I’ve been horrible, saying I’m going to write and then rarely following through. And it’s not for lack of noteworthy developments; this was an unbelievably unpredictable and diverse 2011, with certain promise of continuation in 2012.

Upon returning to Indiana this holiday season, to a world so different from my working one, I managed to find only one word that adequately describes my baffled reflection on the year’s events: weird. How did I experience the myriad twists, obstacles, and accomplishments that plopped me into the role I’m in now? Did that all really just happen? And I didn’t even really get to tell you about it…

2011 was a weird year, and I don’t consider that word to be derogatory – for the most part. Here, Internet, let me fill you in on the tidbits worth noting.

JANUARY

Throughout childhood, New Year’s Eve was always an event I celebrated with gusto. Though I acknowledge it’s overrated nature today, it still feels like a beautiful night where the mind receives a flushing and a chance to redirect its thoughts at something more meaningful. Landmarks in time are meant to be celebrated, for they represent the act of highlighting the realities of our present.

Balls dropping, confetti clotting up my local sewage system, fireworks speckling the famous skyline – regardless of my surrounding atmosphere, I celebrated this widely observed holiday by sitting in my first apartment in my first real residence post-graduation, writing the previous observation and feeling pretty content to be warm, well-fed, and with a clean bathroom nearby. I braced for a big year in a conservative manner, apparently feeling the necessity for taking it easy when I could. It was on track to escalate quickly.

FEBRUARY

For months, I read books, studied Creole flashcards, and followed the news to develop an informed awareness of Haiti, my February destination for documentary work for The Haiti Project. Prior, the country seemed an inaccessible shell of a nation in my mind’s eye, an unfair judgement based on insufficient exposure. It also seemed a destination only frequented by journalists, politicians, and celebrities seeking humanitarian glory.

After landing in Port-au-Prince, my silver dollar eyes focused behind a camera lens at both the headline-worthy and unexpectedly average. First conversations with this traveling crew – an investment banker, a doctor, and a politician – made my research immediately relevant. Smells, rocky rides, colors, and penetrating glances brought me back to Africa. The downtown area was the front page of the New York Times, the residential acres overlooking the city representing a side of Haiti I hadn’t at all conceptualized – the affluent one. The stark contrast of my documentary subjects and nightly accommodations made for a racing brain, one that saw the nation as a whole – its past and present, the potential for its future.

Haiti is small, mountainous, and in possession of more culture than many countries exponentially larger. In pursuit of stories from Project Medishare, Hollywood Unites for Haiti, Edeyo, and the Cine Institute, we traversed the capital, the central plateau, and the coastal region of the south, also managing to witness a long-awaited Kanaval, fueled by pent-up emotion and necessary release from the earthquake thirteen months prior. Intensity, aggression, jubilation, and passion were on display from a hopeful and resilient crowd. Deep layers of humanity exposed put me in awe.

MARCH

With the flavors of fried platanos and unmatched rice and beans still making my own cooking taste vastly inadequate, I stewed in New York City, contemplating Haiti and all that occurred on the whirlwind trip, including the unplanned encounter with then-candidate and current president of Haiti, Michel Martelly. As if that experience wasn’t shocking enough, the dude started following me on Twitter a few days later. Still follows today. Is he messing with me?

APRIL

Qatar Airways plopped me at the Bangkok airport for production in Thailand, a project I witnessed from its conception. I found myself a girl in possession of $5 pants staying at the Shangri-La Hotel (or similar accommodations), where laundry services are clearly in proportion to my wardrobe value. The mission: to distill a country down to its identifying culture for use as academic resources in global education worldwide. My additional mission: to engage in a place I’ve pined to have an extended visit, absorbing all things food, massage, language, and culture-related.

Swirling a camera around a Muay Thai fighter, photographing behind the scenes of a Nang Yai shadow puppet performance, devouring multi-course tasting menus – I was fortunate to enter and exit Thailand with enough absorbed information as to get the country’s cultural and historical significance on the world’s stage. Getting cracked in half with Thai massages, mowing $1 pad thai from popular street vendors, meeting local restauranteurs down the beach from our hotel, hearing the story of a tsunami wrecking her family – I let myself be melted and molded by surrounding experiences in a more personal fashion.

