from what he taught. Its been a little over two years since and progress made has been great. The thing was I needed another catalyst to get me further. What got me here wasn’t necessarily what will get me to where I want to go.

My intention was to grow Leechon beyond just me. I needed to devise a system where i can train individuals to carry things forward further and faster than I have already. Truth is I cannot do everything myself. The idea for Message Mastery was born.

I approached Sensei and sought his advice on how to go about attaining what I was aiming for. He said to me, “After the tawfeeq of Allah, realize the present day success of AlMaghrib is based on NOOR, not me.” after which he told me to approach Noor to help me get to where I want to go. Three months later, after the Tawfeeq of Allah-swt, Message Mastery is where it is today because of what I got from Noor.

I have have awesome ideas MASSIVE plans for the future of Message Mastery, Leechon, and other projects that are forming in my mind.

Before moving forward its always a good idea to look back and see the lessons learned during the journey:

• Amazing ideas will not develop until you take action NOW. – If it wasn’t for the results from Message Mastery I wouldn’t be developing other awesome ideas that could help carry this ummah forward. Actions brings results. Results bring progress. Progress gives birth to new ideas. New ideas need action so the cycle continues.
• When your intentions are for the sake of Allah, He-swt facilitates you on your path to greatness and success. – You really don’t appreciate it until you move forward for His sake alone. The work done in Leechon was a means to create content to strengthen the hearts, encourage the good, and forbid the evil. Message Mastery has come about to teach people how to create that content to strengthen the hearts, encourage good, and forbid evil. The people who stepped up to facilitate this were truly a Godsend.
• Showing kindness and patience with people goes a LONG way. — To all those whom have helped spread Message Mastery further and farther. Leechon-PR team, YouTubers, Facebookies, stumblers, and everyone else that were involved…May Allah-swt make a home for you in Jannah close to Him.

If you haven’t been following the progress since the beginning, read the following posts:

• Driving Your Dawah With Power and SINCERITY!
• Baba Without a Crew -and- Three POWER Principles
• A Little Crew Worth A Lot of Attention
• Inside the Lighthouse

–

With that said, just a little bit about the launch of Message Mastery. Overall, alhamdulillah it went well. There were some bumps along the way and as we move forward we have smoothed them out and are continously improving. I’m always great full and take notes of critiques from people who are looking into how to improve each point.

The community is awesome; the people are dedicated, come from all walks of life and all have different specialties and resources to add to the group. There will be a lot of “backstage” things added into the system and it is extremely exciting. You guys will see great things coming out of this, inshaAllah.

–

The deadline to register for the course is Friday June 13, 2008. After that date registration will be CLOSED.

Remember if you register for this one course you will get into all future classes free. — which are currently in development. To register go to messagemastery.com/register

If you want to get in on free session that took place last week:

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

This last video was quite the test of patience. There were challenges every step of the way.

The brothers and sisters I’m working with all agreed that we should make this last video a bit different and special than the ones that I did previously. I decided I’ll break out my 3D skills combined with some outdoor action footage would make for a nice treat. — We plan and Allah plans. Allah is indeed the best of planners.

–

• The initial script that I had written up was obliterated by the PR team, thus making me start back at square one.
• It just so happened that Allah-swt decided to bring the rain upon us. The upside to the rain was that it washed away most of the spring allergens (I’m allergic to spring). The down side was that those were the days that we had scheduled to shoot.
• The fact that my bedroom “studio” is in the attic, the uncomfortable heat kinda forced me to work off my laptop. This had its own share of challenges. But the greatest advantage of working off my laptop was mobility.
• Having finals followed by four hours of brain drain sessions of finance every night. After that those four hours, I nearly impossible to think. You have just enough cognitive power to get home and knock out.
• Bryce (3D program) at times were being uncooperative. I should have expected this, but it had been a while since I had used this. Multiple occasions the render would fail. — Perhaps it’s time I move on to some real 3D programs like SoftImage or Maya.
• Running out of disc space becomes a real challenge. Due to the fact that I have other projects running in parallel to message mastery 2TB (2000 Gigabyts) is not hard to fill up. I ended up dishing out some cash to get another 1TB hard drive.
• Evening of the 24^th one of my hard drives psudeo-crashed. Im working on the video and all of a sudden I hear “BTzzPEwwwOOooooooooooo……” — I shut it down and turned it back on, and nothing would come up. All of my sound files were on that drive! Alhumdulillah the next morning it turned on. How and why….I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t hesitate to back up all necessary date from that drive if it decides to go belly up on me again.

One of my teachers who is a former producer for CBS was telling us how one day on a shoot everything just decided to go wrong. There was a truck that was suppose to be in a later scene, so the driver decides to park it in the lawn behind the stage. Unfortunately the ground was too soft for the weight of the truck.

Basically you had a big truck right in the middle of the shot that wasn’t going anywhere. You can image the stress and frustration that comes from something like that, especially when you have hundreds of thousands of dollars riding on your back.

In the midst of all the stress, one of the assistants gets on the mega phone and yells, “It’s only a MOOOooovie!” — basically giving the understanding that…its not the end of the world. So long as you’re still breathing you can make it through.

These last couple weeks have been quite the trip, but the time, effort, and struggle put into it was well worth it. The video completed today…Alhumdulillah! — Click the image below to see it

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

What would life be like without little helpers?

