LEBANON

2019 | A friend introduced me to the Young Syrian Filmmakers while I worked as a remote freelance video editor in Greece.

The filmmakers had fled the war in Syria and claimed refugee status in Lebanon, and their films centered around their experience living as refugees. They had filmed three short films that fall under the theme ‘From the Front Line’, and I was asked to help edit the film. This video here is a teaser I put together to help sum up what their film was about.

Although I had never met them in person, I fell in love with them while watching the raw footage and interviews because their sincerity and vulnerability touched me deeply. I admired their passion to persevere against all odds.

I secretly wished I could have been part of their crew and make films with them. And lo and behold, a few months later, their sponsoring NGO asked me if I could travel to Lebanon and teach a workshop about film editing.

This was one of the most enriching experiences of my life, where I felt like I could finally combine my film skillset with my love for volunteering and teaching.

The Young Syrian Filmmakers were exactly as I expected; they were extremely hospitable, bright, and hilarious. There was never a dull moment with them.

While waiting for the non-punctual members of the class, I wanted to find a way to reward the early birds who valued being on time. I didn’t want to proceed with the curriculum and have to repeat myself when the rest showed up, so I would ask the early birds what ‘bonus video lesson’ they would like to sharpen their specific film skills.

On this morning, I was asked if we could film a test with their new prop guns that they wanted to try out, and they wanted to learn more about sound design. I filmed this on my iPhone and showed them how we can use online sound library sources to download to use for our sound editing.

Although the sponsoring NGO loved the motivation behind this project, they questioned why guns had to be used and the general theme of violence here.
So I told the class we will no longer be using their prop guns in any future projects because we gotta keep it PG for donors, even if the filmmakers themselves loved police-themed shows.

In the next class, I noticed even more students had shown up. This bonus video lesson centered on motivated transitions that lead the viewer’s eye throughout the video. The idea was that an object/action has to enter and leave the frame so that the editor has something to work with when choosing which moment to cut. The easiest prop I could think of to tie this whole video together was a potato.

On the final day of class, every single student showed up on time. Since everyone was there, we could dive straight into the lesson of the day. But much to my surprise, this was met with a lot of resistance, and everyone kept piping on about the ‘bonus video lesson’. So I told them we’d have the bonus lesson after class had ended, sometime during the night. Their focus for this next bonus video lesson was color correction and the use of masks.