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My Video Page 1

Got the idea to start a "blog" today, 3 days after turning 60, and am trying to figure out how prahlad.org could host blogs for any other disciples who would like to give it a try. Baba said to keep a "spiritual diary," so I was thinking "Why not start a "spiritual blog?" Wonder if I can be disciplined and keep it up regularly?

Anyway, the new blog is here:
http://prahlad.org/disciples/Blogs/premananda/PremanandaBlog.htm

July 2005

I have begun work on creating a subtitled DVD of the video made in 1976. We are still looking for the original master 3/4" tapes, but I am working from a 3/4" copy of the master tapes and the quality is not too bad, despite the mold that was growing on the tapes!

This page here is my work page for this project where you can follow the progress. Jeffrey installed a new hard drive for me which will be devoted to videos of Baba.

My friend Billy has given me some extra webspace for other videos and you can see the videos I made (between Guru purnima 2004 and Guru purnima 2005) during my one year video apprenticeship to myself. With Jeff's installation of 110 gigabyte drive on my machine this apprenticeship is over and real Baba work begins in earnest! Thank you Guru! Thank you very much!

Billy came up with the terrific domain name: The Aware Mind and my new expanded video page is here:

http://theawaremind.com/videos/  or http://video.theawaremind.com

One video Jeff and I discovered at George's is interesting because it shows that I was trying to do what I'm doing now as far back as 40 years ago! Now the new technology makes it so much easier.

Unto Us a Child is Born
USC Film School student project, 1966
http://theawaremind.com/videos/UntoUsAChild.htm

July 2004

Thanks to a generous contribution from Arjuna, and a generous contribution of labor from Shukh Dev, I will be able to begin production of a series of new Baba videos as of Guru Purnima 2004. This is the fulfillment of a long time dream for me and I will be working hard at it in the coming year.

This page is where you can download my video tests as I go along, and ultimately the final videos and get the final DVDs.

Update 06/08/05 - I have replaced all the AVIs with the much smaller Windows media files. They should stream into Windows media player so you don't need to download in order to view.

I continue the steep learning curve. Here is my antiwar video "Agnus Dei." The song is by a Christian rock group called "Third Day." WARNING: Contains a number of gruesome war photos. My idea here was that the innocent war victims are also "the lamb of God." This was linked at Bushflash.com and in three days got over a thousand hits and used up 25% of the monthy bandwidth for my and a friend's new site, TheAwareMind.com! Yikes! Now I see why successful sites are always begging for donations. The world being what it is I doubt that the coming Baba videos will have that problem, but who knows? Depends how well I do them I guess.

All the experiments, tests, and practice videos have finally got me to the point where I can finally put Guru into video. It will be hard work, all the rest of this year and beyond, but it is a labor of love, and so I love it.

• A high resolution re-make of the video "Everybody Hurts" featuring images of Baba and John Batiste and the disciples.
• "Chickatita," a video about the Madonna and Christ weaving in images of Baba's "mothers" as well. Hopefully due out by Christmas. Soundtrack is by Sinead O'Connor, also now known as "Mother Mary Bernadette.".
• "Pilentze Pee," featuring some of the more austere photographs of Baba. Soundtrack is by the Bulgarian Woman's Choir from the album "Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares."
• English subtitle captioning for the video of Baba's speech in Athena's back yard. From what I read in the docs the new Radeon 9600 XT video card is capable of doing this.
• Others emerging from the back of my mind.

Update 06/08/05 - No more avis. They are too giant for the web. These are now WMV format, much smaller without much loss in quality. Boy, editing MPEGs turned out to be a real bitch! Two weeks of brain busting research. Turns out MPEGs are nearly impossible to edit, but thanks to a friend I got a "plugin" which gets around the problem.

TEST CLIPS
NOTE: Right Click Avis, then choose "Save Target As"

1. "Pilentze Pee" - Test of opening sequence - (WMV) 4.5 megs
2. "Chickatita" -  Short piece, the opening sequence
3. "Victory Day" - End titles for a concert video made at my building.
   The music is a rock version of the Russian national anthem!
   My new building is filled with elderly Russian immigrants and my new
   friend Isaac put together this concert. I taped the concert in order to learn video capture and editing.
4. "Everybody's Changing" - This is a bit embarrassing but what the hell. It's me singing a song for the Russians at the Victory Day concert! This is an mpeg file. The song is a favorite of mine by the group Keane.
5. "Sea of Love" - This was a kind of crazy experiment. It was inspired by a statement by Vivekananda that I read where he said that to a bhakta even an ordinary "worldly" romantic love song can become a bhajan to the Lord. It's not quite finished. I abandoned it when I got tired of the song. But I totally believe what V. said and when I find the right song I will try it again. Any suggestions? I would finish it anyway but there are too many other projects right now. If even a single person tells me to finish it I will try to do so.

Testing and Windows Media

Everybody Hurts - full video, Windows streaming media

R.E.M's Michael Stipe wrote this about Kurt Kobain after Kurt's suicide
 

Strange Bush Ad - Windows Media - haha!

AVE MARIA by Kenny G.
Full Video - Broadband (right click to download)

NEW!
Test of Baba Speaking With Subtitles

Newer!!
Guru Story - from moldy 3/4 copy of 3/4 master

3D Tests for future Videos

Baba Cube motion tests