The Naomi House

[DonWhitten]

Hi Everyone:
Man it has been awhile since I have been on-line. Time to dust off the cobwebs and get back into my true passion, video and photography. Good to be back. I was in Arizona for Christmas 2011 and I was introduced to an christian based orphanage. Only having my Nikon D7000 I was asked if I could do a short promotional/testimony/documentary for them. Not having been in video for awhile I was kind of hesitate to take it on but after spending some time with the children I knew I had to do something. It took me a couple of months to get around to finishing the project due to my time constraints but I finally finished it this week.
I am always open to suggestions on how I could make this a better video so please feel free to leave me some comments.

[Dave McElderry]

A powerful testimony and a very nicely done video.

[Steve Grisetti]

Very nicely done, Don!

[momoffduty]

Moving piece Don! You have captured the emotion with the video, photos & the narration. Liked the opening title work too.

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Don,
It's great to hear from you and I am excited to hear you are getting back to your video work

Excellent job on this one as always, good mixture of stills and video.
Two things that may be worth thinking about;
1. Add a soundtrack behind the video, something moving but not intrusive. If there is one I couldn't hear it.
2. Instead of cross dissolves during the video segment try a fade out and fade in, or even just a fade out and then cut back in with the next segment. Might be some other transitions that would work too. It's hard to use a cross dissolve when nothing in the video has really changed, the background and position of the primary subject is still the same. Then you just get a funny looking blur of movement. Some time for the audience to reflect for a second or two is not a bad idea, a little 2 - 3 seconds of black adds to the drama and suspense, it's worth adding a break to give the audience a chance to take a breath.

Good to hear from you again and hope you will be visiting us a little more frequently
Keep doing the great work that you do !!
Blessings !!

[DonWhitten]

Hi Chuck:
Excellent input. I had those same thoughts so that is real good that you gave me your insight. I will work on those ideas this afternoon. I had some problems deciding what to do with the cross fades while she was talking so I appreciate the input!!! I also agree about the music in the background. Thanks so much for the input.
I pray that you are getting better.

[Greg mgm]

I agree with Chuck. Add music. Other than that, you did a great job.

[Chuck Engels]

Doing great Don, thanks for asking

Another thought would be to transition to other video or a still image instead of the cross fades.
Anything that will not make it an obvious cut in the video.

[DonWhitten]

Thanks for everyone comments. Very much appreciated. I added a background music for the duration of the video. I struggled with those cross fades but in the end decided to just use the dip to black cross fade. Never had so much trouble deciding on a cross fade before. That's what I love about video. Always something to challenge us.

[Dave McElderry]

You can always find "just one more tweak" in any project. Therein lies the path to madness. Nonetheless, I think you made some nice improvements.

Generally, I use fade through black transitions to indicate a change in scene, or a jump forward in time. I use cross dissolves where I want to keep a flow going between related content. And regarding music, once I have the raw footage and am ready to begin editing, I choose the music for a project before adding the first media. Usually I'm building a project around the music. That might not be appropriate in every case, but I've had some really neat outcomes from doing it that way.

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Don,
Great changes, the music sounds perfect.

You might want to take out the fade to black at 1:37 and just stretch the still image at 1:40 to cover that edit.

Same thing at 2:14, use the video that follows at 2:17 to cover the edit.

At 2:56 where she says "alcoholism is epidemic out here" if you could find a still image to use over the edit that would be good.
Maybe some bottles, or a tavern or bar shot of some kind to set an image in the viewers mind. I'm sure there must be a reservation there, do you have any images from there? I found this on the internet searching Google images
http://a57.foxnews.com/static/managed/i ... t_Carm.jpg
Something like that would work.

I will build my projects around the music sometimes as Dave suggested above. Good feedback Dave

[DonWhitten]

Great input everyone. I did the suggestions (thanks Chuck for the input, helped alot). I finished it up today and mailed out the dvd's to the churches that requested them. Here is the final video:

Everyone was great. That was just the input I needed to put the finishes touches on the project. Learned alot in the process.
Now to find another project to work on.

[Chuck Engels]

Nice job Don, it looks great. Good pace, keeps the viewer interested, not too long or too short, excellent

[Peru]

Very nicely done.

[momoffduty]

The dip to black looks good & nice add of the alcohol glass which sends the message. I think what moves it a long is the interesting short clips of the kids. Great job!