OMails

Hiker Vows To "Make the CDT My Bitch"

2011-10-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Shane O'Donnell, Future CDT Speed Record Holder

For Immediate Release 10/26/11

Ignorance and a delusional sense of self-confidence.

That is what Shane O'Donnell will be relying on when he embarks on his bold and quite possibly life-threatening attempt to "not just shatter, but mug at knifepoint and beat senseless" the Continental Divide Trail speed record.

The 41-year-old Roslyn resident plans to depart from the trail's southernmost point in New Mexico early in May - probably on May 1st - in an attempt to complete the trail, which snakes through 5 states from New Mexico to Montana, in record time.

"I'm going to hike the entire CDT in 28 days," says O'Donnell, "I don't just want to break the record, I want to take it out behind the Middle School and get it pregnant. It's kind of a statement for me."

There is some doubt about the possibility of breaking the record, insofar as it doesn't actually exist. Jackie McDonnell, CDT Guide Book author, explains: “There really isn’t a definitive speed record for the CDT because the trail itself doesn’t have one official route. There are multiple termini, cutoffs, alternates and foul-weather routes. Everyone’s CDT hike is unique in the sense that everyone hikes a slightly different (or sometimes greatly different) trail. Setting a speed record would be meaningless, because it’s incredibly unlikely that any two people would hike the exact same trail. Seems like poor planning. Is Shane O’Donnell even aware of this?”

Shane is aware of this, but insists that poor planning is part of his strategy.

“There are a lot of naysayers and haters out there who know an awful lot about the CDT. But they don’t know anything about me, about my inner drive, my refusal to quit even when what I’m attempting makes no sense whatsoever,” Shane explains, “it’s pretty clear that being completely aware of what I’m facing might crush my unrealistic expectations.”

Even if one assumes that the CDT is, in length, the minimum that has been estimated (approximately 2800 miles), Shane would have to clock 28 straight 100 mile days, including stretches in high altitude mountains that may be impassable due to snow. Is he up to it?

“People tell me that I’m off the wall. But that’s where everyone else is. They’re ‘off the wall’ because they’re ‘on the floor.’ I’m ON the wall, and only I know what that means. But experience? Yeah, I’ve got tons. I was a Boy Scout for a summer when I was, I think, 13. And when I worked in Boston, the other valets and I once built a huge snow cave that we hung out in instead of working, so I’m comfortable with winter extremes. Plus I’ve walked more than 30 miles in a day. I don’t see how 100 miles is much different. Or 28 of them in a row.”

Such a pace suggests that Shane will need to run, most likely for up to 22 hours per day, but he insists that he will hike unsupported. Says Shane, “I guarantee that I will not wear underwear for the entire hike. Wait. What was the question?”

Though he’ll be unsupported, he expects to be followed, in a sense.

“Yeah, I’ll be tweeting, and updating on Facebook. Then of course there’ll be my website, and my blog, and interviews I’ll do along the way, plus probably some updates on some charity sites I’ll link to in an attempt to get sponsorship and lessen awareness of my overly apparent narcissism. I expect that everyone will be interested in paying attention to me. Why wouldn’t they?”

While the answer to that may be painfully obvious to some, Shane insists that he will be inspired by all of the doubters, if not by the natural beauty that surrounds him.

“I’ll be thinking about the doubters the whole way as I beat the CDT so bad it’s own mom doesn’t recognize it,” he says, “I mean, they told Napoleon he couldn’t successfully invade Russia, but he didn’t listen, right? I know that complete ignorance and self-delusion only gets you so far, but the fact that I won’t back down tells me this is a lock. When I get done crushing the CDT, the Houston Astros will be making fun of it.”

When contacted for an opinion, Garret “The Onion” Christensen asked, “What does that last sentence even mean?”

He’ll have to wait until May 2012 to find out.

http://www.wizardsofthepct.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRvAcwjfUx4
https://www.facebook.com/WizardsofthePCT

Trailer . . .

2011-04-10T17:44:00.000-07:00

Shooting On Trail: Editing (Part 2)

2011-03-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

This, the second post regarding editing, will be more practical in nature. Much of what I’m planning to write is opinion, though, and you should feel free to disregard it (particularly when it comes to stylistic preferences, as with the part on transitions). I'll start with actual editing hardware & software.

I was in the unusual position of not owning a computer before I decided to make a film, and so was able to choose exactly what I thought would work best for me. What I ended up with, after consulting with a number of people smarter than me, was an iMac with pre-installed Final Cut Express (this is bundled with a title program called LiveType).

If you have a PC, the range of options probably goes Moviemaker--Adobe Premier--Avid. For Mac it’s iMovie--Final Cut Express--Final Cut Pro (Suite). So Moviemaker & iMovie are fine if you’re posting stuff on YouTube, but they really limit what you’re able to do, and in some cases (as with voiceovers) the workarounds necessary to accomplish certain effects is tedious and cumbersome.

I ended up choosing FCE because as far as I could tell it allowed me to do everything I wanted to do editing-wise for a reasonable price. Final Cut Pro is sold as part of a suite that costs around $1000; FCE costs $200. For the extra $800 I didn’t think I was getting anything I actually needed.

In addition to the above I also got a 1TB external drive, because video takes up a lot of space (this will be particularly true if you’re shooting in HD). And I bought two books, one a tutorial and one a reference for FCE. I spent about a month figuring out the program. As I’m not all that into talking about gear, that’s all I’ll say about what I used. Truth be told, you can probably make anything work for you. Regardless of what editing system you use it’ll be far faster than cutting actual film.

So now on to some advice and opinions . . .

Start Out Organized

This is definitely advice rather than opinion. FCE is a non-destructive editing program, which means that you load your video into your computer and assign a name to each clip. Any edits you do after that refer back to the original clip without affecting it, so even when you cut a clip the original doesn’t change. To stay organized, you need to name your original clips in a meaningful way. I eventually hit on a method that involved trail sections, numbers, and a description of the clip. So, for example, I have a clip called “Washington_To WhitePass20 Goat Rocks11 View & POV” The next clip is “Washington_To WhitePass20 Goat Rocks12 Hazy View.” There’s also a “Log Note” column where I could note what happens in the shot, or if it was a particularly good one. My system worked for me because the hike was linear, and knowing where it was shot and in what order the clips were shot was helpful. You’ll come up with what works for you, but definitely have a naming plan. I have thousands of clips of my hike. Not having them organized would have driven me even crazier than I am.

A Movie Is Not a Slideshow

Which is to say, you have to have a story. Slideshows are nice in short formats. And when you hike you definitely encounter a ton of natural beauty. But if your film is just one beautiful clip after another it will be boring, regardless of how spectacular it looks. Editing is your time to find the story within all of the footage, like the proverbial statue embedded inside a block of granite. As you watch all of your raw clips, try to get a sense of the overall feel or theme of your film. And build from there.

Exposition

Occasionally you’re going to have to provide viewers with some information that explains what’s going on in your film. How you choose to do exposition will involve your personal style. How often you have to do this will depend on your audiences familiarity with the subject, as well as how you shot your footage. I wanted my film to be accessible to people who had never hiked, but I wanted the exposition to be limited. I find voiceovers to be intrusive as well as difficult to do well. So I settled on using titles to explain certain things -- what the trail was, who people were, where we were on the trail in some sequences. Initially I didn’t include dates or mileages or number of days hiking, but I discovered that it would be hard for non-hikers (and even hikers who had never been on the PCT) to get a sense of time and scale without some sort of markers. While filming I had hikers narrate what they were doing, so I didn’t have to resort to explaining things too often (I never, for example, explain exactly what a “Trail Angel” is), but I did occasionally insert a title card to add commentary. Ultimately, my desire to minimize exposition has to do with the idea that a film is about showing rather than telling; far better to add a shot that shows the viewer what they need to know. Try not to overdo it with VO or titles.

Restraint With Transitions

Just as overdoing it with exposition can ultimately be a distraction, so too can unnecessarily complex transitions. The basic transition is a straight cut, and the one that in my opinion should be used most often. Yet many people look at the wide variety of transitions available and seem determined to use them all. I think overuse of wipes, peels, and 3D Simulations (like rotating cubes) looks amateurish. Cuts, cross dissolves, and fade out/fade in dissolves are simpler and less distracting. Maybe using a clock wipe will help impart the idea of the passage of time, and maybe in a particular instance it’s a good idea. But it’s probably a bad idea to use it constantly for no good reason. Transitions should be less important than the clips they connect. Have a reason if you’re going to do something fancy.

Music Matters

It’s entirely possible that music won’t play a big part in your film, but it definitely plays a big part in mine. Music helps create a mood, and it can help the pacing of your film. Some of the music I used used was created by some talented friends, some was from accommodating strangers who gave permission, and some was licensed under a Creative Commons License. And all of it was used deliberately; in each case there was a reason why I wanted a particular song for a particular place in the film. In one case a band (Camp Arawak) actually rerecorded a song to make it better fit the sequence in the movie. Music can make a big difference, but only if you think about it. As with transitions, don’t do it just because you can. Have a purpose. As far as the “because you can” part goes: make sure you have the rights to any music you use, even if you don’t plan to release the movie commercially. You never know what you might want to do with your film; I had a friend who made a very nice Appalachian Trail documentary and in hindsight he wished he could have done more with it than just burn copies for friends. But he hadn’t secured the rights to any of the music, and that was that. Don’t make that mistake. I’d advise lining up permission before you start editing; if you edit to the music and then don’t get permission you’ll have to start editing that sequence from the beginning. Bottom line: use music wisely and legally.

Non-Linear Editing

FCE is not only a non-destructive editing program, it’s also non-linear. What that means is that you don’t have to start editing at the beginning and edit straight through to the end. You can insert clips, you can add to the beginning, you can basically edit in whatever order you want. You’ll certainly want to start editing with footage from the beginning of your hike, but if you have a structure in mind (as mentioned here in the first editing post), your footage is properly organized, and you understand where you want the story to go, you can edit out of sequence. But why would you want to do that? Well, I’ve found that when I’m in the last couple of weeks of a long distance hike, I start to lose steam. By the time I finish I am very much ready to be done. And I find the same holds true for editing. It took months to put my film together, hundreds of hours of sitting in front of a computer. But the film finishes strong, in part because it wasn’t the last part edited. I had broken the film down into sequences that matched the segments I had chosen when working on the structure of the film. So on a given day I might work on the rough cut of the Northern California sequence, the fine cut of the Oregon sequence, and the sound editing of Washington. By working in this manner I never got bogged down and I never got bored, but by the end I was (as when hiking) ready to be done. I made a couple of errors in that last bit of work -- sound editing the Sierra Sequence. But overall I think that the editing of the film has an even quality throughout, in part because I mixed it up.

Squatch’s Rule

Scott Herriott once gave me this piece of advice: “you’ll be watching the same clips dozens of times. If a clip still makes you laugh the fifteenth time you watch it, it’s funny. If it doesn’t have that kind of staying power, you may want to ditch it.” He was talking about humor, but I think the same holds true for any kind of emotion you’re trying to evoke. You’re going to end up being ridiculously familiar with the material you’re editing. If a clip still makes you happy or sad, if a beautiful shot still makes you marvel, if you still laugh after seeing a clip more than a dozen times, well, all of those clips are keepers. If not, maybe they shouldn’t make the cut.

And Yet, Familiar Can Be Bad -- But There’s a Solution

As mentioned, you’ll end up ridiculously familiar with the material, to the point that you may not be the best judge of whether or not what you’ve edited makes sense. It won’t matter if the sound editing is off, because you know exactly what’s been said. You’ve pretty much memorized it. There may be sequences and stories that make perfect sense to you, because a)you’re a hiker, b)you were there, and c)you’ve watched it so many times you dream about it. But it’s entirely possible that, like me, you’ve misjudged some of what you’ve done, and like me, you don’t work well without feedback. The solution for me was a pre-screening before I locked up the edit. Here’s what I did: I invited a group of my friends to screen the film. Each person was chosen for a particular reason (artist, graphic designer, movie buff, musician, etc.), and all were asked to take some notes and give me some feedback.

As a result of my pre-screening I made about seven or eight changes to the movie, most of which were minor tweaks (add a title, adjust the sound). But each of those changes made the movie better. And I sent the film off for replication confident that I had made a good documentary. Note: this sort of thing will only work if you have friends who will be honest with you. My friends are brutal. Which is nice.

Making a documentary about a long distance hike can be a difficult, arduous project, and making a good one can be as tough as the hike itself. Hopefully these posts contain some useful insight that will help a future trail filmmaker. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at PCTWizard@gmail.com

Shooting On Trail: Editing (Part 1)

2011-03-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

I’ve decided to post two articles on editing, mainly because the whole thing is getting too long. Which you will discover to be pretty ironic, considering the subject matter. But the first part has what I consider to be some very important stuff on editing mindset, and I think it stands best on its own. Here we go . . .

So you’ve completed your hike and now you’re home with hours and hours of video. What do you do next? If you’re going to edit a feature length documentary, the first thing you need to do is become a completely different person. To explain what I mean by that: while you were on the trail, you were doing two distinct things that sort of meshed together. You were a hiker and you were a shooter. Neither of these people will be good at editing a film. The hiker is so invested in the hike that he thinks everything is important. He has no ability to see that things that are important to him (and to people with whom he hiked) aren’t necessarily important to others. The shooter is too invested in the footage. There were many times while he was shooting that he said to himself, “yeah, this is awesome. This is definitely going to make it into the final film.” He wants all of that footage in there, regardless of whether or not it serves the story.

If you continue to be either of those guys, you’re going to end up with a five hour movie that even you don’t want to watch more than once.

So it’s time for you to become a third person: the editor. The editor crafts a story out of all of that raw footage. He works alone, without the input of those other two people. And he is ruthless. I’ll say that again, with emphasis: he is completely without ruth.

I had a discussion with a musician friend of mine, and he described the process of choosing (or rather not choosing) songs for a CD in a way that really stuck with me -- he said that it felt like killing his children. A gruesome image, but he’s never had any children, so what does he know? At least I don’t think he’s had any. Maybe this image is even creepier than I first imagined. Best not to think about that and just say instead that editing a film can be the same. You’ve created something -- filmed a shot -- and you’re going to reject it. And you’re going to do that hundreds of times before you’re done.

Practically speaking, how do you do that? I think the editor needs to commit to a time structure and have a feel for pacing.