Though Thailand is close to the counterpoint of Indiana, I found myself in close proximity of a fellow Wabashian also in the country for production. Cassie was in Phuket while I was in Bangkok, in Chiang Mai while I sat on a beach near Phuket, flying elsewhere while I was coincidentally getting trucked around by her former driver in Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, I couldn’t meet up with her to chat on our polar opposing experiences in production (mine being a team of five, hers well over 100 for a hit ABC show) or reminisce about our childhood home. I’m happy we grew aware of the others coordinates and subsequently recognized the shared tendency to combine travel and film.

Post-Thailand was a much-needed personal trip to Vietnam and Laos. Joined by co-worker and friend Vijaya, we floated in the mist of Ha Long Bay, found an incredibly authentic bun thit nuong in a no-sign establishment, drank the blackest and most flavorful coffee from a makeshift street diner, and were surprised by the serenity of a Laotian night market. The trip was gritty. It was active. There were terrifying moments punctuated by relief and laughter. It was a trip that reminded me of RTW joy, though that desire for long-term travel has somewhat left my being, making space for the unexplainable urge to nest.

MAY

I returned to a mild New York City and emerged in the marketplace as a freelancer of all things content. I did things I never thought I’d get the opportunity to do. I unknowingly pitched an art magazine, exhibiting my photographic portfolio and leaving with affirmation that had me bouncing through Chelsea. I began writing features for Matador, for the first time really sensing journalistic accomplishment. I also did the unthinkable and flew my cat from Indianapolis to New York City. She hyperventilated to the point of drooling a fu manchu.

And things just kept happening. It was unsolicited confirmation that without direction to do work, I still do work – feverishly – so much so that I neglect my own writing and fulfillment projects. Within two weeks of this mad hustle, I obtained a job interview with a concept previously unfathomable to me: a traveling high school. It felt like travel, education, media, and youth combined to create my ideal activity. I had a long interview and a short lapse of time between the subsequent offer to visit the school in China.

And the cherry on top, my nephew was born.

JUNE

I flew to China, met this traveling high school, and my mind was blown. Previously conceived notions of education were combined in a bag, shaken not stirred, and tossed like Yahtzee! dice onto my table of consciousness.

JULY

The offer came on the table to be the media specialist for THINK Global School – a full-time content creator, manager, and occasional instructor. In the meantime, before I began this first foray into salaried employment, I wrote like a fiend, took my portrait photography to new depths, and took advantage of my location by traveling to Boston.

And within months of the big relocation, I was organizing my departure, sad to leave the city but following a job worth the sacrifice. The feline went back in flight, and a subletter was en route. I accepted my return to the nomadic lifestyle with hesitance but eventual enthusiasm.

AUGUST

Just as I had done in May of 2008, I filled bags with my worthwhile earthly belongings and began living out of a bag. I had a bed thanks to cat-sitting in Brooklyn and started performing my new job tasks from every Asian restaurant in its vicinity – trying to consume every food I would miss in Ecuador. In preparation for my work as a one-woman production house, I investigated the art of the film title and reflected on my trajectory sans film school experience.

With a flight to the southern hemisphere looming a week away, I frantically tackled the goal of seeing New England – one of the reasons I moved to New York initially. Inspired by my trip to Boston the month prior, I rented a car to explore the coastline. Driving directions sat in my passenger seat but were never really utilized. It was usually dark outside before I knew where I was stopping or staying, but even with this seat-of-my-pants itinerary, it was refreshing, calm, and perfectly timed to see friends en route. Van Morrison serenaded me through five states, and my camera operated for no one but myself. For the first real time in maybe years, I was documenting my own adventures just for me.

Hurricane Irene did cut my road trip a bit short, but because of this highly-publicized natural disaster, I ended up driving around Brooklyn and Queens (an experience I always considered to scary to attempt) and meeting a long-time internet friend, Sierra Anderson; thankfully before her TLC reality show aired and she became an unattainable, high-rollin’ television star.

