Week 2: the promotional video is in the can

If my little family and I could settle in Indonesia, if we could make a living by introducing this beautiful country to tourists from all over the world, if the money we raise could help the children of our village build a better future — these are the dreams that carry me forward. The project is about to be unveiled. During this second week, Nenden and I finished putting together the promotional video that we'll be sharing on social media starting tomorrow, Tuesday, September 1st. We had to reorder the footage and adjust the voice levels more times than I can count, but we finally managed to put together a trailer that actually looks like something.

The initial edit

A few months ago, we hired a professional Indonesian videographer to capture some beautiful footage of the places we want to introduce visitors to during our first group trips in 2027 and 2028. He took his camera and went out to explore all these superb locations. So Nenden had plenty of material to build our teaser from. She spent hours on her old Xiaomi phone selecting and trimming the best clips from the raw footage. On the bus on her way to work, in bed at night before falling asleep, at the dinner table while having dessert, I could hear her tapping away on her screen. Meanwhile, I combed through royalty-free music sites to find the right soundtrack. I came across a modern Indonesian track that blends traditional instruments with more contemporary sounds. I loved the vibe. By the start of last week, we had a video just under a minute and a half long that I could use as a base to write my little sales pitch.

Recording the voiceover

Unfortunately, I don't own any microphone worthy of the name to produce recordings of decent quality. It's been a long time since I sold off the old gear I used to perform my rap songs with. So I had to improvise with what I had on hand. Luckily, my iPhone X had just given up on me, and I'd set my sights on the 16. Five hundred euros, refurbished, on Back Market. This new phone lets me capture fairly clear sound, but I found the result really muffled and heavy on the bass. So I had to download a third-party app to get a better recording tool, then spend hours racking my brain on GarageBand. A bit more volume, a touch of echo, a hint of reverb, some compression — I mixed and remixed endlessly until I got a final result that didn't grate too much on the ears. It's far from cinema standards, but the little film we made with our modest amateur means turned out pretty decent.

An English accent you could cut with a knife

To be honest with you, my acting performance was solid when it came to reciting my lines in French. I nailed my speech in two or three takes, without a single stumble. On the other hand, when I had to put on my show for the English video, I was a lot less confident about my performance. My accent was downright ridiculous, and it wasn't always easy to make sense of my gibberish. Well, let's hope English-speaking viewers won't hold it against me and will instead be charmed by my clumsy stammering. People often say the British or Americans find the French cute when they speak Shakespeare's language imperfectly. We'll see if that legend holds true.

Coming up this week

It's back-to-school time. Samir is starting first grade while I kick off my big project. While he'll be sitting in front of his new teacher, I'll be in front of my computer orchestrating my communication campaign. Everything is planned down to the last detail. I already know which post to publish on which Facebook group. I know which friends to contact first on WhatsApp, which distant acquaintance to reach out to on Messenger, and which association for the visually impaired to email. I've built a database of 1,600 contacts, painstakingly put together over the past year. It's time to sell my trips with skill and hit my targets. I'm giving myself until the end of October to interest a total of forty people in traveling to Indonesia with us. That works out to about one or two a day. A challenge that's definitely doable, but far from guaranteed. Time to get to work.