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The weekend was spent filming an episode of with Ghetto Abdullah with the help of Wisam Sharieff of Bayyinah as well as Sameer Sarmast and Uzair Sarmast of Qabeelat Durbah’s Simply Act.

Special thanks to Omer Farooq for letting me borrow his Sony Z1U camera for the weekend.

We’ve created a Facebook Page for Abdullah so you can follow along on this adventures and videos. Click the image to go there now.

After we did the two online videos for fun a little while back just to see where this goes, we found that support for Abdullah had been growing. We got emails, comments and messages from people to continue it.

Mind you, we’ve been looking into this project for a while and trying to see where the demand for something like this can go. We actually spent some time on market analysis and looking at the potential for a Islamically themed kids show.

My wife came up with the concept of presenting Abdullah in a theme based series of episodes. Each episode will consist of a story revolving around a specific theme with Abdullah as the central character. Audience will be joining Abdullah on his journey.

The following are some production stills shot from this weekend:

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This past weekend my Canon HFS100 and Azden SGM 2x shotgun microphone was stolen.

I was setting up to do recording for a video I’m working on with AlMaghrib and it was my mistake to not notify some of the people there to keep an eye on it while I go into the seminar room to make a note of which people I’d be doing recordings of. 20 minutes later I come back and find my equipment missing.

As it was a major bummer to find my equipment stolen, I figured it’s a great opportunity to upgrade.

The following setup is what I’m considering :

The breakdown of which is:

• $1,600 – Canon 7D body
• $350 – Canon 50mm EF f 1.4 lens
• $600 – Tokina 11mm-16mm f 2.8 wide angle lens
• $318 – 1 meter Glidetrack
• $125 – Manfrotto Tripod head
• $150 – UV and Neutral Density Filters
• $100 – Hoodman Loupe
• $140 – Battery and 32 GB memory card

Total cost: $3383.00

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I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on the setup:

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After exploring different options, I wanted to see if I can get some festival exposure, leading to an IMDB title page for some of the work I’ve done.

I started googling film festivals in NY and NJ and ended up withoutabox.com. Started looking up IMDb qualifying film festivals and landed on the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival.

Turns out there’s a bunch of festivals in NY and NJ that qualify for IMDb. However, almost all of them are between $35.00 and $65.00 per submission. NYC Downtown short Film Festival was an affordable $15.00 per submission.

All that’s left is mailing them a DVD of the video and awaiting confirmation. Make du’aa that it get accepted.

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About a month ago I took a trip to Ottawa to attend sensei’s daughter’s aqeeqah and also deliver on the IlmFest 2009 DVDs for RIS.

After having done three episodes of Browntourage and another seven in the back burner – I wanted to take a new approach to it all. Instead of focusing the places or people, I decided to put the focus on story with a narrative.

A story structured in three-acts as well as following a “hero’s journey”

Let me know this short film engages you and makes you feel.

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There’s only a few days left until the deadline. If you haven’t applied yet, then apply today.

As I stated in the video, as Muslims we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us and it’s not a one-man job. It’s for this reason I’m launching the internship.

My goal is to personally train SEVEN producers who have a solid understanding of the foundations of marketing, media, financing and are able to successfully produce professional films in a systematic manner.

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I’ve received a number of questions regarding the internship and I hop this post will answer those questions:

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• QUESTION: I’m interesting in learning graphic design/after effects/[enter technical skill]. Will this internship allow me to do that?

• ANSWER: No it wont. This internship is development and training in areas of being a PRODUCER. Think of it as a project manager. As a producer you’ll be focusing on your ability to connect with people, leadership, storytelling, self development and organization, understanding business and sales, hiring people, financing.

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• QUESTION: Is this an on-site internship? If not, how exactly will it work?

• ANSWER: No, it’s not an on-side internship. Assignments, meetings, followups and accountability will be done virtually via MessageMastery.com and phone calls. There will be some instances where I’ll personally be there on site are your location inshaAllah for specific training.

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• QUESTION: Is this a paid internship?

• ANSWER: No. What you’ll be getting out of this internship is knowledge, experience and relationships with contacts to help you more forward in your professional life. In the event, the intern successfully graduates from the program – that individual will have the opportunity to work with me professionally and benefit financially.

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• QUESTION: How long is this internship for?

• ANSWER: It’s expected to last until the June.

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• QUESTION: How much time do I need to commit?

• ANSWER: That really depends on you. How much time can you commit? Assignments and tasks have deadlines. If you spend an average of two hours a day to fulfill what you need to complete – you should be able to meet the minimum requirements of assignments and tasks.

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LAYOUT OF THE INTERNSHIP

The internship is in three phases.

• PHASE 01 - is all about establishing the foundations of a producer. Foundations in marketing, relationship building, social media, personal development and  leadership. A lot of this will be me walking you through processes and getting yourself settled in.

• PHASE 02 – is where your development as a leader and connector will take off. In this phase I’ll be doing some live in person training with the intern.

• PHASE 03 - is the major portion of the internship in terms of time. Time will be spent on the graduations assignment which is to finance and produce short film on a budget slightly under $10,000.

As I stated earlier, interns that successfully graduate from this program will inshaAllah have a real opportunity to work with me professionally while also earning money.

The benefits that you as an intern will gain is the increased ability to influence people, professionally work twoards benefitting Islam, connect with people that will help you grow professionally and Islamically and gain the pleasure of Allah-swt along the way.