I just read Saqib’s post over at SaqibSaab.com on his experience filming a promo for Bayyinah’s seminar titled “Meaningful Prayer” taught by Abdul Nasir Jangda and felt the urge to help him expand the lessons learned in the process by combing my experience filming lectures over the past few years.

If you haven’t read Saqib’s post, you can do so by clicking the image below:

I believe a lot of the challenges that Saqib faced in production this video…

…came as a result of pursuing the “film look” which he believed lay in filming at 24 progressive frames per second.

When motion picture was invented in the early twentieth century, silent films were played at 16 frames per second. Later when sound was added, they had to speed up the film reel to play at 24 frames per second so that the audio would sound slow. This is why silent films seem like they’re moving really fast. They’ve sped up 16 fps films to 24 fps. The choice was to adapt to an technological advancement.

Today people equate the technical 24p with the “film look” or “cinematic look” which is an incorrect understanding. Proper film look consists of:

• set design/production value – does the place you’re filming look “expensive?”
• audio and sound score - the higher the fidelity and clarity of the audio, the better people tune in.
  
• composition – how the subject/talent is framed and colored on screen
• proper lighting setup - 3 point light setup with understanding light intensity
• camera movement – panning vs. craning vs. tracking vs. static
• lens choices - deciding between different depths of field, ie: blurry background vs non blurry backgrounds
• screen formatting - anamorphic vs. wide screen vs. full screen
• 24p - least important

24p is at the bottom of that list for a reason. It has the least impact emotionally on the audience.

If Saqib kept all filming at 30 fps, and focused on the top five items on the list, the result would be more impact. The following videos are examples of implementing the film look based on the points mentioned above. First is a shoe string budget example:

This is an example of the film look on a professional budget:

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For those who are new to my work, just know I’m speaking from experience. My lecture video projects of the past have included:

• The Strangers
• The Opener Short Lecture Series
• AlMaghrib Teacher Training Seminar (16 hrs of lecture videos)
• Darkness2Light
• Desert Rose and the birth of IlmCast Videos and Syndication (lost count of number of videos I’ve put up)
• Divine Speech Prologue for Bayyinah – also search “divine speech prologue” on YouTube
• Time Traveler Seminar (16 hrs of lecture videos)
• DiscoverU speeches and DiscoverU Certification (60+ hrs of lecture videos)
• Ilm Summit 2009 wild cards

I’ve actually written out an entire process work flow outline for lecture content development from project development, to production, to post production, to online syndication. This will ultimately end up being a bonus module for all those who have purchased “Secrets of Video Production” over at MessageMastery.com

If you’re truly interested in production video content, either for regular blogging or for marketing an organization you work with – this course is for you.

Every story has a finish line. That finish line is either a desire to retrieve, stop, win or escape. However, the driver of that race to the end isn’t the plot but the emotions that drive characters in the story. Those emotions are grounded in the premise or theme that the story is built around

As a marketer having the ability to tell stories effectively is very important. Understanding character, plot, setting and themes are only the foundation of the process. Stories are well sell ideas and they are what communicate messages effectively. For this reason I’m committing myself to reading 40 screenplays for the next 40 days.

Below are my reflections from having read my first script, Memento by Jonathan Nolan.

Here’s the tweet that introduced me to this challenge: