“Working on this trailer was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Gail Mooney told me yesterday. “The shorter the piece, the harder it is for me to edit, and it probably is for most people. I needed to cut to the essence of the story yet not give away too much. I needed to create interest by what I didn’t tell the viewer.”

One thing this wonderful, interest-grabbing trailer doesn’t tell the viewer is incredible passion, energy and innovation Mooney has put into transforming her personal movie project, “Opening Our Eyes,” from the tiny tickle of an idea into a massive, tangible reality.

Created in partnership with her daughter, Erin Kelly, Mooney shares much of her passion — behind the scenes triumphs, frustrations and the technical and creative nuts and bolts of making a movie  — through her blogging on the “Opening Our Eyes” website, as well as on Journeys of a Hybrid, where for two years Mooney has been dishing up practical advice and motivation for photographers moving into motion.

Thanks to Mooney’s enthusiastic, adept use of social media, as of yesterday, a week after she posted it, Mooney’s trailer has already been viewed by 1,142 people in 62 countries.

“I realize in the YouTube playing field — of babies biting fingers and cats playing pianos — these type of stats are nothing in the viral world,” Mooney observed. “But they are amazing when you consider what it is.”

Indeed. What it is, at least in part, is a passionate visual communicator — who started her career long before the advent of digital imaging and the Web — sharing a personal project with more than a thousand eager viewers in 62 countries.

Boy with eggs at Camino Abierto, Carlos Keen, Argentina.

The Possibilities in Passion

In a Hybrids blog post last week, Mooney wrote, “When you are convinced that you have the ability to make the impossible possible, then you will put your dreams into action. You will take that chance, and by doing so you are creating your own reality instead of reacting to what others have created for you, which may not be in your best interests.”

There are many people who share this kind of positive sentiment: make your dreams happen with positive thinking. It’s a sentiment that often rubs me the wrong way. It often feels hollow, oversimplifying the immense challenges we all face in life. Regardless of what a Nike ad campaign might say, many of us can’t “Just Do It.” Desire is not enough.

What makes Mooney’s “make the impossible possible” sentiment attractive is that it is grounded in the example of how she lives her life. She struggles, she strives, she overcomes. Yes, she does it. But she never “just” does it.

In her blogging over the past two years Mooney has become increasingly open and honest, sharing her personal struggles. She never complains of simply vents, but she lets us see that a great deal of her making the (seemingly) impossible possible depends on her never given up, even when the (seemingly) possible feels impossible.

In wonderful posts related to her experiences with “Opening Our Eyes,” Mooney shows us how she gets deeply inspired but then has serious doubts but that she still takes big chances anyway. She remains open to learning from diverse sources as she struggles with technical and creative challenges. And although she experiences many moments of sasisfied success, she also  experiences extreme let downs. The common thread — what’s truly important — is that she keeps on going and actively makes things happen.

Viola Majewska with horse at her hippotherapy stable located outside Warsaw, Poland.

Positive Change From and Beyond Technology

When “Opening our Eyes” is completed, I have no doubt that many will hold it up as an example of the amazing possibilities of DSLR movie making.

The trailer alone — created from still, video and audio captured by a two-member team working in six continents while traveling to 17 countries in three months on a shoestring budget — is testament to the possibilities of DSLR video. But Mooney makes it clear it’s not about the technology; it’s about the story, and the drive to tell the story.

In this case of “Opening Our Eyes,” more than ever before in her three-decade career of making images, Mooney’s desire to tell the story is fueled by her desire to make a difference. Her goal for the film is to inspire viewers to create positive change in their own communities by highlighting the impact that her subjects are making in theirs.

Although Mooney makes it clear that “Opening Our Eyes” is not about the technology, there’s no getting around the fact that the project also is very much about the. One clear example is in how Mooney used technology to help her refine this trailer for “Opening Our Eyes.” First, she shared an earlier version with select colleagues on Vimeo, using password protection to keep it private. After receiving feedback, she refined.

This was possible thanks to the affordable cost of the digital editing process (basically the only cost is time) plus the incredible possibilities of international distribution technology (free). These advances in technology allowed Mooney to create this trailer in way that simply was not possible when she began video production a decade ago.

Woman in remote village in northern Thailand. She waits to see Dr. David Marnaw at his makeshift clinic.

Collaboration Goes Viral

The technology also allows Mooney involve her audience in an ongoing editing process that is interactive and fluid. The trailer is not an afterthought to an already-created movie, but rather part of Mooney’s evolving vision of a story that is still coming together.

“At a certain point in the process, I wanted to share the trailer with others to get feedback,” Mooney explains. “We live in an age when this is possible, so I uploaded a couple of variations of the trailer to Vimeo and sent out links to a small circle of people that I knew.” More polished and not password protected, these trailers are the ones that have gone viral.

