On the street I saw a small girl cold and shivering in a thin dress, with little hope of a decent meal. I became angry and said to God; “Why did you permit this? Why don’t you do something about it?” For a while God said nothing. That night he replied, quite suddenly:

“I certainly did something about it. I made you.”

For many months, I have been silently following a website that is interestingly called InvisiblePeople.tv. It is an interesting play on how humans shun away from looking at something they wish to eradicate from their minds. All too often, we walk quickly past the people begging on the streets, stealing a glance or two from the side of our eyes.

We’re afraid – that’s the truth. Afraid of being asked for donations, afraid to be caught staring, and worst of all, afraid to care.

This project heavily invests in social media and uses it to make the invisible people, visible. Mark Horvath, the man behind this project was once known as the Lizard Man of Hollywood Boulevard, when he himself was once homeless. Mark had strong media beginnings as a Hollywood distribution executive, but lost it all to drugs and alcohol. In a nutshell, thanks to the LA Dream Center, he was set right again and freed from the bondages he once had.

Today, he goes out to the streets armed with a small camcorder, mic, laptop and iPhone. Mark posts raw unedited footage (sometimes deemed too raw) of the people he interacts with as they share their homeless stories with him.

So, how exactly does Mark use social media? Sites that are frequently updated include: his blog, Twitter, Facebook, Whrrl, MySpace, YouTube, uStream, Vimeo and Flickr. They serve as his own broadcasting channels to reach out to the public and update them on-the-go. Through the true-to-life updates, he has caught the attention of many and this has served to further propagate the message and his mission.

Is there any magic to it? From what I see, there isn’t: it’s about being true to your project and being as transparent as possible. Picking the right social platforms is probably very important too, as you would want to target the relevant audience through it. Frequent updates help too, and we can see videos are uploaded very often on the InvisiblePeople.tv site.

With so many platforms to manage, I was very curious as to how Mark manages them and sent him a couple of tweets. Here’s his down-to-earth reply.

Stats to date: CNN reports more than 1,000 videos are watched per week on the Vimeo channels and the project has more than 10,000 followers on both his Twitter accounts (@hardlynormal and @invisiblepeople). Mark has been featured on Huffington Post, CNN and loads more media as a result of him being extremely social with a fantastic mission.

He’s raised sponsorship and donations from many companies amongst which are Ford, Hanes (they give out socks to the homeless) and Virgin Mobile. Truly, it’s a powerful testimony of how one man has shared the stories of hundreds of homeless people with the world and brought smiles to those who are in need.

More importantly, via social media, an entire movement has been formed, out of people who are more aware that these problems exist. To all those who are interested in making a difference, Mark in a very practical way asks them to start helping in their own neighbourhood. There’s little point in helping out halfway across the country when the problems are prevalent in your own backyard.

May the invisible become visible, via the power of social media.

I attended a Christian media conference recently, which is meant to promote the use of media in the church context. There were 3 streams – live audio, photography and videography. I opted to improve my production skills and signed up for videography. It was an intense 4 days, where we were indoctrinated with the whole production process, from scriptwriting to camera work to lighting to directing and finally, to editing.

The team I worked with were really a fun bunch, and we worked together on working out the script, negotiating with other teams to borrow a team member (the older man is borrowed), and shooting the video. The edit process began at 9pm, and we finally finished the output at 3am! By then, 2 of our team members had slumbered already!

Areas to improve on: pre-production planning is vital – plan your shots well, and make sure the team members are performing their roles (we lost our log sheet of all the shots during the process! That wasted a lot of time in the edit room). Also, ensure you have sufficient lighting – some parts we didn’t have lights as they were in great demand by other teams.

It was a great experience, and definitely a fun one for anyone wanting to learn video skills. Now to put it to good use on The Backpackr!

Today at the LiveWire Charge Up! Conference, he took a workshop on lighting and explained the concept of 3-point lighting.

Tips and notes from the workshop

• When working on a production, the camera does not see what the cameraperson sees – seeing through eyes and the lens is very different. Our eyes are a bazillion times better at seeing light than cameras do.
• There are two types of lights – hard light (lights such as red heads) and soft light (Kino Flos).
• Common type of lighting is 3-point lighting, because there are generally 3 sources of light – used during interviews.
• Main light is called the key light. This is the brightest light.
• Fill light brightens up shadows on the face – generally it is about 50% of the key light. You could use a reflector for this.
• Hair light lights the shoulders and hair . You want to light through the hair towards the camera. It is usually mounted high up – generally 50-100% of the key light.
• Set up the lights one at a time, then turn off, and go to the next until you’re happy.

Eric demonstrates the use of a red head, while Bob assists him with it (always use gloves! It’s HOT)

Kee Sitt sits  as a willing model for Eric as he demonstrates cool Kino Flo lights

Then it was our turn – go, go Team B!

And Eric ends with showing us how he executed the lighting on some of his projects. Man, he’s a creative genius at such things – way cool. That’s his Lifehouse – Everything video (watch it!) that Skyline SIB produced.

One video blogger she told me about who has been really successful is Luria Petrucci (or better known by her screen name – Cali Lewis) from GeekBrief.tv – she’s a real inspiration, as she releases 3-5 minute video programmes online 4 times a week. She started 2 days before Christmas in 2005 and in 3 weeks, amassed 3,000 viewers. After 5 months, she started podcasting full-time!

GeekBrief.tv

Interesting information about GeekBrief for production geeks…

• They produce the show using a Mac Pro and Macbook Pro
• Their video camera is a Canon XH-A1
• Yup, they use lights – Kino Flos and Lightpanels
• Man, they use a countryman mic! I want one!
• Wireless sound transmission happens via the Sennheiser EW100 G2
• Aside from that, they’ve got a bunch of other mics, headphones and a mixer
• Finally, beat this – they even use a teleprompter!!!

Wow, impressive set up, Cali! At present, I’ve got a Macbook Pro, a hackintosh, a bunch of mics, a Panasonic DVX video camera, a compact JVC for covert filming, Sony HDV Walkman (no it’s not for music! It plays and records DV tapes), Canon 40D & 30D DSLR and friends with lotsa gear – thank you Lord for good friends!