In after I had completed Macbeth and Mindscape in summer of 2003, Azeem (Former National Coordinator of Young Muslims) approached me if I could make a YM promo video. I wasn’t up to the task at first, because I had never created a promo video before. He told me to make it like my other two videos. I figured, why not.

We met up later that week to start filming. That night to my surprise he handed me a bag of 40 D8 tapes. I figured…ok, 40 tapes…1 hr each tape. I can have the video captured and watched in two weeks. — Later I realized that each tape had two to four hours of footage!! There were tapes from camps, rallys, conferences, meetings, events, etc.

After going through about eight or nine tapes, I decided to just capture two or three tapes from each category. — I began editing using Windows Movie Maker. I wasn’t long until I reached my computer’s limit. I ended up borrowing YM’s computer. In a couple of weeks and a number of sleepless nights, I reached that computer’s limit.

It was time to upgrade. Two weeks of filming, and $400 later, I resumed editing. Only this time I reach Windows Movie Maker’s limit. This was a process that was EXTREMELY frustrating. I lost a LOT of hair making this video. I released my frustration and stress like this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4293785501381524042
I was hesitant to upgrade to Adobe Premiere (6.0), but at that point I didn’t have much choice. — The move was the best choice I made in the entire project. From that point forward everything was smooth.

This was the result I ended up with in June 2004:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5855538640322513329
From that point forward I got a lot of positive (and negative) feedback from the video. When I was editing the video, at that time I hadn’t know the Islamic stance on music. After some research, realization, and criticism…I made a final edited “Masjid Friendly” version of the promo.

Enjoy

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3980861302543830031

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Lessons:

• Frustration is part of the business…learn to deal with it.
• Always ask others for input, advice, and suggestions while in the project (I did…and it helped a lot)
• Make lots of du’aa (You need all the help from above to deal with frustration)
• Don’t hesitate to use a more professional and robust program.

     

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