Ep. 1 – Tajweed Tangents – Allah Chose You!
WORK TIME:Approx. 2 hrs
FINAL PROJECT TIME: 2min. 27sec.
CAMERA: Panasonic SDR-H80
EDITED WITH: Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 (on Dell XPS420 with 4GB RAM)
I recently took a class by Bayyinah Institute called 102 – Essentials of Tajweed taught by brother Wisam Sharieff. Alhamdulillah it was an awesome class, (lasted only a weekend) and I was able to really grasp Tajweed in a very simple manner. During the class, brother Wisam is, I believe, known for his many tangents and off-topic discussions that arise during the class. I caught some of these on tape (with a new camera donated by brother Omar Ali, may Allah bless him for it). I’ve titled this so-called ’series’ of sorts, “Tajweed Tangents” as I thought that was most appropriate (the video really didn’t have much to do with Tajweed). He speaks about how taking the step to attend a class and learn Islam is an act showcasing your Iman, and that Allah blessed you to do that (rather than staying home, knowing that you should read Qur’an properly).
SET-UP:
It was at the Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL. We were in a classroom that could probably hold near 200 students, though it was only about 40-50 of us. I was at a desk (well, a chair with a pull out ‘desk’) in the second row on the right side. I had a mini-tripod and set up the camera just like that, zooming and adjusting as I needed to. This camera (Panasonic SDR-H80) produces pretty good image quality as long as you frame your shot right. When you zoom in (with it’s 70x zoom), the lighting adjusts so your subject (in this case, Wisam’s face) is lit more than anything else. Though, it was standard definition (720×480). I did some pretty creative workarounds and techniques in editing this…
EDITING:
I edited using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9. To overcome the fact that this was standard definition footage, I just set my project for HD output (1280×720). It would just show the video, upscaled (which didn’t look too bad), with black bars on the sides. Let me explain for those who don’t know.
There are 2 aspect ratios, 4:3 and 16:9. Standard definition is 4:3 (as in 720/480 = 4/3). And HD (widescreen) is 16:9 (the smaller HD is 1280/720 = 16/9).
Basically 16:9 is a wider rectangle than 4:3.
However, now YouTube puts black bars on the sides of HD videos as well (16:9). I found this out and tried to fix it. YouTube now displays their widescreen player in 2:1, not 16:9. (So now it’s more like 16:8). So, to fix that and to fill out the widescreen player, you have to make your video 1280×640. I found this out from richw4 on YouTube.
I did that, then, I made two copies of the video. I moved one to the left side, and the other to the right side (both of them are behind the main video). Then, I used an effect called Radial Blur to blur them. This made the effect much cooler, rather than just some black bars on the sides. (Thanks to 7thdayfilms on YouTube for putting up a video on how to do picture-in-picture in Sony Vegas).
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Much thanks to Wisam Sharieff for teaching an awesome class Alhmadulillah. It was so simple and I will be practicing. I remember that Wisam said a sister took the Tajweed class 8 times, I believe it was, and he asked her why (because it’s the same content) and she said that she loved his tangents. Honestly, I love them, too.
YOUR FINAL THOUGHTS:
You love Bayyinah? You think the video could be done even better? Got a thought, tell the world!
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