Archive | June, 2010

Update from the video lab

24 Jun

I had a meeting at the Pan American Development Foundation office this week in the Organization of American States Building downtown to talk about my recent business trip to the Dominican Republic.  I had prepared a DVD of a few highlights from the footage to share with the communications department.  Everyone seemed pretty happy with the footage that I shot.

After logging and capturing the footage into Final Cut Pro, my next step will be to send PADF the interview footage that I shot, so that we can determine which parts of the interviews will provide the strongest statements about the programs that PADF sponsors.  I also need a little bit of help with translating the interviews since I’m not quite fluent in Spanish.  PADF has an unlimited subscription to You Send It, a file and media sharing site, so I can easily send them footage electronically.

Once I have fairly solid (and translated!) statements from interview footage, I will work to make the video into a cohesive story.  The DR video will be one of six videos that I am producing this summer for PADF’s second annual Heroes of the Hemisphere awards gala.

If you need me, I’ll be in the video lab!

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Back from the DR!

16 Jun

I just got back from a week in the Dominican Republic, with the Pan American Development Foundation.  I went to do some filming for several video projects in the country. I mostly stayed in the capital, Santo Domingo, where PADF’s DR office is located and took day trips to several cities across the country for the various filming projects.

The first and most important project was interviewing and shooting B-roll video for this year’s honoree for PADF’s Heroes of the Hemisphere awards event.

I also shot video and interviews of Centro Puente in Dajabon, an beneficiary organization that works on borders issues between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.  On Mondays and Fridays, Haitians are permitted to cross the border into the Dominican Republic to sell their goods at a binational market.  I actually got to go and shoot the market and the border.

Finally, I shot interviews and video about the new fire station that PADF donated money to build in Bavaro, a tourist resort area on the south-eastern part of the country.

I was scheduled to travel with PADF to Colombia next week, but we decided to push the trip back to the end of July because of the upcoming elections.

All in all, I shot about six hours of footage total.  Now, I have to log and capture all the footage into Final Cut Pro, and make the footage into videos.  So basically, I’ll be spending the rest of the summer in the editing lab!

I had an awesome time in the DR and hope to come back some day (preferably to one of the beaches!).

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Off to the Dominican Republic!

6 Jun

I am leaving tonight for the Dominican Republic to shoot video for the Pan American Development Foundation.  I will be flying into the capital city, Santo Domingo, and driving to Las Matas de Farfan, where I will be interviewing this year’s honoree for the Heroes of the Hemisphere awards event.  I’ll be bringing my Canon Vixia HV40 HD camcorder with a shotgun microphone.

The honoree, Amarilis Castillo, works to improve conditions at the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.  The border is one of the most challenging areas in the country, particularly after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.  Castillo created a network of civil society organizations called Nuestra Frontera (“Our Border”) to combat poverty in borderlands.

I’ll be back in the States next Monday!

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