Latest News
May 1, 2001 -- The three-volume VHS set has been released.  Total running time is approximately 6:30.  Be sure to complete the online survey mentioned in the VHS letter.  The DVD will be constructed based on survey results.
March 14, 2001 -- Adding graphics titles.  After more trimming, DRAFT1d running time should be under 6 hours. 
March 4, 2001 -- Adding 50 minutes of concert footage screened by Warrick/Rosheger.  Total running time with concert footage is approximately 6 hours 40 minutes.
February 23, 2001 -- DRAFT1 cutting completed.  Current running time is 6 hours.  Concert footage to be added--pending Warrick/Rosheger review.
February 19, 2001 -- DRAFT1 build and cutting still in progress.  Current running time is 6 hours and 36 minutes.
February 17, 2001 -- DRAFT0 build completed and reviewed.  Total running length of DRAFT0 was approximately 7 hours and 20 minutes.  Some build errors are being corrected and preliminary cuts are being made in the next build--DRAFT1.  There is a possibility that we will extend the length of the video from the original 2 hours, making it a double, or even triple DVD/VHS set.
January 28, 2001 -- Beijing Last Dinner started and completed.  Beijing Last Morning started and completed.  Beginning build of "DRAFT0"--assembling individual programs into the final program and making additional edits and cuts to shorten programs.  Depending on how long the assembled program is, certain programs may have to be omitted or edited for time constraints on the VHS and DVD formats.
January 25, 2001 -- Beijing Opera completed.
January 23, 2001 -- Beijing Opera in progress. 
January 22, 2001 -- Beijing Summer Palace completed.  Beijing Finale in progress.
January 21, 2001 -- Beijing Forbidden City completed.  Beijing Sleeping Bus to Lunch started and completed.  Beijing Lunch started and completed.  Beijing Summer Palace in progress.
January 16, 2001 -- Zhengzhou Last Dinner completed.  Zhengzhou Bus To Train Station started and completed.  Zhengzhou to Beijing Sleeper Train started and completed.  Beijing Morning started and completed.  Beijing Bus to Forbidden City started and completed.  Beijing Forbidden City in progress. 
January 13, 2001 -- Kaifeng Iron Pagoda completed.  Kaifeng Lunch started and completed.  Kaifeng Dinner Before Concert started and completed.  Kaifeng Theme Park started and completed.  Kaifeng Monastery started and completed.  Kaifeng Shopping started and completed.  (Everything Kaifeng completed.)  Zhengzhou Last Dinner in progress (before sleeper train back to Beijing).
January 4, 2001 -- Kaifeng Guide Introduction started and completed.  Kaifeng Dragon Pavilion completed.  Kaifeng Iron Pagoda in progress.
January 3, 2001 -- Kaifeng Dragon Pavilion in progress.
January 2, 2001 -- Zhengzhou High School Free Time completed.  Zhengzhou High School Lunch completed.  Zhengzhou Mall started and completed.  Zhengzhou Jade Shop started and completed.  Kaifeng Chinese Numbers and Counting started and completed.  Kaifeng Hotel Arrival in progress.
January 1, 2001 -- Happy New Year!  Zhengzhou Provincial Museum completed.  Zhengzhou High School Intro started and completed.  Zhengzhou High School Free Time in progress.  Zhengzhou High School Lunch in progress.
December 23-24, 2000 -- Zhengzhou Adults Dinner completed.  Zhengzhou Night Craziness started and completed.  Zhengzhou Morning to Henan Provincial Museum completed.  Zhengzhou Provincial Museum in progress.
December 18, 2000 -- Zhengzhou Dahe Village completed.  Zhengzhou Yellow River started and completed.  Zhengzhou Dinner with Government Officials being refined.
December 17, 2000 -- Ancient Observatory completed.  Grade School started and completed.  Zhengzhou Henan Museum started and completed. Zhengzhou Dennis Supermarket started and completed.  Zhengzhou Lunch Announcements started and completed.  Zhengzhou Dahe Village in progress.
December 16, 2000 -- Luoyang Concert Interview started and completed.  Pagoda Forest completed.  Shaolin Temple completed.  Sacred Mountain Temple started and completed.  Ancient Observatory in progress.
December 15, 2000 -- Shaolin Pagoda Forest and Temple in progress.  
