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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.

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• 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

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