Executive Summary: Mustang International navigated significant technical and cultural challenges to produce one of the most robust internationally friendly DVD projects ever completed on a minimal budget by coordinating a large volunteer base and pushing the boundaries of industry-standard production tools.

In 2004, Mustang International was invited to attend a meeting of Christian missions leaders and media producers to review the possibility of producing a very challenge DVD project. The sponsoring group was a global grass-roots network called Ethne who focuses on sharing the gospel with the seemingly unreachable parts of the world. The goal was to produce a series of videos telling true stories that highlight conversions from “impossible” groups. In addition to coordinating the collection of materials and the production of twelve different videos, each story would need to fully utilize DVD capabilities to support multiple languages – approximately 5 soundtracks and 15 subtitle tracks. Many of those attending seemed unable to comprehend ways to produce this project for less than a million dollars. Within a month, Mustang International was able to maximize the volunteer workforce available and produce a proof-of-concept piece that far exceeded Ethne’s expectations. Over the next 18 months, two DVDs were produced containing and fully developed overview video with an additional twelve stories, all told in Mandarin, Spanish, Indonesian, French, English and a music only track in order to facilitate additional language versions produced regionally. Subtitle tracks were produced in Mandarin, Spanish, English, French, Indonesian, Russian, Korean, Hindi, Portuguese, German, Tagalog, Japanese, Swahili, Faroese, Bengali, Afrikaans, and Tamil. Navigating the many cultural challenges with the languages and volunteers from around the world proved to be a major part of the project. Also, technical challenges were met as well, including the development of custom software to handle shortcoming found in the DVD authoring software.