December 14, 2000 -- Luoyang Evening After Concert in progress.  Shaolin Temple and Pagoda Forest up next. 
December 13, 2000 -- Luoyang Pre-Concert Talk started and completed.  Luoyang Pre-Concert Dinner started and completed.  Luoyang Pre-Concert Set Up started and completed.
December 12, 2000 -- Luoyang Cave Dwellings started and completed. 
December 11, 2000 -- Luoyang White Horse Temple completed.  Luoyang Imperial Mausoleum started and completed.  Luoyang Lunch Before Concert started and completed.  Luoyang Cave Dwellings up next.
December 10, 2000 -- Luoyang Mayor Gift Exchange completed.  Luoyang Morning of Concert started and completed.  Luoyang White Horse Temple in progress.  China Tour 2000 Trailer is available for download.  (See link above.)
December 9, 2000 -- Luoyang Bluegrass Boyz Night Concert in the Park completed.  Working on making the China Tour trailer available for viewing online--check back soon.  Luoyang Mayor Gift Exchange still in progress.
December 8, 2000 -- Finished China Tour 2000 trailer for presentation at the Friday, December 8, New Trier High School Fall Jazz Ensembles Concert in Gaffney Auditorium at 7:30 PM CDT.
December 4, 2000 -- Needed to recapture two reels that became corrupt on hard drive.
December 3, 2000 -- Luoyang Crazy Bus Driving segment started and completed.  Luoyang Tri-Color Pottery segment completed.  Luoyang Mayor and Adults Dinner started and completed.  Luoyang Mayor Gift Exchange in progress.  Luoyang Bluegrass Boyz Night Concert in the Park in progress.
December 2, 2000 -- Luoyang Tri-Color Pottery segment editing in progress. 
December 1, 2000 -- Luoyang Longmen Grotto completed.  Zhengzhou Mr. Warrick Tells a Chinese Joke started and completed.  Luoyang Tri-Color Pottery segment up next.
November 30, 2000 -- Luoyang Pet Store Lunch started and completed.  Luoyang Longmen Grotto editing in progress.
November 29, 2000 -- Beijing Night Train completed.  Luoyang Introduction started and completed.  Luoyang Hotel Arrival and Briefing started and completed.
November 28, 2000 -- Beijing Ming Tombs editing completed.  Beijing Jade Factory started and completed.  Beijing Night Train in progress and nearly complete.
November 27, 2000 -- Beijing Pearl World editing started and completed. Beijing Ming Tombs editing in progress.
November 26, 2000 -- Beijing Great Wall Exploration editing complete. 
November 25, 2000 -- Beijing Great Wall Exploration editing in progress. 
November 24, 2000 -- Completed experimental one-minute prelude.  Beijing Great Wall Concert Morning complete.  Beijing Great Wall Chamber Orchestra Beethoven complete.  Beijing Great Wall Bluegrass Boyz complete.  Beijing Great Wall Jazz 1 complete.  Beijing Great Wall bus ride completed.  Beijing Great Wall Setup in progress.
November 22, 2000 -- Now exploring the possibility of adding a simple one minute prelude of audio and interview sound bytes.
November 20, 2000 -- Great Wall editing underway.  Mozart or Beethoven may be included from this concert.  Bluegrass Boyz will probably make their first appearance in this concert.  Since there is a lot of material from the Great Wall concert, editing requires cutting out a lot of material.  This makes it difficult from a decision and process perspective.
November 19, 2000 -- Sequences up through Peking Duck Dinner and evening rehearsal completed.  Now mapping out Great Wall concert sequence.
November 18, 2000 -- Cutting, shortening, and polishing intro sequence up to Beijing.
November 16, 2000 -- Working on finalizing Tokyo group sequence to Beijing.
November 15, 2000 -- Battling the flu and trimming down Chicago to Beijing sequence.
November 14, 2000 -- Editing of flight to Beijing continues.
November 13, 2000 -- (Sorry it has been awhile since the last update.) Kung Fu Show segment complete.  Many of the "highlight" segments have been completed.  Editing is now moving along as quickly as possible, as the connecting pieces are now being edited.  I am really pushing to finish by the end of the month and plan to post updates frequently--hopefully daily.  The latest sequences that have been edited include the morning departure from New Trier High School, O'Hare airport check-in, Osaka and Tokyo airplane flights, and Osaka airport arrival.