“My ‘contacts’ on Vimeo also get access and notification to videos when I upload them,” Mooney says. “The people who received the link were a diverse group; I didn’t want to just solicit the opinions of other filmmakers, but hear from all sorts of people from different demographics.” These people shared the trailer links and Mooney notes that because of the “power of sharing and social media it spread all over the world.”

Mooney told me that, as the mechanisms of social media churn invisibly to distribute her movie trailer all over the world, the positive comments she is receiving are giving her a profoundly deep sense of satisfaction. However, she added that “I have a feeling that this will continue to bring rewards to me and a lot of other people. I believe that with all my heart.”

Evening prayers at the Kopila Valley Childrens Home, Surkhet, Nepal.

Being On Purpose in a World of Frictionless Delivery

This is a theme that Mooney has shared with me many times, since before leaving on her trip to after her return, and when I had the chance to interview her in Buenos Aires during the trip. She has repeatedly talked about the amazing, surprising value that has already come from her project. One of the most profound rewards, she says, is that she has reconnected with the roots of why she became a photographer. She is feeling a greater sense of what she calls “being on purpose.”

“The response to publishing my trailer,” Mooney said yesterday, “has also reinforced the notion that we all have access to incredible tools now that enable us to create our own films, books, music CDs and that we do not have to rely on others to validate our ideas and dreams.”

“It’s not just a powerful notion, it’s a real possibility,” Mooney said. “It takes away some of the fears that come from needing others to sanction what we do. As excited as I was when I first started shooting motion 12 years ago, I’m even more excited now about the possibilities in frictionless delivery of our creations — whether it be an e-book, a musical download or a trailer to a film.”

—-

NOTE: To be notified of when “Opening Our Eyes” is available for purchase (scheduled for Summer 2011), email Gail Mooney at gail@kellymooney.com with the subject line “Opening Our Eyes DVD”.

Brown is one photographer featured in “Hello, world: Social Networking for photographers”, a great article by Diane Smyth, published in the “British Journal of Photography.” As Smyth explains of Browne:

“Browne’s Facebook and blog pages link back to each other, her Twitter account and her main website, and she updates her Facebook page and Tweets each time she publishes a new blog, which is at least once a week. It is a lot of admin, she admits, but in her case it’s had real results – she only advertises online, and wins most of her new business this way”

In “Hello, world” Smyth reports on just a few of the different ways that photographers are finding business and (just as important) creative success with social media. One, clear message that Smyth conveys is that these photographers are finding quantifiable, positive value from social media because they are using social media in ways that are true to their personalities and business goals.

This is refreshing. It is different from the constant pressure I feel from advice that basically says: Use social media or perish.

I, for one, am overwhelmed by the sense that I must use social media better and more often, even when I’m not clearly motivated to do so. This is what is happening to me with Twitter. I am playing with the media, and feel that it must have value (and look forward to finding it), but so far I have not experienced the value. But I still feel the pressure. As a result, my tweets are pretty infrequent, pretty unfocused, pretty pathetic. Will this be the cause of my undoing?

Two nice comments to “Hello, world” both speak to “Yes! Yes! No! No!” sensations I am feeling regarding social media. David Axelbank notes, “I do feel that there is something to be gained from an online presence, no matter how small or large,” but that:

“On the other hand, I also feel there is perhaps too much emphasis being made of the influence of these social networking platforms.”

I think that “too much emphasis” is certainly the case if the emphasis drives us to do something desperate like, say, tweet in a reactionary manner.

While Axelbank questions the real value of the number of one’s Flickr or Twitter friends, Tom, whose comment is named “Photography Should Be Seen”, makes a very nice point, responding, in part:

“Surely part of the joy of being a photographer is having your work out there to be seen by as many people as possible.

“Completely agree with David Axelbank, number of social media friends doesn’t mean you your good. But it does mean that people are seeing your work. Thats gotta to be a plus.”

Tom, like the photographers Smyth features in “Hello, world”, is thrilled by social media for the sake of social media, which seems to be the real key to getting the most out of whatever type of social media fabrics we choose (or choose not) to weave.

I say that the connection to Argentina’s revolution (and ultimate independence) is appropriate because of all the photographers I know personally, without a doubt, Gail Mooney is the most revolutionary- and independent-minded.

Since I introduced “Opening Our Eyes” in March, the project has taken much fuller shape. You can get a good sense of the trip at the main website. Keep in mind that a year ago Mooney hadn’t even thought up this trip. From initial concept to flying out of Newark airport today, Mooney and Kelly have orchestrated all details of this massive undertaking in only a little over six months.

Be sure to also check out “Journeys of a Hybrid”, Mooney’s excellent blog full of insights — from the personal and creative to the technical and business side — from a photographer who has lived her life to the fullest, and who seems to be just warming up.

Mooney, who has been in the business for 33 years, has focused primarily on still photographic coverage of travel assignments for magazines. However, she has also worked plenty in the commercial realm in partnership with her husband, Tom Kelly.

Mooney not only made a smooth transition to digital photography, but she is one of the new bread photographers who is fully embracing the possibilities of video and, just as fully, the exciting possibilities of Web publication and social media.

Good Lu. . .

Besides alerting you to Mooney’s departure (”hybrid” still/motion image-making storytellers are sure to find inspiration from her project), the driving force behind writing this post was to publicly say “Good luck, Gail!” However, wishing Mooney good luck seems a bit odd.

In forging the life that she has wanted to live, Mooney has never seemed to rely on luck. “I do really on serendipity,” she to told me yesterday, when I touched base with her by phone. Mooney has talked to me many times about serendipity, especially in regard to how she allows this force to help the stories she is covering to unfold organically, and in different directions then she might originally imagine.

Mooney’s comfort with serendipity will no doubt be a key to her success on this storytelling trip of a lifetime. As she reports in her “Departure Day” post: “Ultimately, we will be interviewing and filming 10 different people on 5 continents.”

What’s fascinating is how Mooney and Kelly will evolve the story as it unfolds, connecting each new subject to the previous in a way that reveals itself in a manner that no script can predict.

The Blessed Web

There are a number of reasons this trip is unique for Mooney — from traveling with her daughter and recording in still and video with a dSLR to covering so many individual stories on such a huge geographical scope. However, I cannot ignore that at the heart of the nature of this trip lies the new possibilities in media, a.k.a., Web 2.0 and Social Media.

Mooney free to create and publish at will. She has told me that it is the ability to publish video to global audience at basically no cost is what makes the possibilities in video truly exciting. It is not, according to Mooney and as many photographers seem to think, that dSLRs can capture HD video. Mooney has been capturing motion for years — first with 16- and 35mm, then with digital — but with each passing day she sees more distribution opportunities.

These opportunities allow Mooney to fly off today sure that she will be able to win an audience for the move she creates with her daughter, although she is not limited in worry exactly what this audience will be.

Beyond distribution, it is important to realize that the very evolution of Mooney’s thinking about and planning for this trip has taken form via the social media efforts that she has been engaged in. Although even just yesterday she mentioned missing the quality of hand-written, post-delivered letters, she clearly has been able to harness the power of developing technologies without losing site of what has always interested her most: connecting on the one-to-one level, learning about people and places and sharing what she has learned with her storytelling.

Lucky Us: A Great Writer

Yesterday, Mooney told me that almost everyone she has told about her journey expresses a “I-wish-I-could-do-that!” kind of jealousy. Well, I’m not jealous of Mooney’s journey, but I must confess to being just a bit jealous of her writing abilities.

More than once Mooney has commented on the fact that she is not a writer, and wished she had greater skills in this area. Well, she really doesn’t need them. She is a damn good writer, and she is one of the few people I know who can quickly communicate in writing as naturally and fluidly as she does in speech. And this is the key to what makes her blogs and her writing (about her life, her subjects and the craft and business of photography) so engaging.

Mooney has already proved herself a savvy, enticing blogger with her “Journeys of a Hybrid”, which no doubt helped get her in shape for “Opening Our Eyes.” Now that she is in great writing shape — and somewhere over the Atlantic en route to her first stop in Entebbe, Uganda — it’s nice to know that, with her characteristic drive to share the rich life she is living, Mooney will be keeping us updated on her adventures at “Opening Our Eyes.”

Yesterday, in response to my TCC (Twitter Confusion Confession), my friend @janelerner recommended that I check out Jessica Hische’s “Mom, this is how twitter works.”

@jessicahische’s insights into the very basics of Twitter protocol is a masterful must-read for all TCT (Totally Confused Twitterers) like me. You’ll also find it useful if you tweet regularly but are not entirely clear on some of the SNI (Surprisingly Not Intuitive) aspects of who receives which tweets and why.

With incredibly clarity in the “who sees what” section of her document, Hische makes it clear that there’s a big difference between whether I put “@jessicahische” at the beginning of a tweet or anywhere else in my tweet. Whether or not @jessicahische is following me (@ethansalwen) will also impact my tweeting, and my tweeting will be affected if others are following the both of us. (Unlikely. @jessicahische has 5,005 followers; I have 12.)

Hische explains the critical fundamentals with no fuss about reasons for tweeting or strategies for doing so. This is refreshing. For all the gobs of Twitter advice I encountered today on the Web, I have found none with the the basic TDI (Twitter Driving Instructions) as clearly presented as those of Hische.

(If your Titter IQ is equal to or — gasp! — lower than mine, check out the “Twitter in Plain English” video at the end of this post.)

Even if this basic information is as old to you as Needleman’s post, like @janelerner, you’ll appreciate the ability to forward this Hische’s “mom resource” to any TCT friends coming to you with a TCC.

By the by. . .

Hische is one heck of a quality act in the world of creative professionals. This is made fairly clear simply through her stunning work featured on her elegant website, but even more so in this wonderful interview she gave at the recent Semi-Permanent event in Australia, where she was a speaker.

And for Twitter in plain English. . .

This is from the Gail Mooney’s new website, “Opening Our Eyes: Global Stories About the Power of One.” As the site explains, Mooney — an accomplished documentary photographer and filmmaker — will be heading around the world with her daughter, Erin Kelly, to gather the material they need to create a feature length film.

This is a project worth keeping tabs on. For one thing, it’s Mooney’s latest personal project, which are always impressive, as she uses them to push her photography forward, both creatively and in terms of business.

“Opening Our Eyes” is particularly interesting to those of us in the industry because Mooney will be pushing her limits in terms of working in both still and motion, employing light and affordable equipment. In short, she will be heading into waters that many of us will heading into ourselves — still & motion — and she does so with the insights of an impressive background in traditional still and motion.

Mooney is in a perfect position to show us how to capture both great stills and motion, ensuring that both get put to the best use. (To see what Mooney’s capable of, check out her shorts for “The Delta Blues Musicians” and “Freedom’s Ride.”)

Freedom’s Ride from Gail Mooney on Vimeo.

This is not to suggest that “Opening Our Eyes” will be about photography for photographers. Hardly. As always, Mooney will focus on the story — on her subjects — focusing on the task of best communicating that story to the most appropriate audience.

Nonetheless, Mooney is very interested in sharing what she learns with photographers. She has already been sharing her knowledge for photographers transitioning to video through her posts on the “ASMP’s Strictly Business Blog,” as well as by giving seminars on the topic.)

As Mooney makes clear, one main ingredient of her “Opening Our Eyes” project will be to rely on the power of serendipity. Much of this serendipity is driven by her involvement the social media of Web 2.0. Mooney has been increasingly embracing social media over the last year  — FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging — and much of the planning for “Opening Our Eyes” has come from the web of interconnectivity she has found in the social media realm.

In “Journeys of a Hybrid,” Mooney’s inspiring blog on photography and filmmaking, Mooney has been writing about “Opening Our Eyes.” The details of “Booking a Round the World Airline Ticket” are both daunting and inspiring. This post is also featured on the “Opening Our Eyes” site, showing that Mooney will have some blogging crossover. But not always.

Today, on “Journey’s of a Hybrid” Mooney posted  “Putting Together a DSLR Video Kit — And Why,” and it likely won’t appear on “Opening Our Eyes.” In other words, as Mooney (and partner Erin Kelly) pump up the content of “Opening Our Eyes” over the coming months, Mooney, through “Journey’s”, will be sharing insights on her photographic process for those of us who share her passion for visual storytelling. This is good news for those of us eager to expand our video knowledge.

In Mooney’s “DSLR Video Kit” post, we hear an expert photographer and filmmaker talking to us about how, at Zacuto, she “was looking for products that were designed to help with camera stability, focus aids and audio when using the Canon 5D or 7D which I will soon be purchasing. She goes into many technical details of preparing a modern-day, around-the-world still-video kit. Good stuff.

Gail Mooney and Erin Kelly will be leaving for Uganda on May 25th, returning back to the United States on August 3rd, after making loads of stops to record “global stories about the power one.” The team will then head to South America (dates not certain) to finish their coverage.

Although Mooney has nailed down most dates for “Opening Our Eyes,” she remains open to possibilities about exactly how this project might play out — and she will be posting much of her process on her blogs and other social media outlets.

All of these are major reasons to pay attention to “Opening Our Eyes.” Not only does Mooney welcome supportive fans, but she is interested in direct support and participation — from the people who have suggested story ideas to volunteers who might active participants in content creation or distribution. (”If you know an expert user experience designer who wants to volunteer for the project, let me know,” Mooney told me recently.)

This social media aspect of “Opening Our Eyes” is very new ground for Mooney. She is a pro when it comes to hectic world travel, returning home with great stories in images. But she is showing true courage in her use of social media. Not only is she reaching out for ideas and inspiration, but she is allowing the media to become part of the process, and even the message itself. As she embraces new technology, she also welcomes the powerful possibilities served up by serendipity.

No doubt Gail Mooney will open our eyes with the final products she creates with Erin Kelly for “Opening Our Eyes.” But don’t just wait for the end results. Get hooked into Mooney’s social media network by becoming her FaceBook friend, signing up for RSS feeds to her sites, and watching Mooney’s unfolding process of visual storytelling practices that embrace the power of video and social media