HOULTON, Maine — The “Story of Houlton” is finished — that is the video documentation of the last 200 years.
For more than two years, the Houlton Video Committee has spent countless hours working with The Idea Factory Inc, the company hired to complete the video project, in collecting and filming the town’s historical past. Mike Fawcett is the producer of The Idea Factory Inc. and he had announced that the video editing has been completed. “The made for PBS documentary was screened by about 100 people over the Bicentennial celebration weekend and got positive reviews with only a few suggestions for changes,” said Fawcett. “It got a 9.3 out of 10 as an over all score and that is just great for a first screening.”
Fawcett said it was no surprise to him that it would take as long as it did to complete the video. In the early stages of production he said there was little for him to work with, however, during the past year, volunteers have been pouring with photos and offers of acting. Putting together 200 years was like building an 87,000-piece puzzle with the photo.
“We put several thousand hours into editing, especially the music and sound effects and I know that helped a tremendous amount with a production like this where there are a lot of still pictures and graphics,” he explained. “There were over 87,000 elements in the final 50-minute program plus a bonus section that includes a slide show of all the historic pictures that never made it into the final program, a video segment on Kings Landing where a lot of the re-enactment scenes were shot and a promotional video about Aroostook County produced by the Northern Maine Development Corporation.”
The program was shot on HDV, which is a high definition format that is perfect for DVD projects. The format enabled Fawcett to deliver the program on high definition with minimal re-editing if there should ever be a need in the future, while providing excellent quality for today’s standard definition DVD players. Editing was on Apples Final Cut Pro 6 and all of the special effects and chroma key work was on in Apples Motion on the new Mac Pro G5 system. The entire production took up almost 2 terabytes of storage, which averages out to 2,000 gigabytes.
The DVD master has been sent out this week for replication and should be back by the end of the month.
For more than two years, the Houlton Video Committee has spent countless hours working with The Idea Factory Inc, the company hired to complete the video project, in collecting and filming the town’s historical past. Mike Fawcett is the producer of The Idea Factory Inc. and he had announced that the video editing has been completed. “The made for PBS documentary was screened by about 100 people over the Bicentennial celebration weekend and got positive reviews with only a few suggestions for changes,” said Fawcett. “It got a 9.3 out of 10 as an over all score and that is just great for a first screening.”
Fawcett said it was no surprise to him that it would take as long as it did to complete the video. In the early stages of production he said there was little for him to work with, however, during the past year, volunteers have been pouring with photos and offers of acting. Putting together 200 years was like building an 87,000-piece puzzle with the photo.
“We put several thousand hours into editing, especially the music and sound effects and I know that helped a tremendous amount with a production like this where there are a lot of still pictures and graphics,” he explained. “There were over 87,000 elements in the final 50-minute program plus a bonus section that includes a slide show of all the historic pictures that never made it into the final program, a video segment on Kings Landing where a lot of the re-enactment scenes were shot and a promotional video about Aroostook County produced by the Northern Maine Development Corporation.”
The program was shot on HDV, which is a high definition format that is perfect for DVD projects. The format enabled Fawcett to deliver the program on high definition with minimal re-editing if there should ever be a need in the future, while providing excellent quality for today’s standard definition DVD players. Editing was on Apples Final Cut Pro 6 and all of the special effects and chroma key work was on in Apples Motion on the new Mac Pro G5 system. The entire production took up almost 2 terabytes of storage, which averages out to 2,000 gigabytes.
The DVD master has been sent out this week for replication and should be back by the end of the month.