October 15, 2000 -- Kung Fu segment editing in progress.
October 8, 2000 -- Chinese Acrobats segment complete.  New surround sound speaker monitors installed for mixing.
September 27, 2000 -- Chinese Message segment complete.
September 26, 2000 -- T-Square Bargaining and Autographs segments complete.  Massage segment in concept stage.  Qiu Min Ji's 26 minute tour video completed.  QMJ's video was produced using a similar process as will the New Trier China Tour video, and the results are outstanding.  Both picture and sound are crisp and clean.  Because her video will not be included on either the DVD or VHS China Tour video, we will try to make it available for online viewing shortly.
September 10, 2000 -- T-Square and Autographs editing in progress.
September 2, 2000 -- Sam Cam and Chicken Story on hold for review. Zhengzhou dinner with Chinese dignitaries editing in progress.
August 22, 2000 -- Introduction and Chicken Story program editing in progress.
August 20, 2000 -- Wilson program editing in progress.
August 11, 2000 -- Sam Cam program editing in progress.
August 2, 2000 -- 50 hours captured--done capturing!  On to preliminary screening and creating the first chapter scene...
August 1, 2000 -- 45 hours captured, 5 to go.
July 30, 2000 -- 35 hours captured, 15 to go.
July 28, 2000 -- New hard drive tower arrived and installed.  Now capturing "A" footage.  25 hours captured so far.
July 26, 2000 -- New hard drive tower is scheduled for delivery tomorrow (July 27).  Capturing is to resume after installation.
July 25, 2000 -- All DVD and VHS order forms have been sent out today.  The order deadline is August 20, 2000.
July 23, 2000 -- 25 hours captured, 25 to go.  Still waiting on replacement hard drive tower case to resume capturing.
July 21, 2000 -- Hard drives arrived, but case is being returned due to shipping damage.  DVD order forms and letters are being printed; look for them in the mail next week.  New surround sound mixer arrived and installed.
July 16, 2000 -- Waiting for additional hard drives to arrive to continue capturing raw footage.  Dolby Digital licensing terms are being reviewed for use on the DVD.  Control room is being outfitted for surround sound mixing.
July 15, 2000 -- 20 hours of raw footage captured, 30 to go.  DVD/VHS pre-order forms are being prepared.
July 9, 2000 -- The raw footage is currently being digitized into the computer-based video editor.  This process will take 50 work hours to complete.  Then the footage will be screened and cataloged by hand.

The Process
Each scene will be logged in detail--noting the location, camera framing, picture and sound quality, verbatim dialogue, etc.  The logged scenes will become part of a library of video clips that can be accessed on-line via the computer video editor.  Select clips and sound bytes will be used to construct the main program.  Once the main program has been constructed, the clips that were used in the main program will be re-digitized in super high resolution and color-corrected and enhanced.  The sound will also be enhanced with supplementary tracks of music, ambience, and surround effects.  Once the video and audio are polished, the entire program will be mastered for DVD video.  The mastering process involves encoding and compressing the video and audio data to fit on the DVD.  

Equipment List
Studio Equipment
(1) Media 100 iFinish V40 Video Editing System
(1) Steinberg Nuendo 24-bit Audio Recording and Surround Mixing System
(1) Sony DSR-40 DVCAM Digital Video Cassette Deck
(1) Sony KP43T70 43" Big Screen Projection TV
(1) Mackie Digital 8-Bus (d8b) 24-bit Surround-Capable Mixer
(1) Tascam DA-78HR Digital Multitrack Recorder
(1) Mark Of The Unicorn (MOTU) 2408mkII 24-bit Digital Audio Interface
(5) Mackie HR824 High Resolution Studio Monitors
(1) Yamaha YST-160 Subwoofer

Field Equipment
(1) Sony DCR-VX1000 3CCD MiniDV Camcorder
(1) Sony TRV-900 3CCD MiniDV Camcorder
(1) Shure FP33 Portable Audio Mixer
(1) Shure SM89 Shotgun Microphone
(2) Shure Lavalier Wireless Microphone Sets
(2) Shure Wireless Camcorder Audio Sets