S1, A7iii and A7sii in Georgia

[mojo43]

We shot this as a two man crew over two weeks in Georgia. Was a whirlwind shoot driving up mountains to track down nomadic sheep herders and trying to get access to shoot in Orthodox churches and dance clubs. This is what we came up with.. would love to hear what everyone thinks.. we took a different direction on this piece than we normally do.

 

[Jimmy G]

Nice showcase reel of your team's shooting/editing/storytelling talents. Bravo! I especially enjoyed the wanton use of mixed media throughout, it truly works for (dare I say, adds to) this piece! :)

[mojo43]

12 hours ago, Jimmy G said:

Nice showcase reel of your team's shooting/editing/storytelling talents. Bravo! I especially enjoyed the wanton use of mixed media throughout, it truly works for (dare I say, adds to) this piece!

Thanks for the comment and for watching Jimmy.  We were trying to head in a different direction this time and everything luckily came together.

[MrSMW]

Nice job.

[kye]

Nice job!

I watched this when you posted it to YT (I subscribed and now can't remember who is who in my feed, so you got stealthily included in my evening watching) and my impressions were that it was an interesting departure from the normal travel films that are kind of trying to emulate a postcard crossed with a music video.

The raw feel added to the piece I think, creating more contrast and showing a more complete picture of the country.  I've found that every place has its pros and cons and to only focus on one aspect of a culture or society always kind of feels false in some way.

I particularly enjoyed the shot of the priest looking down the lens and the combination of the top of his swing with the speed-ramp and the music created a really great moment.  The drone shots of the herd of sheep were stand-out moments as well.

What equipment did you use?  

[BTM_Pix]

2 hours ago, kye said:

What equipment did you use?  

I'm going to take a wild guess that the clue that it was S1, A7iii and A7sii may have been secretly hidden in the thread title ?  

[kye]

12 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

I'm going to take a wild guess that the clue that it was S1, A7iii and A7sii may have been secretly hidden in the thread title ?  

LOL, yes, that might have given some of it away.  I'm interested in the lenses and other bits and pieces too  

Edit: the more people do something the more that they refine and understand it, so I'm always keen to hear from travel film-makers to get tips and ideas  

[thebrothersthre3]

That was awesome and informative as well! Which camera was the nicest to work with in post?

[EthanAlexander]

Subscribed.

Really enjoyed it. Visually intriguing and informative as well. 

LOVE how the drone shots were graded - like that one at 2:15... ?? Mavic 2 Pro in 10 big log or...?

My only suggestion, if you want it, would be showing the people talking on screen a little bit and adding a lower third about them so I know who is talking and can put it into context of the whole story. I think it would help me understand better.

Going to take a look at your other vids on the channel now!

[mojo43]

On 8/31/2019 at 8:08 AM, kye said:

Nice job!

I watched this when you posted it to YT (I subscribed and now can't remember who is who in my feed, so you got stealthily included in my evening watching) and my impressions were that it was an interesting departure from the normal travel films that are kind of trying to emulate a postcard crossed with a music video.

The raw feel added to the piece I think, creating more contrast and showing a more complete picture of the country.  I've found that every place has its pros and cons and to only focus on one aspect of a culture or society always kind of feels false in some way.

I particularly enjoyed the shot of the priest looking down the lens and the combination of the top of his swing with the speed-ramp and the music created a really great moment.  The drone shots of the herd of sheep were stand-out moments as well.

What equipment did you use?  

Thanks for watching and for the feedback! We shot mostly with an S1, A7iii and a mavic pro 2. All the lowlight shots (the church) is a7sii.

[Kisaha]

If you go a little bit further you are reaching documentary territory!

I never watch travel videos, they are empty to me, this one has content and very clever ideas to communicate a message or ones truth.

Maybe a bit less impressive than other postcard travel videos, but more diachronic.

John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word"

I will be looking for your videos a lot more now to see the evolution of your style.

[kye]

On 9/7/2019 at 6:32 AM, Kisaha said:

If you go a little bit further you are reaching documentary territory!

I never watch travel videos, they are empty to me, this one has content and very clever ideas to communicate a message or ones truth.

