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Cutting to Music

June 25, 2007

I made this little video from still pictures and some music track from the group, Jive Aces, who entertained at the opening of the new Scientology Mission in York, England. It was a fun job! (The Greensleeves music track is thanks to the Brobdingnagian Bards.)

I cut the stills to the beat of the music to give the impression of the dancing. I think it worked.

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My first documentary

June 16, 2007

 I had some time ago visited Montreal and interviewed Rod Vienneau, spokesman for the Duplessis Orphans and some of the orphans themselves. These orphans had been in orphanages at the time of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis. He was responsible for ordering that orphanages overnight become mental hospitals and the childen in them to be mental patients. The psychiatrists obligingly labelled normal children as mentally retarded to make this change look legal. The underlying reason for this? Quebec got three times as much in federal funding for a mental patient than for an orphan. These children were drugged, given ECT and in some cases lobotomized.

Since Freedom Magazine had run a series of exposes on these abuses, I put together a short video from my material and submitted it to Freedom. It is now on their YouTube site:

I was very pleased with this as it is my first real effort at a documentary. I used the skills I have been learning on Avid and Premiere Pro and also the technology from the Art Book by L. Ron Hubbard.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDpOCpVJ0N4

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Big Day Out in Sydney

June 16, 2007

I’ve been practising using the effects controls in Adobe Premiere to animate still pictures. I also like cutting somewhat to music – creates interesting effects.

Here is a little video I put together from some still pictures of the Big Day Out in Sydney. This is the day when Australians honour their country by displaying or wearing the flag. The ant-drug team gave out drug information booklets during the celebrations.

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Anne Archer Presents Awards to Young Human Rights Advocates

June 11, 2007

Late last year Youth for Human Rights held their summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Young people from around the world attended and saw actress Anne Archer, a long term supporter and advocate of human rights, present awards to young people for outstanding work in the field of human rights.

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I use Keyframes on Audio tracks on video about CCHR Kenya

June 11, 2007

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) formed up in Kenya and took as their first task a protest outside a major psychiatric convention outside Nairobi. They were so full of enthusiasm that I thoroughly enjoyed putting together this little video.

I am learning to use keyframes and this time used them on the audio tracks to play the music track against the audio track. Interesting!

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Getting the Hang of Adding Motion to Still Images

June 8, 2007

I have been learning to use keyframes to add motion to still images in my videos. My first effort was with the video below. Now I’m starting to get lots of ideas about using these techniques.

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Volunteer Minister Helps Solomon Islanders

May 22, 2007

A Scientology Volunteer Minister from Australia went to the Solomon Islands to help out following a tsunami there which caused major damage.

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BBC Reporter Loses It!

May 11, 2007

I have never seen anything like this! Unbelievable!

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Making Human Rights a Reality

April 23, 2007

Youth for Human Rights has put out a DVD with short videos that illustrate each of the 30 human rights listed in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. They’re beautiful and have a universal message, so wanted to put some of them up on my blog.

The first three of the videos are also on iTunes and can be downloaded for iPod.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIaObk0XpGU]

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John Travolta Officiates at Opening of Life Improvement Center

March 28, 2007

John officiated at the opening of the new Life Improvement Center in St Petersburg, Florida. He gave a speech then he and Kelly Preston joined the other officials to pull the ribbon and officially open the center.

I put some still pictures of the event together to make a little video and tried out using crawling titles for the first time.