Belal Khan of leechonfilms is doing FREE videos teaching how to make great online videos. Belal Khan produced and edited the infamous YM Promo Video. He has also done alot of small promos for Al-Maghrib. My favorite al-Maghrib trailer that he has done is for their Seerah course.

Check out this video about his journey on video editing and subsequent intro to his anti-ordinary Webinar:

Its interesting that he already has 90 responses to his video. If I was Belal I would not have made this venture an “Islamic” one. I think by virtue of him being known Muslims would have taken his webinar and used it for dawah purposes. Nonetheless I understand he is doing this feesabeelillah (for the sake of Allah) thus hes made it free, and marketed it to Muslims as a seminar to help them make good dawah videos. IMHO I think we have to do more mainstream projects which expose everyone to Muslim life, and give them an insight into the lives of American Muslims. Hopefully people will benefit from his videos and improve their skills and use those skills for good works.

Belal mentions a brother who asked him to work on the promo Video for YM. That was me. A brother named Bassim actually suggested it to me. What I love about Belal is that he is a go-getter. May Allah (S) enable him to continue doing the stuff he does, and increase him in his skills and vision. He is currently also working on a documentary film about Muslim Relief efforts in response to Hurricane Katrina (which I feel should be marketed to non-Muslims somehow). I once asked Belal to do a workshop on how to edit video at a leadership seminar for Muslim Youth. Some of those youth leaders did not understand the need to give this topic so much time and attention.

This is the youtube era. I’m glad some other guys have picked up on this skill set i.e. Atif aka Khanartist. There are some other brothers like lotapanipictures that did the Gandaghee DVD, which in my opinion is the best Muslim produced comedy sketch video/DVD ever made!

Filed under: Ranting and Raving