Unison Festival Overview
Posted on 30. Jun, 2010 by Scott Carnegie in Blog, Corporate Video
First off, a Promo for the Festival that I put together.
A few months ago I got a phone message from the good folks over at New Media Manitoba about a group that contacted them looking for some video production, “are you interested”? You bet!
The organization was the Rainbow Harmony Project, a GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Trans-gendered) choir based in Winnipeg. When I first talked to the director, Vic Hooper, he explained to me the nature of the project. The Unison Festival is a gathering of GLBT choruses from all over Canada that come together for workshops, performances and socializing over the course of 5 days. This year there were over 500 participants that came to Winnipeg for the Unison Festival.
What we were asked to do was create four videos that would play at the opening night celebrations. They were going to be interviews with pioneers in the GLBT movement that made their mark in Manitoba; Chris Vogel & Richard North, Heather Bishop, Ruth Krindle and Glen Murray.
All of the interviews other than Glen’s took place in Winnipeg in early May. Glen, the former mayor of Winnipeg, is now an MP with an office in Toronto, so for his interview the questions were sent to his assistants and the taping was done in a shared studio that the MP’s use for media projects like this.
With the other interviews we had plenty of lead-up time to get them together and to the client for revisions and approval; that was not going to be the case with Glen Murray’s footage.
The day of the Festival opening, at which the videos were going to be played, was the day that I received the tape of Glen’s interview from his staff in Toronto. This was the quickest turnaround on a project I think that I have ever done! Here are my Facebook updates from that day, May 21.
10:23AM Purolator just showed up with the tape I need to edit the video that is playing tonight! OK, time to edit, fast….
12:523Pm Editing a somewhat emotional interview with former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray about his experiences in the GLBT community. This will play tonight the Unison Festival.
2:30PM Finished the rough cut, did a transcription and e-mailed it off to the translator. While that is being worked on I am going in and refining the edits, adding the music and gfx and getting ready to put in the French subtitles.
5:06PM Just got the last section translation in 5 minutes ago, copy-pasta into the Avid subcap effect to put in the French subtitles and now rendering an H.264 version for play tonight off of a laptop. Wow, we’re JUST going to make it.
6:08PM Video finished encoding, watched it all the way through to make sure it’s good, finished 10 minutes before I need to leave for the venue. Wowza
Yes, I was editing I was also transcribing the finished portions, e-mailing them off to our translator, who would translate sections and send back to me as they were done and I would add in the French subtitles. It was a busy, crazy day, but we made it!
The videos played that night and the crowd really enjoyed them. I don’t know if there is a greater satisfaction than seeing your hard work appreciated by a live audience.
Over the course of the rest of the weekend I taped all of the choir performances which I ended up putting onto DVD for the Unison Festival archives and for each individual choir.
Here are the videos we created for the Festival Opening Ceremonies, enjoy and thanks to everyone that participated!