Committing to a Structure

Before they get on their first long distance trail, many people ask what size pack they need. And many people say that you should assemble all of your other gear first, and then buy a pack that all of that stuff will fit into. But I believe the opposite. I think you should buy a pack that is not expedition sized, maybe something in the 50 to 65 Liter range, and then take what fits in that. Why? Because it forces you to make decisions about what’s important and what’s not. The same holds true for a documentary, but in this case the constraint isn’t size but rather time. The time constraint is completely artificial, and as with any plan you probably won’t stick to it. But it will force you to make decisions (which is good), and it will also force you to get organized about the film’s structure. To get an idea of what I mean:

I decided (arbitrarily) that I wanted “Wizards of the PCT” to be 90 minutes long. But how to make sure I ended up with that time? I decided to break it down into smaller segments. Here’s what my first breakdown looked like:

Credits/Opening/ADZPCTKO: 5 min.

SoCal (Desert): 20 min.

Sierra: 15 min.

NoCal: 15 min.

Oregon: 15 min.

Washington: 15 min.

Closing Credits: 5 min.

In reality, the film ended up being 8 minutes longer than my goal. The opening ended up shorter, because I eliminated a bunch of pre-hike footage. And the desert section ended up longer, because I needed more time to really introduce the characters. The other sections were slightly off as well for various reasons. But by setting target times at the beginning, I at least had something to aim for. The organization of your time structure doesn’t have to be regional; it just seemed the simplest way for me to do it. You do need something, though, or you'll end up with the film equivalent of a 90 Liter pack -- and nobody wants to carry that.

Pacing!

Here I’m not really thinking of pacing the way screenwriters think of it, but it is related. How you edit (length of clips, types of transitions) will give the movie a speed and momentum that will in some ways define it. This is difficult to write about, because it has to do with the way a film feels. You will get a sense of the pacing of your film as you go, and every once in a while you will have a completed sequence in place and it won’t feel right. Maybe it can go elsewhere in the film. But sometimes you have to get rid of it entirely not because it isn’t a good sequence, but because it just doesn’t fit.

When putting together my film, I wanted the pacing to mirror how I felt on the trail. I’ve received enough feedback from people who say it “feels exactly like a thru-hike” to think I was successful. And the way I did that was by having an overall plan to have the pacing be quite fast, but to shift gears and slow down occasionally -- particularly in the segments that happen in towns. Even when I was taking my time and enjoying myself on the PCT, I always felt a drumbeat in the back of my mind -- a pressure to move forward, to never loiter too long. So while I might put the brakes on, editing-wise, in a segment in Oregon (with longer shots that linger on the scenery, and slower music), I emphasized the drive forward by ending each section of the film with a music video-like segment cut to faster music. In these segments I alternated shots of the hikers moving forward with shots taken from earlier in the trail. In terms of trail, I cover hundreds of miles in these short segments. And in terms of pacing, I speed up the film.

To give you an example of cutting shots or sequences that don’t feel right:

While we were in the Sierra, four of us decided to do all of the PCT and all of the John Muir Trail. There are three sections of trail where they don’t coincide, and we came up with a somewhat elaborate plan to do all of the miles. I shot quite a bit of footage of us doing this, and even separately shot all four of us narrating how we were doing it -- planning on cutting between all four to tell the story. The segment included some great shots, including our hike down into Yosemite Valley.

But while editing, I realized that I was grinding the overall story to a halt. This smaller story was consuming too much of the movie -- it would take five minutes of the total to explain what we were doing in a three day span. Five minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but it really was. The narration shots were very long and complicated, even cutting between the four of us. The scenery shots, to be effective, were lingering. In the end, I had to be an editor and realize that what I was trying to do didn’t serve the movie. The hiker in me loved what we had done, the shooter thought the footage (and time spent shooting it) merited inclusion, but the editor knew it didn’t work. And when you watch the final product, you would never know that we hiked the JMT miles.

Editing is about making those kinds of decisions. It’s very, very difficult. I think that people who can’t detach emotionally from their footage should let someone else edit the film. But the best option is to get tough, be ruthless, have a plan, and start killing your children (in, um, you know, a metaphorical sense).

Shooting On Trail: Filming Tips

2011-02-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

We live in a time when cameras are cheap and shooting video is something many, many people can do. But just because they can film doesn’t mean that they can do it well. I can fling a bowling ball down a lane. And if the gutters are blocked by bumpers, the ball might end up hitting some pins. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be joining the PBA Tour any time soon.

Most of the people who are shooting video on the trail don’t have any training in filmmaking. In this post I’m going to give some tips on shooting that can make it easier to put together a great film. Unfortunately, this means that you have to actually think about what you’re shooting and how you’re shooting it. And you should start thinking before the hike.

Prior to getting on the trail, think about thematic shots you might want to do throughout the hike. These might be shots you incorporate into your film, or they might be shots you use in a short, but what I’m trying to describe are shots you have to get starting from the beginning. For example, I have an extra on my DVD of point of view hiking shots from many different points along the trail. Coming up with that idea halfway through the hike wouldn’t have done me any good. One of my favorite examples of this sort of thing is a video of still shots of a hiker’s face, seen here. Obviously, you have to know that you’re going to do something like that from the beginning. So give it some thought.

Before you get on the trail it would also be helpful to learn a little about composition. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube; Videomaker has a channel with a number of them. Probably the most simple yet important rule in composition is called the Rule of Thirds. But there are others, and when you’re filming you really should be trying to compose shots rather than just shooting randomly (it’s perfectly okay to break the rules -- but it’s a good idea to know the rules you’re breaking). You may also decide beforehand that you want to use transitions motivated by camera movement or elements in your shots. In Daniel Peddle’s movie Trail Angels, he uses switch pans to transition. Knowing how you might use transitions in editing will help you know how you want to shoot. Here are some examples of these kinds of "natural transitions."

Also, although it’s unlikely that you’ll be shooting with more than one camera, I do know of hiking partners who were making a film together and each carrying a camera. In the unlikely event that you find yourself in this situation, you need to know about the 180° Rule.

One final pre-production thought: think about how you’re going to impart practical information to the viewer. Because I’m not a big fan of the post-production voice-over, I prefer to have people on screen talk about where they are and what they’re doing. I then use their voices rather than a disembodied voice the audience has no connection to, and use cutaways and titles to fill in any gaps. Give this some thought before you hike. You can always decide to use a voice over later, but at least you’ll have options.

Now that I’ve bored you with all of that pre-hike thinking, here are my thoughts on actual filming.

Clean your lens! Seriously, clean your lens. Constantly. Before every shot if you can. This is such a simple thing, and forgetting to do so can lead to incredible frustration later. If you shoot with the sun at your back, dust on the lens will be less noticeable -- but it’s still going to be there. I had a shot that I really liked, which you can see here at 1:07, but I didn’t clean the lens and shot into the sun, and it was unusable. Drat.

Camera Angles Shooting everything from eye level is easy, mindless, and boring. Sometimes it’s the right shot, and sometimes although it’s not the right shot it’s the mental default when you have to start shooting fast. That’s fine, but mix it up a little. Here’s a partial list of the kinds of shots I employed: holding camera at eye level; OR camera pressed against my chest or waist (this is an excellent way to steady the camera); OR camera at ground level (pointing straight or up angled); OR camera above the trail angled down; OR camera pointing behind me as I hiked; OR camera in my mouth (actually gripping the battery with my teeth); OR pointing straight up; OR attached to a hiking pole (using a StickPik); OR pointing straight down; OR various heights on a tripod, on my pack, on a signpost. In addition to all of that, twenty different people operated my camera. Don’t think that you have to be the only person shooting, but do remember to give credit if someone else helps on the production side.

One more point about angles: reality television has made one shot very, very popular. It’s the shot where the filmmaker holds the camera at arm’s length and shoots him or herself talking. And while this is a quick way to get some exposition in, it’s a terrible shot visually that I try to avoid. This shot does appear in my movie, sparingly, and usually when I was alone and on the move. I tried to minimize the number of times I used it when I was editing, because it really is boringly cliche and overused -- constant shots of your gigantic head filling the frame, with nothing else really visible, and nothing different from the last dozen times you used it (except perhaps a slight difference in beard length). I suppose that’s fine if you’re just putting together a video diary for friends to watch, but if you’re putting together something more than that, set up the camera and do a nice Mid Shot, Medium Close Up, or even a Wide Shot if your microphone can get you from that distance. Mix it up.

Subjectively Boring Subject Matter This falls into the category of what exactly you should be shooting. Once upon a time, when film was on film, I used to say that a shooter should get as much shot coverage as they could afford, and shoot as much as possible, because nobody ever sat in an editing suite and complained about having too many options. It’s always the shots you didn’t get that nag at you. In the digital age, though, you do have the possibility of being swamped with hundreds of hours of clips from which to choose. So don’t overdo it. That said, there are things that are relatively unique to being on trails that you might find boring because you do them every day. And yet non-hikers, who don’t have your experience, might find such things fascinating. So while you’re waiting to film that bear encounter that never happens, think about shooting hikers using alcohol stoves. The sight of someone cooking with gas-line antifreeze isn’t an everyday thing for most people. Shoot someone bearbagging. Setting up a tent. Filtering water. The mundane in your world is unusual for others; it gives people a glimpse into how you do the things you do.

And despite what I said about not overdoing it: if there’s any question, shoot it.

