Remember, Remember, the Bliss of November!

26Oct09

A recycled pic from a past post

I’m excited.
Let me outline to you my November 2009:

An Agenda to Change Our Condition
Oct 31st-Nov 1st
My first real video production job. I’m taping a two-day seminar with Usama Canon. Here’s the event info.

From Zuhud to Tawaqul
Nov 6th-Nov 8th
A Brothers Outdoor Camp, held by FAYM, that I’m going to be attending InshaAllah. Most likely I’ll be taping bits and pieces of the camp and might post a montage/summary video of it. See more info on the camp here. If you’d like to attend (any Floridians?), you can contact me at jawaadahmadkhan@hotmail.com with the subject line “BRO CAMP”.

Seerah: The Shepherd’s Path
Nov 13th-15th & Nov 21-22nd
My first AlMaghrib seminar that I’ll be taking up in Orlando, Florida with Shaykh AbdulBary Yahya. I’ll be unofficially taping my experience and fun tidbits and gems from the class. Right now, our AlMaghrib tribe is Banu Noor, (soon to be a Qabeelah, a.k.a. full student tribe). If you also want to attend this event, (the 2nd of many AlMaghrib seminars to come in Florida!), see the event details here.

‘Eid-Ul-Adhaa & Thanksgiving, and Islamic Games 2009!
Nov 26th; Nov 28-29
An amazing end to a soon-to-be amazing month. Celebrating ‘Eid with my brothers and sisters of south Florida (on Thursday). And there’s the Islamic Games 2009 with a whole lot of sports and fun going on up in Orlando, Florida (on Saturday-Sunday). I’m not sure if I’ll be able to play (my team would probably start practicing every weekend in November, which I’m kind of booked for), but InshaAllah I hope to go to support them.

So, as you can see, the next couple of weekends are going to be very busy, beneficial, and a blast!
Expect to see some videos from J.A.K. Productions this month and afterwards InshaAllah. I hope to learn some lessons from these experiences, obviously make some mistakes, but in the end, gain and bring as much benefit as I can.

May Allah bless my journey through this month. Make du’a everything goes well and don’t forget to keep an eye out for those videos!

Wasalaamu ‘Alaikum

That’s all a whole lot of stuff going on up there. Do you have any suggestions for me or things that you’d like to see in the videos? Post your comment with any advice or words you’d like to say.

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Tags: abdul bary yahya, almaghrib, banu noor, Dawah Gear, eid, Islam, islamic games, j.a.k., jawaad ahmad khan, muslim, productions, qabeelah, seerah, shepherds path, usama canon, Video, YouTube

A Video, A Visual Narrative

24Oct09

I recently had to tape a Quraanic Competition run by FAYM (see below to find out what a Quraanic competition is) and began wondering about the oft-overlooked “Three Act Structure”. The basic concept behind this is that every video you make is a story, and you should plan it and present it as such.

You can see my post on MuslimYouthMusings about editing, which includes a little info on this as well as Belal Khan’s (of Leechon Films) commentary on it.

So, I began to ponder on how to apply this concept with the taping of a live event (like a Quraanic Competition, or even a lecture).

Ergo, my tweet (twitter update):

And Belal Khan responded:

And Abdullah Jangda responded:

By the way, that link really was helpful, you should check it out for info on the Three Acts: http://j.mp/m3kuZ

Although I didn’t get a specific answer to my situation (Twitter’s 140-character cap can only convey so much), I did gain some insight on it. Unfortunately it wasn’t until after the taping that I’d thought of a way to present the Quraanic Competition.

First, let me explain what a Quraanic competition is. There are two categories: memorization and recitation (reading from a mus-haf, or copy of the Qur’an). Within those, there are subdivisions based on age (each age group having to know or read from certain areas of the Qur’an). We usually hold a preliminary round here in south Florida, then the finalists move up to the finals in Orlando (it’s a statewide competition). Contestants are tested on tajweed, fluency, and style.

Now my idea:
Act I
Introduce a brother that plans on entering the competition. Let him speak on his experience in the competition in past years. Take footage of him practicing his Suraat and such.
Act II
Competition Day – show the brother’s nervousness, jitters. Bring in first culmination (see here), showing his competitors reciting, receiving high scores. Then he goes up and is a finalist (or not, depending on what happens).
Act III
Show the finals in Orlando, the drama that ensues and him practicing. Finally, the climax showing his recitation and the final outcome (1st, 2nd…etc Place).
His reflections on the whole experience.

That could have been an awesome short documentary. But I’m trying to start adding more depth and applying a structure to my videos as opposed to throwing some footage together and putting effects and graphics on it. The content is far more important than the technology that makes it.

At the end of the day, a video is only a medium to convey a larger message.

Got any thoughts on this? Leave a comment.

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Filed under: Educate, Film/Video   |  7 Comments
Tags: Belal Khan, Dawah Gear, faym, film, florida association young muslims, jak productions, Leechon, plot, qur'an, quraanic competition, story, three acts, Video

Editing with Excellence

23Oct09

NOTE: The following is an excerpt from an article I’d written forMuslimYouthMusings.com, a blog for Muslim youth and by Muslim youth.

It’s time to bring some Ihsaan to our productions.

For part 1 of this two-part article, which speaks about video taping, see here.

Image via @SaadMalik

As Muslims, we always have to try to do our best in anything we do. For, as stated by the Messenger of Allah (Salallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam), “Verily, Allah has prescribed proficiency in all things.” (Hadith #17, An-Nawawi 40 Hadith). Therefore, whatever we produce, we must produce it with Ihsaan (translated as excellence or proficiency). Therefore, we can’t have those videos with boring titles, horrible audio and video quality, and a straight, one-angle shot of a speaker from forty-feet away (There’s actually a Masjid that used a security camera to tape a lecture). We have to be the best of the best, as we are conveying a message that is the best from the best Messenger who received the best book from the lord of all the worlds. We have a standard to uphold. In this post, I will go over some basic editing techniques that will hopefully improve your videos.

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Filed under: Educate, Film/Video   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: editing, editor, imovie, itech, movie maker, muslim, techniques, technology, tips, tricks, video editing, youth, YouTube