Answer:
State to an organizer of an event that you’re willing to record and produce movies during that 5-day event and get the job.

Last week my municipality held an Open Innovation Festival in Enschede. It was held previously in Amsterdam and one person in particular thought it was such a good idea that she wanted to organize such a festival herself, for her local colleagues. And she pulled it off!

All speakers, both from the area and the rest of NL, gave a talk or a workshop for free. The theme was Social Media and Work 2.0 and thus filming there was the perfect job for me (and no, offering a full week’s work for free was a bit too much, I got paid).

It was highly energizing to engage with people locally on themes I’ve been engaged in globally. Even though I know lots and lots about Social Media, it’s still inspiring hearing others say the things I could have said in a different way, using different examples.

It was highly exhausting at the same time, since last week I’ve been amazingly productive:
- I’ve been working for 5 days in a row from 9:00 am – 0:00 pm, with 3/4 hours of intense editing just before sleep;
- I spent 29 hours filming (appr. 8 hours on tape);
- I spent 28 hours editing;
- I produced a daily clip for five days in a row;
- I produced two summarizing clips yesterday;
- I produced two summarizing clips today;
- I have at least 4 light-edit clips still on the list to upload this week.

I loved doing it, even though there were moments during the week when I felt like doing nothing at all. Such a beginning to edit on Monday night, not sure whether I could create something nice. Or Wednesday afternoon, feeling knackered already and knowing that I would have at least another 3 late nights in a row. And what to think of everyone stating on Friday afternoon, after the closing-session and (alcoholic) drinks, glad to be done, and I still had a movie to produce.

Yet, I did it, I’m still alive and still energized

Below is the first of all the movies I created. Take a look at the rest of them in the Festival Channel (I warn you though, it’s all in Dutch ).

It’s a theme that we both discussed for a longer time now. We feel the deep need to work on projects that have a positive impact on society at large. At the same time we realize that the two of us can’t change the world and that we need to focus on the small steps we can take on things that are important to us.

For me, it’s an ongoing quest to discover what I’m passionate about, matters to me and, more importantly, matters to others as well so they’re willing to pay me for doing the work. One of the outcomes of my own birthday workshop in 2008, is that I rediscovered my passion for video. This is the video that I created back then:

Elmine’s Birthday Unconference from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve been developing my interviewing and editing skills and I even created a documentary on a topic that fascinates me.

So far my video work is mostly about my passion and working on things that matter to me: uncovering and showing people’s stories and stitching stories into a bigger narrative.

Now it’s time to turn it upside down and see how I can align what matters to me with what matters to you.

A Shift: a documentary on FabLab in The Netherlands. from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

Also available on the FabLab-channel.

Bruno added the logo at the end.

I collected six stories in total, enough to showcase stuff in the documentary. You can watch them all on the FabLabChannel @ 23video. Note that only one of them is in English, the rest in Dutch without subtitles (will follow!).

The one below is my favorite. It’s the story from a guy that came into the Lab for the very first time. He’s a college teacher (arts) and therefore works almost all the time when the Lab is open. Now, it was a school holiday and he arranged something for the kids so he could come here. He draws beautiful patterns by hand and this time he scanned the pattern into Corel Draw and printed it in plywood.

It came out almost perfect. How’s that for a first time visit!

(the video below is in Dutch and doesn’t have subtitles, yet)

FabLab Stories: drawing patterns (Dutch) from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

Joris van Tubergen talks on open innovation and FabLab from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

The robot was created by Edwin Dertien: http://edwindertien.nl/
More on the robot in English: http://hackaday.com/2009/02/20/flatpack-walker/
Recorded at ProtoSpace: http://protospace.nl

____
I created this as part of the longer documentary that I’m working on. One of the decisions I have to make is whether I ask the Dutch speaking people I will interview to tell their story in English. I’m not a fan of that, because you get language-poorer stories than when people would be talking in their native tongue.

So the consequence is that I need subtitles when I do the interviews in Dutch, since I want to show it to an international public.

This article by Andrew Balis convinced me that it could be done properly in Final Cut.

My workflow:
1. I exported the audio-file of the clips I chose at a 60% pace and used that to transcribe the story. Slowing the audio down was crucial since it gave me more time to write while listening and stop the file every now and then without having to rewind all the time.

2. Then I translated the text into English.

3. I created two subtitle templates for 1 and 2 lines, according to the above mentioned article.

4. I copied the text per (part of a) sentence in a text-overlay using the template, listening carefully to match the English text with the spoken content.

A lot of work, but since this clip is 2m21 it didn’t take as much time as I thought it would before I started.

If you have any feedback on the subtitles, like pace, size, or the translation itself, please let me know! It is very important to me that it works for most people.

SHiFT 2010: DIY from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

On and off I’ve been working on a solution, but without a result so far. Weird things happened while remarrying the separately edited audiostream with the videostream.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to compromise and just use the material as is and start pushing out snippets of the four interviews I have so far (it’s only the first two that have the sound issue, by the way).

As much as I hate to have published this snippet (although, snippet … it’s 7:30 minutes) with an annoying hum, I’m very happy to be able to start showing you some of the material. So without further ado I encourage you to read about and watch part of the interview with Lilia on my In Full Flow project-blog. Happy viewing

Part of my service is providing my clients with the raw material for future use, but not on tape, since one would need a camera for importing.

My latest project is about 42GB big. Big job to transfer that to DVD’s! Wondering if there are better solutions

(about the number in the title)

Today I’ve been filming at Protospace, the FabLab in Utrecht. I’m producing a short promotional clip for them and today was film-day.

7:30am: departure
9:45am: arrival in Utrecht
10:00am: finetuning the script
11am: start filming
4:30pm: packing up after last interview
5:15pm: drive home
7:45pm: buy take-a-way food
8:00pm: arrival and dinner

Intensive day, but one well spent

(about the number in the title)