Multiple Takes A friend of mine recently lamented that he gets nervous when talking on camera. I told him that multiple takes might be the solution -- you’ll eventually get it right, and knowing you can do another take might relieve some of the pressure for the first one. There is nothing inherently dishonest about doing more than one take. When you’re filming, you’re going to get naturally funny or beautiful or interesting shots, and you’re going to be thrilled when you do. But people who think that a documentary is “fake” if you set up well composed shots or do an additional take of yourself explaining something are missing the point of making a documentary film. Documentaries aren’t unedited reality, and they wouldn’t be interesting if they were. A documentary tells a story, a story crafted by the filmmaker, and even the decision to NOT film something is technically an altering of “reality.” Documentarians shouldn’t set up or fake events in order to capture them on film. But I did do multiple takes of me talking; I also did multiple takes of scenic shots (say, a static shot, then a pan, then a zoom) to get coverage and give me more options when editing.

B-Roll Film is a visual media. Showing something is better than telling about it. So there might be a great story about an event that you weren’t able to shoot, and interviewing a participant is a great idea -- but it’s not ideal. And when you have someone doing a little onscreen narration, it’s a good idea to employ cutaway shots showing what the person is talking about. In the case of an event you weren’t there for, maybe the person has some still shots they’ll let you use. But it’s also a good idea to constantly be shooting B-Roll. For example, having a shot of the exterior of a hostel will give you a good establishing shot when editing, or a nice cutaway if someone later tells a story about the hostel. Shoot buildings, signs, shelters, mountains, trailheads, all kinds of things. You never know when a B-Roll shot will come in handy.

A quick word about the idea of showing rather than telling. In the desert section of my film, I use a fair number of shots of blistered, banged up feet. Some viewers mention this as a complaint about the film, and strangely, it’s usually hikers who do the complaining. Here’s my thinking behind those shots: I wanted to show that although the thru-hikers in the film have a great time, that they are doing something amazing and fulfilling, there’s a cost to be paid. Hiking can be painful, and it takes mental and physical fortitude to be a thru-hiker. I could interview hikers and have them detail their on-trail maladies. Or I could show two seconds of a shot of a blistered foot, and get the point across more effectively. Showing is better than telling, and usually takes less time.

Cooperation I mentioned in my first “Shooting On Trail” post the fact that shooting by its nature is intrusive, and affects the hikes of others. In today’s world people seem to be used to the idea of being on camera, but try as much as possible to avoid making everyone’s hike about your film. If you’re as unobtrusive as possible, you’re more likely to get cooperation from the hikers around you. For anyone who questioned being on film, I told them that I would not make them look bad, I would not show anything that would get them in trouble, and I would make a film they would be proud to show their friends and relatives. And I stuck by that promise. Having someone give consent to be filmed on camera is great, getting signed releases is better, but in my opinion nothing beats being honest with the people who end up in your film.

Shooting On Trail: Gear

2011-02-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

Gear

I’m not a gear junkie when it comes to hiking. Often, when people find out that I’ve worked at an outfitters, they want to really get into discussing it. And hikers on trail do tend to talk about gear from time to time, but it tends to be hikers who aren’t on trail who really want to argue about it. My friend Mags likes to point out that there is no perfect gear and that different gear choices can work well for different people, and that different environments lend themselves to different gear choices. What works for you doesn’t work for everyone, and what works for you on one hike might not be the best choice for another trail.

That said, in this entry I’m going to outline the camera gear I used on trail, and in another post the editing equipment I used at home. But what you should take away from these posts isn’t the gear itself. Cameras and computers get outdated pretty quickly today, and I’m not even sure if the camera I used is still in production (just checked -- it’s not). I’m going to say what I carried, but more importantly I’m going to tell you why. Hopefully after you read this you’ll have a better idea of the questions you should be asking, and what you should be looking for in your equipment. And then, taking into consideration what you’re producing, you’ll have a good idea of what you want to carry and why you want to carry it.

On Trail Camera Equipment

Here’s the complete list of equipment I carried that had to do with filming. Had I not been making a film, I still would have carried the still camera stuff; I include it here because it was used during production.

-- Sony DCR-HC38 Handycam Camera (media: miniDV tapes)

-- 1 Hour Battery (came with camera)

-- 10 Hour Battery (heavy and expensive)

-- Sony Travel Charger

-- Slik Sprint Tripod (63.1”, 30.3 oz.)

-- Lens cleaning cloth

-- 3-4 MiniDV Tapes (at any given time)

-- Olympus SW850 Digital Camera

-- Spare battery for camera

-- Charger for camera

-- two 2G memory cards

-- StickPic

-- Mountain Hardwear Fanny Pack

-- Mountainsmith Cyber II Camera Case

Why I chose that camera: First, I liked the idea of removable media. If I dropped my camera off a cliff, the maximum footage lost was one hour, not 12 hours of shooting. Second, it had 40X optical zoom. Pay no attention to digital zoom specs. They mean nothing because you’d be a fool to use it. Most of the other features I liked about it are standard on most cameras. But I will say that it shot great video, and survived being dropped a number of times. Because I’m a klutz. I chose a standard camera rather than an HD camera, but since most people are moving in the direction of HD, I’ll mention one or two things about HD cameras. First, you most likely won’t find one with that kind of zoom. Current HD cameras will pixilate above about 20X. Second, I’d still recommend something that has removable media. Squatch shot the Sidetrails Series films on a Canon Vixia HF20. It’s a Flash Memory camera with a 32GB internal memory AND a slot for an SDHC Card. Best of both worlds.

