It is clear from the numbers of views and viral sharing that thousands of people (maybe hundreds of thousands ) around the world really value the images and interviews from the Karate Masters Portrait Project and the Sensei: Masters of Okinawan Karate Video Series.

The video series in particular takes up a massive amount of time, gear, and data storage.

Shooting long interviews in 4K, Pro Res & Pro Res Raw, and multiple cameras uses a lot of data. After publishing the data to YouTube I could go back and delete the original files, but in a couple of years or a couple of decades, maybe the karate community will want to see the entire unedited footage, or want to a different edit or grade of the footage. So I need to get more hard drives like the one below now my current 24TB drive and 20TB back up are full.

At the same time I keep wanting to improve the production values with more professional gear to improve audio, lighting or camera movements.

Here’s where you can help. More supporters and sponsors make producing content easier. You can find out more information about how to do this here:

https://travel67.com/the-karate-masters-portrait-project/sensei-documentary/

I’ve tried to make enquiries with the Okinawan Prefectural Government, the Karate Promotions Division, the Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau, and local businesses, but they all seem to be focused on their own projects and so far can’t offer any assistance. Which means that for now the projects rely on self-funding and crowd-funding from the international community.

If you’d like to help your name, dojo or organization will be in the credits of the video series, and I’d really appreciate it.

With this blog post written, I’ll get back to final edits of video #6 with Kenyu Chinen, mid point edits of a bonus video with Arcenino J. Advincula, initial file sorting of the footage from video #7 with Seikichi Iha sensei, preparation for next week’s interview for video #8 with Tsuguo Sakumoto, and setting up interviews #9, #10, #11 and #12.

Information on how to help can be found here:

https://travel67.com/the-karate-masters-portrait-project/sensei-documentary/