In the past year the Headwind Project has broadened from making a documentary to much, much more. At this stage the project is in fact a more than full time job for the Headwind Production team. The following graph shows … Continue reading
The rice fields just north west of Damak, Jhapa district, Nepal When I close my eyes When I close my eyes I see paddy fields of rice Against a stage of blue hazed mountains Small clusters of leaves … Continue reading
Some time ago a Dutch publisher got an idea. Why not make books that fit in matchboxes? Tiny little handmade books of interesting authors and beautifully illustrated. Squeezed into the tine space of the little matchbox. A perfect little gift … Continue reading
A thousand A thousand lines of text I give you maybe they’re about million words A thousand stories and poems too written down for you to be heard A thousand tales and a song or two echoing over too long … Continue reading
For some it might be a little late but since January has been quite busy I simply haven’t had the time or ease of mind to get my plans in order for the coming year. And what a year it’s … Continue reading
Bij de armen van Simon. Die arme Simon had eens armen maar die liggen nu naast zijn darmen geschonden door een gestoorde gek verzaagd als ware het een oud hek Geen medelijden ook met zijn gade en zelfs voor zijn … Continue reading
Eind februari wordt in theater Branoul een uniek en prachtig kleinkunstprogramma gepresenteerd door MAXimaal. Een groep vrienden waar ik deel van uit maak die onder leiding van de briljante Max Douw zullen uitleggen waarom vluchten nog wèl kan in tegenstelling … Continue reading
Al tijden ben ik gebiologeerd door de muziek van Nathalie Merchant. Vooral het letterlijk apocalyptische en lyrische ‘Thick as Thieves’ heeft een onuitwisbare indruk op me gemaakt. Zowel muzikaal als tekstueel. Een tekst die te mooi is om niet een … Continue reading
I have no experience in this. Like most people this simply never happened to me and so I never had reason to think about what to do and what is needed to make it come true. My mother died almost two … Continue reading
A patch of blue sky Though my mind is mostly grey today there’s this patch of blue sky far away And even when thoughts are hindering there’s something distant flickering When presence has become abstract it’s a voice by which … Continue reading
Dear readers and visitors,
Attached here is a newsitem as published on the Bhutan News Service, the information regarding the handover of donation funds for food and first needs support from the Dutch Nepal Foundation (Vereniging Nederland Nepal) by the Empowerment Foundation’s Headwind Nepal Production Team in co-operation with BRAIN (Bhutanese Refugees Association of Intellectual Novas) on Janury 3, 2012 in the Beldangi 2 refugee camp in Nepal to the ex hunger strikers.
Please read and support the Bhutanese refugees, the making of the Headwind documentary and the Empowerment Foundation for making this charity work possible.
Alice © 2012
director of Headwind
communications Empowerment Foundation
www.headwindfilm.com
www.empowermentfoundation.nl
Finally!
The editing of Headwind started. Well, actually the editing of a short film for Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland (Dutch Council for Refugees) composed of Headwind footage. It’s apart from a nice assignment a good exercise in Final Cut Pro X editing. Which is for unexperienced editors like me quite beast to handle.
Now it also becomes clear what editing a film really means when there’s a footage library of almost 50 hours of HD video in 49 MiniDV HD tapes which is something like 1 Terabyte digital footage in hundreds of takes. And that is excluding music, separate audio files, texts, subtitles, graphics and all kinds of other stuff that will be glued into what is supposed to be my first feature documentary. To be released mid April. And what a film it’s going to be. The storyline is great and the footage amazing, so it now all comes down to making the best possible edit with just the right artistic approach combined with a compelling and clear storyline.
I like editing although I find that it’s almost impossible to edit continuously for much more than five hours per day. It’s like making a 5D puzzle with dimensions like story, images, sounds, time, color, effects, subtitles and graphics. Final Cut is, although a great software package for most of the advanced stuff still like a frikkin maze to me. I now know how to glue scenes and work on stabilizing footage, color correction and adding and levelling audio, making transitions and simple effects, titles and subtitles, embedding stills and graphs but the really advanced editing is still beyonf me. But editing a work like this is like a (very) steap mountain, a learning curve like I haven’t experienced in the past decade working on all kinds of creative stuff.
I know the White Stork Films production team (co-director and executive producer Eveline van de Putte, Nepal producer Vidhyapati Mishra, audio editor Lucas Verheij and myself as director and producer) are counting on me to guide us through the edit stage straigth to te completion of the documentary in April. Quite a load to carry and quite a great work to create with a great team!
The White Stork Films production team in Nepal:
Co-Director and Executive Producer Eveline van de Putte
Nepal Producer Vidhyapati Mishra and me.
Editing is like heaven. Fooling around with the footage, making things look great in stead of just good and continuously not being satisfied with the results. I just love it.
Editing is like hell. The edit is never good enough, the sound never like it should be, the footage always a bit touched by shake or other disruptions and that one little scene is never there in the available footage. The whole process is extremely exhausting and it continuously drives me crazy. And the damn computer is NEVER fast enough. Not while editing and certainly not while rendering the sucker of an edit.
Ah well, I suppose I will get used to it. I am afraid I just have to. And I will continue dreaming of that studio facility with faster computers and a proper editing desk in stead of a couple of Macbook Pro‘s and a 21 inch monitor for previewing. But hey, dreams are important and usually come true in real life after the content of the dream was most needed.
For the next three months I will be unavailable, leading a hermits life with my computers and equipment in a dark editing room. Most of the time all alone, struggling, fighting and leaving all kinds of stuff at the floor of the cutting room.
Alice © 2012
The morning sun shines through my window. I can see how it lits the pearly white of the woodwork of the house opposite of the one I live in. It’s cold in my room. The heater was turned down last … Continue reading
