My son in Haiti

[becky_calif]

My son Ryan is a mover and a shaker. While watching TV one night he got an overwhelming
conviction that he could make a difference for those in Haiti. His wife made a few calls to
People she knew and 3 days later he was off to Haiti, with a Missions group he previously had
never known of. He returned a few days ago, and plans to return to Haiti in March, once again with this organization.

The next goal is to put together prefab housing. He came to me 2 days ago needing
a video to show the story he saw in Haiti and to use as a fund raiser for the upcoming housing
project. He's got a goal of hundreds of these housing, and I can see him pulling it off.

His story of Haiti contrasts much of what I'd seen on the news. Apparently his group was the
only ones actually up close and working with the people of Porte au Prince. All the groups
providing aid kept their supplies and people at the airport..it was too dangerous for them to
go into the city. Ryan's group ran out of supplies the first day and the additional supplies that
were to arrive for them got held up. Ryan should have been a politician because once at the
airport he started visiting the various other groups sitting there with supplies.

He somehow got onto the UN Complex; spoke with the Red Cross, Rotary, and even the Scientologist.

In total he made over 6 trips to the airport with rented semi trucks hauling supplies that these groups had sitting at the airport with no immediate plans to get out to the people. They were all happy to give him what they
had because they saw no plan to deliver the supplies themselves. He's also a horse trader..he proudly got a generator in exchange for hauling something for someone.

The video runs 10 minutes

Warning I used religious songs, and there is religious reference, along with some Bible scripture. The photos are of what he did and saw..not necessarily all pleasant.
http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 6098&alb=0

[kayeb]

That was so terrible what happened. I can't even imagine what those people are going through. What a nice thing your son did to volunteer. I know you are proud of him. The show did not seem like 10 minutes. To me, I think you used to many slide styles because the photos went by so fast. I would have liked to view the photos a little longer. I liked your captions to tell about their mission. Thank you for sharng.

Kaye

[becky_calif]

Thanks Kaye,
Thanks for watching and thanks for your comments. I totally agree about the speed..and on the other end I am getting
"orders" from my son as to what he believes should beincluded but that it has to be 10 minutes. After you confirming my feeling, I am putting together a bit slower version, cutting out where I can to slow things down a bit. He can then decide which one he likes, and take it from there.
Becky

[northward]

Great you took this on, Becky! But you didn't give us enough time to make the pictures sink in. I would have watched it if it had taken an hour. Thank you for the "warning", so that your audience knew what angle you stand for. You can be proud of your son!
Greetings
Wolf

[Bart_B]

Hi Becky,

Thanks for putting this together and sharing it with us. It is indeed a look that the news doesn't give while they sit at the airport and pontificate. Can't wait to see the slowed down version to take some of the photos in a little better. You should be and I suspect you are quite proud of your son!

Thanks again.

Bart

[becky_calif]

Thanks for watching and yes my son is one of my success stores.

I agree with the fast paced issue..I did remove a few parts, opening up some time for other parts to be lengthened and reposted it.
The real solution is to add another song and make this a 15 minute video. For this however, I had to have it at 10 minutes or under, include the photos I did, the message, wait for photos to be emailed to me and have it done in 2 days. My son even has me jumping hoops for him .

There is so much to this story that has no photos to tell it...they hit the ground running in Haiti. My son said he and others were setting up tents for the doctors as the doctors operated all around him in the open air..
As mentioned, no other groups had distribution areas that they could see, and also confirmed by the people they met at the airport who were just sitting on the supplies because the people are so out of control with desperation.

There was only one really dangerous situation. Ryan, a pastor and two others along with the semi truck driver were somewhere unloading the semi full of Shelters in a box..in time the people got desperate waiting in line..Ryan and the others calmly got in their trucks to make a speedy get away because there were thousands and thousands of people wanting shelters. Ryan said he looked up on a mountain and thousands of people were also coming to get Shelters. As Ryan made his get away-16 Haitians jumped in the back of the truck he was driving, 2 men on roller blades grabbed on to the semi truck, and 2 car loads of people chased him. Ryan came upon some Canadian convoy, stopped and asked them for help..was told they couldn't help them. It ended by Ryan driving to a country field, still with the 16 men in the back of his truck, 2 men with roller blades holding onto the semi truck, and the 2 car loads of people. They threw out what supplies they had left and sped away. I suspect this kind of desperation is keeping the supplies and people at the airport.