I'm not sure if the idea of mashing these two genres together is obvious to everyone else but it's new to me, and it seems very interesting.  The travel film seems to be a relatively new genre somewhere between location documentary and a marketing video and made popular by the rise of video on social media.  I wonder then what interesting ideas formed in this new style of film-making that could be brought back into traditional travel documentaries to move the genre forwards?

They say there's nothing new under the sun, but I believe the hyperlapse is something new (or at least new since the travel / location documentary genre was established), so maybe there are other things too.  When I think about what travel films used to be (I'm thinking of Around the World in 80 Days and others with Michael Palin) then we've certainly learned a bunch of things since then.

and when I say I'm interested, please reply as I make mostly travel videos of my family on holiday, so it would be interesting to incorporate other touches to get a sense of place, rather than 'we went here, we went here, we went here'  

[mojo43]

On 9/2/2019 at 1:21 PM, EthanAlexander said:

Subscribed.

Really enjoyed it. Visually intriguing and informative as well. 

LOVE how the drone shots were graded - like that one at 2:15... ?? Mavic 2 Pro in 10 big log or...?

My only suggestion, if you want it, would be showing the people talking on screen a little bit and adding a lower third about them so I know who is talking and can put it into context of the whole story. I think it would help me understand better.

Going to take a look at your other vids on the channel now!

Thanks for the subscription and for the feedback. Will definitely consider showing talking for the next one.

[Kisaha]

38 minutes ago, mojo43 said:

Thanks for the subscription and for the feedback. Will definitely consider showing talking for the next one.

That will be a very hard decision, because then you are making a documentary.

Didn't mind the "narration" vs the "interview", but you got something here, maybe you can show the talkers doing some action similar to the context on screen.

@kye travel videos used to be very rich in content, from ethnography and social films (with actual film in the film era) to the more modern Lonely Planet travel guides of the video era.

There is also this 

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3303422/

Now we are at the "postcard" or selfie era, with both of those lack depth.

In the era of social media and instagram, a short impressive video is all that counts, a society always looking at the surface, I do not have any social media accounts, I search for information and knowledge.

@mojo43

I wanted to add that maybe you should up your sound game now. Creative sound design but sometimes it didn't work for me. Maybe you should try to catch more natural sounds next time.

 

[mojo43]

23 hours ago, Kisaha said:

That will be a very hard decision, because then you are making a documentary.

Didn't mind the "narration" vs the "interview", but you got something here, maybe you can show the talkers doing some action similar to the context on screen.

I would never show a talking head, I would probably show a portrait shot of the interviewee or maybe them in action doing something relevant etc...

 

23 hours ago, Kisaha said:

 

@mojo43

I wanted to add that maybe you should up your sound game now. Creative sound design but sometimes it didn't work for me. Maybe you should try to catch more natural sounds next time.

 

I would love to hear what you thought didn't work? 

[Ki Rin]

Nice work! 

May I ask, with a project like this, how much of it is planned? 

I imagine it is pretty hard to plan a lot of it since you don't have that much control over what you will find at each location, but on the other hand, it seemed like some of the shots were deliberately planned out to lead into the next one. 
I'd love to hear more about this process. 

 

[Kisaha]

@mojo43 the seagulls/the door closing - sounded very generic to me and they do not sound like this. Some of the whooshes seemed unnecessary. When you could hear horses when we were seeing cows - I think.

Maybe some more minimalism in general, small things like that.

[mojo43]

19 hours ago, Ki Rin said:

Nice work! 

May I ask, with a project like this, how much of it is planned? 

I imagine it is pretty hard to plan a lot of it since you don't have that much control over what you will find at each location, but on the other hand, it seemed like some of the shots were deliberately planned out to lead into the next one. 
I'd love to hear more about this process. 

 

We don't plan very much, but we attack each place as a scene and try to set up as much as we can in each location. The spots that we were able to do that was only the DJ scene and the final scene with the children in front of the TV. The others, we just had coverage and also tried to film what we thought we would place into the edit (ex: the television station scene). As for it being hard... yes it is extremely difficult and we are always teetering on getting the shot vs not getting it. Most of the time we only have minutes to film what are looking to get.

16 hours ago, Kisaha said:

@mojo43 the seagulls/the door closing - sounded very generic to me and they do not sound like this. Some of the whooshes seemed unnecessary. When you could hear horses when we were seeing cows - I think.

Maybe some more minimalism in general, small things like that.

Huh, interesting. Thanks for bringing that up.