Why I carried two batteries: In addition to the battery that came with the camera, I carried a big horkin’ 10 hour battery that cost and weighed almost as much as the camera itself. I mainly used the small battery in town while I was recharging the large one. Although I don’t think I ever shot 10 hours of video between towns (in fact I know I didn’t -- I never carried that many tapes), that was the point. I never wanted to not shoot for fear of not having battery power later for another, better shot. I didn’t want to have to think about it. And with a 10 hour battery, I never did. The travel charger was small and light, which was pretty much my only concern with that. I carried the charger rather than bouncing it by mail, because I had a pathological fear of losing it.

A full-size tripod?!? Are you serious? Yep. To be perfectly honest, this is the heaviest thing that you could get away with ditching, and in fact it broke about halfway through my hike. On the other hand, there are a couple of shots in the movie that would have been difficult if not impossible without it. There’s a shot of a forest fire at night taken from a high ridgeline 40 miles away. There’s another from the top of Mount Whitney of a group of hikers (including me) watching the sunrise. Sometimes you want to use that full zoom, or you want to be in the shot, and there is absolutely no available flat surface for stabilization. You can get away with not carrying one. You really can. But you might miss a good shot or two.

Lens Cleaning Cloth: It’s a small item and easy to forget. But you will use it constantly. If you’re smart. Or, alternately, you’ll think you’ve shot some really amazing stuff, and when you get home and watch it on a full screen you’ll curse. A lot.

Olympus SW850 Digital Camera: It’s been my experience that even video cameras that can take still shots don’t do a very good job of it. I recommend looking for a still camera like this one -- the kind that’s waterproof, shockproof, and freeze proof (as an added protective feature, I got an orange one to make it harder for me to lose). There are a number of them on the market now, and it’s nice to have a piece of electronics that you don’t have to store inside a ziplock inside another ziplock. And because most still cameras have the ability to shoot video now (although as with video cameras taking still shots, they’re best at their primary function), if the weather is sloppy you can pack the video camera away and still get footage. The one down side to most of these cameras is the limited zoom. If you can find one with 5X, you’re doing well (mine had 3X, which was its only downside).

Camera Charger: So you’ll notice that I was carrying two different chargers. Many hikers like to try to arrange things so that all of their equipment requiring batteries use the same kind, so that they don’t have to carry multiple chargers. While that’s a nice idea, it means that one of the major factors in your decisions has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the devices. Other people won’t buy cameras with proprietary rechargeable batteries, choosing instead the convenient and light but environmentally questionable choice of a camera that takes AA batteries. I say “environmentally questionable” because you know if you make this choice that you’re not going to carry rechargeable AA batteries -- not carrying a charger is the whole point. And as a hiker, shouldn’t you be willing to hump those extra four ounces if it’s a more environmentally friendly choice? I think so. If the weight of the chargers concerns you, you could always send them up the trail in a bounce box.

Stickpic: A Stickpic is a neat little device if you’re a hiker who uses trekking poles. It solves the problem of being alone on the trail and wanting a picture that has more than just your enormous head in it. You screw your camera onto the Stickpic and then put the Stickpic over the point of a trekking pole and hold it out in front of you. And presto! You’ve got some background in your shot. I also shot some video with the Stickpic (three shots made it into "Wizards of the PCT," including the CA-OR border crossing), but be warned -- a top heavy video camera will at some point spin around and fall off the trekking pole if you don’t use a lanyard of some type. I find the Stickpic to be an elegant, light, simple, and cheap solution to a problem that every hiker taking photos will have sooner or later.

Fanny Pack and Camera Case: Before I got on the trail I designed what I thought was a really good case for my video camera. Almost every camera bag I saw was black and non-insulated, which seemed bad for desert hiking. The bag I made was actually a converted insulated lunch bag with some straps & clips I cannibalized from an old pack. The added straps & clips attached securely to my backpack. The problem? It attached to the back of the pack. I quickly realized that I wasn’t shooting as much footage as I wanted to shoot, because I had to remove my pack every time I wanted to film. So while the camera case I built was cool (and I was stubborn about getting rid of it), I ditched it in Wrightwood, CA for a Granite Gear fanny pack. I ended up with my video camera at my waist and my still camera on my shoulder strap, which was perfect. There are many camera waist packs on the market, and some of them even have their own rain covers. The important thing, regardless of what you end up choosing, is that your camera needs to be accessible.

So that’s the gear I carried, but I'd like to make one final observation . . .