[HunnyB]

Wow, this is wonderful. My son is in the Air Force. He is hoping to go in the next couple of weeks.
God bless you and your son !!!!

[becky_calif]

Thanks Hunny,
Maybe our sons can build houses together in Haiti and us Moms can stay home and make movies of them
Becky

[cherub]

Becky,
I want so much to watch your show, but it doesn't load for me at these hours.
Will have to wait for my morning hours, when the Photodex server is not so busy.

[cherub]

Hi Becky,
I finally got to watch your show
You must be proud of your son for his wonderful work.
I also liked the pictures that he took. Some of them are very, very expressive.

Speaking of pictures, you know that you can improve some of them that are not so well exposed, right from Producer. In Layer > Editing, press on AUTO. It usually improves by quite a bit, and it does not affect the actual file, just the way that the picture looks on screen in your final output.

I noticed a tiny glitch at 1.52-1.53 where you zoom on a sign. There is a white screen all of a sudden with nothing on it for a second or two.

I also noticed that some of the zooms that you used were a bit shaky and not panning smoothly. I think that if you increase the timing of those slides, the shaking will disappear.

I liked the music that you used at the very beginning. I wonder what it is. It sounds extremely familiar to me.

Thank you for posting this show. Well done !

[Lina]

Thanks Becky for sharing this show with us. 10 min. appeared to me so short.The way you managed the show was nicely done. So sad, it made me cried but it's the reality. Your son is doing a good job and you must be proud of him. Even if I already saw many videos on Television, I really appreciated watching your show and the music you choose is so appropriate.
I am speechless
Lina

[becky_calif]

Thank you Lina and Mona for watching. Mona, your eye is sharp as a tack! I know exactly which issues you were referring to and had caught them in the final video. I DID NOT KNOW about that AUTO fix. And it’s been there all along...thanks! The first song was “God of this City”, second song was “Save the People”.

I can see this video is going to be going through countless changes as my son’s story continues. Yesterday he was on a local radio station for an hour interview, local churches have started a fund raiser to put together funds for this reconstruction project my son is participating in. At the end it showed where they are buying prefab homes at a cost of $3,000.00. Apparently they can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes and be set up in 2 days with a 4 man crew. The Haitian government is donating the land just outside Port au Prince where they will install the houses, along with a church and orphanage for 60-80 children.

90 people have signed up to travel with him for the construction phrase. He himself has got donations of $40,000.00 in just the few days of his return. There’s so much going on with this story it makes my head spin. He will be speaking again tonight to a group.

Producer is such a great tool in this situation. The description of his experience is one thing, but when he speaks and shows the video it takes the understanding to a whole new level.

There is an elderly lady in the video around 1:16. Ryan was walking around this shanty tent community with food and water hidden under his clothes and came upon her. He gave her what he had and left, but left sobbing as it was such an impactful moment for him, and my son if anything but a sissy guy. Ryan just told me he’s returning in a few weeks for the assessment phrase of this upcoming project but his first order of business will be to go find this woman and child and get them taken care of.

Thanks again for your comments,
Becky

[stickgirl]

We are in the midst of a blizzard and our electricity is clicking off and on so I'll keep this brief.

I noticed a couple of spelling errors - amonst and chruch. The large amount of text near the end was very difficult to read because of how quickly it scrolled by.

Hopefully I'll have more later.

Kathy

[Steve21]

Hi Becky,

Thank you for sharing this. I realize that my view is a minority view and I realize that you might have already slowed the show down.

A fast-paced show, even one where the viewer does not have enough time to view all the pictures, is not necessarily a bad thing. I am guessing that your intent, on behalf of Ryan, is to show the magnitude of the destruction and the need for more help. Your show does this very well.

[becky_calif]

Steve,
Thanks for watching..this has had several versions, each time slowing it down a bit as he saw the improvement. Initially I threw it together in less then two days because he returned with such a passion of it all..each day I've lengthened it a bit, to now it's 45 seconds longer. Initially he had a time limit of 10 minutes stuck in his head, but still showing what was shown. He picked up another 35 dvd's from me today (slower version). He fits in a speaking engagement daily.. i.e. Rotary, a church etc. He's still on track to return in March and put up prefab homes with the money he's raising.
Becky