The Magic of Fatima

By Frederic Lumiere, Director, Writer and Film Editor

Fatima is a feature length documentary about three young children from Fatima, Portugal who, in 1917, claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared to them and revealed three secrets -- predictions about the fate of the world. No other apparition has impacted the 20th Century as much as those of Fatima. Popes, heads of state and more than a billion people not only believed in them but changed their daily lives according to the instructions of the Virgin Mary. Some say that the fall of the Soviet block can even be attributed to these apparitions.

“Fatima” investigates these incredible events objectively by interviewing people who were there as well as scientists, psychologists, historians and clergymen.

I directed and edited The Magic of Fatima, and it was produced by internationally recognized Lou Reda Productions which has produced more than four hundred cable, network and feature programs over the last 30 years.

One of the goals of this film was to be an in-depth and objective look at the miracles of Fatima. These events spur such strong emotions from believers and non-believers alike that too often, programs covering the events are rarely objective and either too focused on sensationalism with little substance and historical fact or very religious in tone with little objectivity.

The idea was to make this film very entertaining and, at the same time, become an authority on the subject. So much misinformation has been circulating since 1917 (both for and against the authenticity of visions) that we felt it was important to lay down the facts as they occurred, accurately and impartially.

To accomplish this, we gathered as much pre-existing material we could find. It came in about every format you could think of: DVD, DV, Beta SP, DigiBeta, HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, 16mm, 35mm, 8mm, etc.

Interviews and B-roll were shot with a VariCam camera in 720p24 and ingested via HD-SDI. All other formats were ingested either via HD-SDI or component-In using HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, DigiBeta, DV decks and DVD and VHS players! The DV, DVDs and VHS material were for the majority screeners which were replaced with higher quality versions once the cut was complete and the footage licensed. But they were still (temporarily) converted to DVCPRO HD 720p primarily because a lot of compositing was done in FCP and Motion and we wanted to avoid a change in resolution when going ‘online’. So it was important to have only DVCPRO HD 720p clips from day one of the edit, including all the material we gathered from other sources. Therefore, we had to convert all of it to one common format -- DVCPRO HD 720p -- on the ingest, and we did that using a Blackmagic Design Multibridge Pro.

The Multibridge Pro was also essential during the edit to enable monitoring on an HD monitor via the HD-SDI output. Using an HD Panasonic monitor was straightforward by plugging it in the HD-SDI out but that monitor is often used on the field for shoots and so as a backup solution, we used a 20” Apple Cinema Display hooked to a Blackmagic Design HDLink monitoring converter which was plugged in the Multibridge Pro HD-SDI out. The timeline was 23.98 since the film goes through a filmout, and the Multibridge Pro allows for a 23.98 conversion to 29.97 on the fly for monitoring on the Cinema Display. This really came in handy when burning real-time DVD rough cuts using the component out from the Multibridge Pro in a DVD recorder.

From the start we decided not to use a narrator and to tell the story purely through interviews and some voiceover of Sister Lucia (the only remaining one of the three children who saw the visions) reading her memoirs. We wanted the viewer to make up his own mind as to what he believes and what he doesn’t believe. Although a narrator can be a great story telling tool which allows the ability to fill in gaps and bridge sections, we felt that by using one, we would risk losing the impartiality of a viewer making up his own mind. So, without the tool of a narrator, we were challenged to transition smoothly and easily, integrating all the different pieces we had assembled for this production.

With more than 150 hours of material and hundreds of stills, organization was essential and the Multibridge Pro’s ability to use the HD monitor as a third desktop came in very handy! Two 30” Cinema Displays were used for Final Cut Pro (the left one for the timeline, viewer and canvas and the right one for the browser) and the third 30” Cinema Display (that we used as a desktop monitor when not monitoring the canvas in HD) was used for stills, web articles, sound FX, music, using the very cool QuickView feature in Leopard.

All material was delivered to the editing bay via G-RAID drives and transferred to the Mac Pro 8-Core system’s internal 3 TB RAID. Very cool FCP effects and transition from Nattress and CGM plugins really helped create the mysterious and supernatural look of the show. Finally, round tripping between FCP and Motion was used extensively for some very cool animated 3D composites of one of the children’s memoirs that were combined with 20th century world events using Adobe Photoshop and previewed on the Cinema Display using the HDLink and the Multibridge Pro.

Not only did the Blackmagic Design Multibridge Pro and the HDLink make my job much easier than I could have imagined, the value offered for the price is mind boggling. Only a few years ago, this complete setup would have cost tens of thousands of dollars… and now it’s just around two thousand!

“Fatima” is produced by Lou Reda Productions, written by Frederic Lumiere, Liz Reph, and Carolyn Jacobs, and directed and edited by Frederic Lumiere. Lumiere is an award winning director and editor, and an industry recognized leader in the fields of HD production and post-production. He has been instrumental to the development of the RED digital camera as well as creator of Lumiere HD.

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