Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

Music Video Production Progress Report!


Maurice Ali, Journalist


We have already begun production of our music videos of our artists here in the Fortress of Freedom family. As I write this - our first video called "Marilyn" has already had the sound track mated to the concert footage. All that remains is for the footage of Marilyn to be inserted and the cameos of the remaining members to be added at the end. However, this is just the first music video, and the easiest. The others are more involved and some lay out like film productions. To produce these other other videos requires specialized equipment that I had to purchase more out of necessity than anything else. What follow is a listing of our purchases and the reasons behind them.....





I have been seemingly absent from the web site lately - but that can not in any way mean things are not happening at this organization! First off.....We have new equipment to help us with our music videos. Thinking of the latest hight-tech equipment - think again.....



We have purchased an old JVC full sized professional camcorder. "Cool" you say - but did I tell you it was in super VHS..... Yep, super VHS, not what one wants when you aim again at the networks, but it was not purchased for that reason.



It was purchased to look good in the office and give that professional look. We also can use it for training of our actors and actresses as they prepare for actual on-site shooting; best of all, I can give them instant VHS tapes of their performance to take home and study without the long process with the Sony with the added usage of DVCAM tape and hours on the machine. We also need a full-sized camera to instill confidence and professionalism at the larger productions for the lay people and extras at these events. I will also tell you that we will shoot and use some of the material from that camcorder..... Why? Because the idea is really cool and demonstrates that old technology can still be relevant and accessible to the general public (the vast majority will be digital.....). To do all this I still had to buy a battery and lights (useful for both cameras and other accessories) and items to make it all work. Added expense, but I can not see myself spending much more money on a large DV machine that will hardly ever get used. Simple fact is that is is tedious to move the big machines around and they just would not get used. The Sony is great and was even used in the production of King Kong (and in 16:9 to boot - the director may have just needed to expedite a shot, but it was used.....); I will stick with that camcorder, the larger ones are manual focus and it just would invite problems.....




In other news.....our Dan was in studio laying down the guitar tracks and only has to get the vocals an specialty tracks before the final mix and mastering.

For the Marilyn video I needed a few extra backdrops and was lucky to find these canvas backdrops:



Blue and green and with the white should be enough.



We also needed a light for background and a boom for audio which was our biggest problem with the network on our last show.



This one cost a lot but has the cable inside the tube and I also got an adapter thrown in to let it take our SM58 and such microphones!



Here is another shot of the pole.




I have not forgotten the photography end of things, and finally got a proper ball joint head for our still cameras. But there is one more thing I always wanted to get (and I will order it early next week):



That is it for now. We will have a dedicated thread for the videos up in the next while and a link will be provided at the bottom of this page.