How do you breathe life into something that hasn’t moved for centuries? Cinematographer and editor Don Souza faced this dilemma when shooting American Xplorer, an expedition- style adventure travel series (scheduled to premiere in January on HDNet).

Keith Neubert

Led by environmental conservationist Keith Neubert, American Xplorer takes viewers to the far reaches of the planet to explore lost worlds, foreign cultures and wild adventure. Keith, Don and crew spent an intense ten weeks traveling through eight countries in Central and South Americ a, shooting all 13 initial episodes in pristine 1080i High Definition video.

But when they returned and Souza began editing, he soon realized he had a creative storytelling challenge:

What can you do with big ruins that haven’t moved in centuries? For example, we’ve got shots of the great Mayan Ruins in Guatemala, but we demand more energy out of our shows than a breathtaking landscape. Our host, Keith, is upbeat, and we’re trying to convey both his excitement and the energy of the story. We needed to subtly add energy through the way we cut between these beautiful shots.

Mayan Ruins

Souza draws an analogy with human presentation.

I can’t sit in the living room of every viewer and tell them the story of the movie, but if I were there, I would be standing up, moving around, and putting inflection in my voice to add emphasis to what I am conveying. I can do the same in editing by adding emotion and energy via the pacing of cuts and smart use of transitions.

The shots are beautiful and they serve as the starting point. Then we add natural sound to enhance the viewer’s experience. And, we use the art of editing to inject more energy. With that in mind, I wanted to use transitions that would convey the kind of energy I needed for these scenes.

Searching for a way to translate this energy onto video, Souza soon discovered NewBlue Motion Blends, part of the NewBlueFX line of video effects, tools and transitions.

He explains,

Motion Blends has Spins, Smears, Rolls, Shakes, and more - all these energetic moves, so I bought it, went into post and started playing around with it. I used a variety of the Motion Blends to see what Keith thought. Without even mentioning that I’d bought these transitions, I played for Keith what I’d done. After four transitions in, Keith says, Hit stop!’ I cringe. Where did you get those? Those movements! They are great! Look at all the energy they are providing!

So, we hit a home run right off the block. From that point on, NewBlue Motion Blends has been our key when we need energy on screen.

The first episode of American Xplorer airs in January

You can learn more about American Xplorer at http://www.amxhd.info .