The other day Aisha (white hijab) came home from school saying, “One of my friends at school came up to me and said, “Ordinatory people are looosers!”…”

Everywhere I go, almost everyone I know greets me with “I saw your video!” It’s amazing how far these videos have gotten. Ever since the release of the lead up videos for the Message Mastery program people have consistently told me how they love my little sisters and how cute they are. I just have one request from you all…

…say “MashaAllah“

It means the world to me. May Allah-swt preserve my little sisters, enable them to effectively represent and stand up for the deen of Islam, and bestow His mercy upon them. Ameen.

You know what this is exacly what i’ve been dreaming about, how to make cool videos for dawah purposes and i’m so exited! – Alima

The past couple weeks have been BUSY! I’m literally been spending three days out of the week tirelessly not sleeping…working on this program and making it the best possible experience that it can be…all while juggling work, school, family, and life together!

Ever since people started posting and emailing me their feedback and what not regarding the program, the motivation to make it even better is ever increasing.

Thank you so much for this! Truly inspiring stuff for a 16 year old filmmaker like me. If someone like you who knew nothing when you were my age can do so much, it really is encouraging! - Kashif

Also, I never realized that posting videos online could get me so much du’aa. For all those who have made du’aa for me, may Allah-swt grant you that and much more!

There are probably less than a handful of people in the Muslim world that can single-handedly match the quality of videos that Belal produces. For any Muslim who is multimedia inclined… this MessageMastery is looking to surpass anything he has done before! — May Allah grant us success!

-Safi (http://www.fitnessformuslims.com)

Today I released the conference call video recording that I had with “Baba Ali” from Ummah Films.

In this conference call you’ll hear Ali talk about how Ummah Films began and where he is today. He also tells the stories of how he was approached to do a reality TV Show, interviewed with newspapers like the New York Times, USA Today and other major papers. Ali then talks about the movie he is about to produce. Also, be sure to stay tuned for the question and answer session at the end. One of the questions threw us a little back, you’ll see what I mean

This is just what i have been waiting for.

- Mehboob

To listen in on the recorded conference call video titled “Baba Without a Crew” click the link below:
http://messagemastery.com/long-awaited-release-of-baba-without-a-crew-surprise-deal-11.htm

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

This was printed in The Daily Reveille, LSU’s daily newspaper.Who this Shirien Elmasraya girl is…no one knows.

Hurricane relief workers experience prejudice

By: Shirien Elmasraya

Posted: 3/28/08

Imagine trying to save someone on the verge of death, but they refuse. No, they are not insane or suffering from depression – they are prejudiced.

The room was dim. Dark, wooden walls surrounded him as he was being filmed on camera. He leaned forward in his chair, slowly telling the chilling stories he encountered after the hit of Hurricane Katrina. The darkness of the room coincided with the darkness that surrounded his narrative.

“It was like a ghost town. It was like a horror movie,” said Islamic Relief worker Ruben Vaughan. “You saw helicopters, humvees and you saw dogs, some were dead. And then you’d see cats and some were dead. And you wouldn’t really see anybody else.”

As he explained the situation, those who were interviewing him looked on as if they were frozen in time – as if they were in complete disbelief.

“We [Muslims] are a small group here, but we were able to help people in mass scale,” Vaughan said. “The best thing we’ve been able to do is to deal with people individually, let them know we’re Muslim, and even though you aren’t Muslim, we can still help you. We can still get along, we can have a friendship and learn from each other.”

Vaughan was being interviewed for a documentary produced by Leechon Films, a Muslim owned and operated film company, to debut at LSU in August.

The film is called “Tufaan,” which is Arabic for “Great Storm.” It is about the stories of the Muslim victims and relief workers of Katrina.

“If people who aren’t Muslim just realize that Islam has been around since the first man Adam, that we aren’t aliens, that we aren’t foreign and that Islam comprises of every race and background out there, then they can realize that they don’t have to fear Islam,” Vaughan said.

During the first week after the hurricane, Vaughan said he saw two very different reactions from non-Muslims who saw Muslim volunteers driving supplies.

“I remember there were a group of brothers bringing supplies to the affected areas,” said Vaughan. “On their trip they were asked by different people what they were doing. One group of people would say, ‘We don’t need your help. You can just take it back.’ And the other group of people would load up their cars and help them on their [the brothers'] way.”

Vaughan, former firefighter and former squad boss for FEMA back when the Columbia Space Shuttle blew up over Texas, sought out relief organizations to join after Katrina. He wanted to make sure he got to the affected areas to help in any way he could.

He contacted Islamic Relief, and because of his background in relief work, he was allowed to go to New Orleans at a time when only select individuals could go into disaster-ridden areas.

He explained how some of the male volunteers have beards and the women volunteers wear hijab, a head cover. Unfortunately, some of these volunteers faced difficulties from the very same victims they were helping who were prejudice against Muslims.

“I want the non-Muslims out there to know that they don’t have to fear people who are trying to help even though they see a hijab,” Vaughan said. “And they don’t know what to do or say because they are caught off guard because of all the negative things they see in the media.”

Vaughan still remains in Baton Rouge and is continuing with the hurricane recovery effort.

Prejudice is real. And while human beings see race and religion, disasters know no prejudice. It affects everyone.

I encourage everyone to attend the debut of the documentary when it’s released in August.

Leechon Films plans to donate a percentage of the money made by selling DVDs of the documentary to the hurricane recovery effort.

** To see the original column click HERE , and you can see the comments students have made below, warning they’ll mostly be hate comments lol ***

Reading time: < 1 minute

MessageMastery.com is hosting a conference call with special guest BabaAli called, “Baba Without a Crew: A Case Study of How a Young Muslim American Made Videos that Matter Without Prior Experience”

To get the details on the call here: Baba Without a Crew

—

A new video has been uploaded on Message Mastery titled Three POWER Principles of Filmmaking.