Regarding Weight:

I'm probably the last hiker in the world who should be giving advice of weight. My pack is heavy. But here's how I feel about weight in terms of camera equipment. I think weight as a factor should be in inverse proportion to how important filming is to you. The more important shooting is, the less important weight should be. Going back to my first post on filming, if you're just looking to post some cool YouTube videos, then yeah, get something really light. If a feature length documentary is your goal, you certainly want to look for light gear (don't carry an 8 pound camera), but don't make it your primary deciding factor. Only take weight into account as the deciding factor between two pieces of equally good gear. That's it.

In the next post, I’ll go into some tips for shooting while on trail, and later I’ll get into the whole postproduction/editing thing.

Shooting On Trail: Think About It

2011-02-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

Since the release of my documentary “Wizards of the PCT,” I’ve had a number of people write to me requesting information and suggestions regarding filming on-trail while on a long distance hike. I thought I’d put together my thoughts here. I’m going to go into some technical points regarding filming and editing in another essay, but I’d like to start with something more philosophical .

When planning to film while hiking, you should seriously consider a few questions. What, exactly, are you trying to produce? How will filming affect your hike? And where does filming fit in your priorities?

So, what are you trying to produce, anyway? Are you planning on posting some YouTube videos? Are you putting together a fun movie to show the folks back home? Are you hoping to commercially release a documentary, or enter it in film festivals? Each of these requires a different level of commitment, and will affect your hike differently. If you’re just planning on throwing some clips online or showing friends some unusual home movies, your commitment in time, energy, and money will be low, and you will probably be pretty happy with whatever you end up with.

But if you’re actually trying to put together a good documentary, you need to recognize that it’s a job. Do you really want a job while you’re out hiking? Isn’t a job one of the things you’re getting away from? Maybe not. But filming (and thinking about what you’re going to film) takes up a fair amount of time and energy. If you’ve never hiked a long distance trail before, the added burden may not be what you want (and I’m not talking about the weight of equipment).

Because filming in anything other than a casual manner WILL affect your hike. Part of this will come from the fact that you will, from time to time, be removing yourself (at least mentally) as an active participant in what you’re doing, and taking on the role of observer. Hiking, to many people, is about living in the moment. If you’re filming, you’re not always doing that. You’re always planning the next shot, you’re always doing some amount of scouting, you’re often thinking about how what you are shooting will, months from now, fit into the overall scheme of things during editing.

The filming itself will be a possibly unnecessary drain on your energy and emotion. You need as much of both as possible just to complete a long distance hike. You might think that you can do two difficult projects at once, only to discover that trying to do both makes neither of them enjoyable or attainable.

In addition, filming will affect the hikes of those around you, which may not be fair. Unless you plan to be the only hiker in every shot (which would involve a fair amount of narcissism), you’ll be filming other hikers. While making “Wizards of the PCT,” I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a group of hikers who bought into the project and actively helped in its production. I only had two hikers during the entire trip who refused to be on film, and even though they ended up in some shots that were spectacular, they’re on the cutting room floor. Except for those two, the other hikers around me trusted me; they felt free to act perfectly natural on film (sometimes too natural), and I ended up with great footage. You’ll have to be very, very lucky to have as much cooperation as I had. Your project may fall apart entirely if you don’t have it.

So let’s say that, for whatever reason, the project does fall apart. Will you keep hiking? That’s a question best answered by thinking about your priorities. Are you hiking to make a film? Or are you filming your hike? Personally, making a film isn’t a good enough reason to spend months on a long distance hike. I’m hiking. And I’m filming it.

Because I walk into it with that attitude, the hike is not just a means to an end. It seems that more and more often I see people who have never completed a long distance hike creating a website, promoting what they are planning, soliciting sponsorships and donations, and generally making a big deal about what they think they’re going to do, with no idea of whether they’re capable of doing what they’re planning. The hike itself, what should be the most important thing, gets lost in the shuffle.

Before I filmed “Wizards of the PCT,” I had completed a long distance hike. And I had earned a degree in film production. And even then, I hedged my bets. I came up with a threshold that would help me decide whether or not I would, after the hike, attempt to make a feature length documentary. For me, the threshold was 25 hours of footage. I ended up with 40. But I made no promises or claims to anyone regarding the film, only a promise to myself to do my best to complete the hike and have a great time doing it. And even then, filming was a job -- but it was a job I enjoyed, because I placed no pressure on myself.

Now, I’m not saying that previous long distance hiking experience is a requirement for producing a trail documentary. But it helps. And I’m not saying that you need a film degree to create something interesting -- plenty of people have done it. But for every novice hiker/filmmaker who turns out something you’d enjoy watching, there are a pantload who have turned out three hour long films that even they don’t want to watch more than once. And there are even more who plan on making a movie and tell everyone they’re going to do it who either don’t finish their hike or don’t finish their film. Or both.

So give it some thought.

Next up:

Gear