SEPTEMBER

This is me leaving New York City to Ecuador. Coincidentally, every taxi I took from the moment I signed my contract was operated by a chatty Ecuadorian. From the moment I hailed this cab until December 7th, my life never paused. September was just easing me into a hectic schedule surrounded by international teens and ever-stacking responsibilities, which included:

• Visiting the Amazon rainforest as the first high school group at Tiputini Biodiversity Station
• Standing on an emergent atop the canopy, watching spider monkeys and killer ants
• Floating down a piraña/anaconda/caiman/electric eel/vampire fish-invested river in nothing but a life vest for two hours
• Spending my 26th birthday flying past three active volcanoes and taking six different types of transportation through the rainforest
• Straddling the Equator, both the tourist line and the GPS-specific line, watching water swirl in opposite ways on both sides of the line
• Taking over the creative arts teaching position for 26 students from 15 countries

Did you notice that last bullet point? Teaching. Not occasional instruction of the digital arts but all-out educating a classroom on the entire field of creative arts. Though had I gone for my Masters in Studio Art I would have taught more complex classes than this, I had to juggle my already-intensive job with learning how to manage a classroom of 26 international and inquisitive kids. I thought I was cognizant of the difficulty in a teacher’s job, but it became screamingly clear of why it’s full-time and worthy of at least four years of intensive study.

OCTOBER

Maybe six days after returning from the Amazon rainforest, I marked off a Bucket List item and flew to the Galapagos islands. My class field trips were to the zoo an hour away, but here I was filming and photography 26 kids who got to cash in on a lucky life experience at age 15.

For one week, we lived on San Cristobál island, housing classes in a local university directly opposite a white and blue beach. It was here that I stood in front of two grade levels, wrote my first non-hypothetical lesson plan, and used advanced technology to engage students on some artistic concepts. I had what the profession calls a ‘teaching moment’ within first three days.

Following what some would already consider an immersive and whole experience in the Galapagos, we got on a boat and went island hopping. I photographed from the top of a truck up an unpaved road, hiked the rim of the second largest crater in the world, and saw tortoises bigger than a mini fridge. By the end of this entirely satisfying journey, I was wiped out and in need of a break after 37 days on the job straight.

NOVEMBER

I began teaching a medium I never even studied in school but only self-taught and learned through experience. But, of all the courses I’ve taken in my life, this area is surprisingly the one I feel most confident and qualified speaking about. For three weeks, I taught cinematic storytelling and film production, a unit which concluded with a film festival of original work by the students. It was a reminder of much we can construct for ourselves instead of waiting for a structure to provide life experiences.

What seemed previously like an infinity pool of time to utilize soon became a countdown clock drawing all of us away from Ecuador. I had to squeeze in another unit on social commentary, grade an intimidating stack of written critiques, continue to film, photograph, and edit the content reflecting our experiences, and simultaneously have my ‘human being’ time where I enjoyed the temporary coordinates of my employment.

With time quickly unraveling, we hopped in an SUV with our eyes set on summiting a magnificent hill: Barabon. It was one of the few moments we stopped to travel and enjoy each other’s company in an environment of our own choosing. It was a refreshing morning.

Two terabytes of footage were beginning to burn a hole in my desk, impatiently awaiting their eventual coagulation into films for viewing. And so I grasped my week, squeezed it like a tube of paste for any excess time, and made an iMovie teaser for a trimester unseen.

DECEMBER

Starting from our 3-month home of Cuenca, Ecuador, we took a bus and an SUV through the foothills of the Andes en route to Chimborazo province. The kids hammered into concrete, dug the foundation for a school, and shivered happily in a highland community for three days on a volunteer trip. This was our final Ecuadorian experience, other than a farewell party that had many of us in tears by morning’s end. I was a mess, saying goodbye to a woman that shares many of my oddities and knowledge of northern Indiana ‘culture’: María del Mar, our host city specialist and Notre Dame graduate.

I’ve traveled alone for school, work, or play and returned home to the threat of reverse culture shock over ten times, and this one was (relatively) an absolute piece of cake. My longest duration in one place abroad; it didn’t affect me adversely. I had some domestic hiccups, and at times I was inexplicably anxious to do anything. In the first 24 hours, I snuggled with my niece and nephew, drank cold ones with my brother, and got used to English interactions with strangers and driving everywhere. It wasn’t until I visited my hometown that I realized the ride 2011 took me on.

Are you still working for that one company? Or is it now that other company? Where in the world are you these days? What do you do…I can’t even keep up!

I attended a family wedding with hundreds of people I grew up with and answered my work question differently every time. I’m finding it exceedingly difficult to explain myself as I continue this organically-paved career path, and the further I move away from a ‘travel phase’ to a lifestyle choice, the harder it is for me not to brush it off as a weird and fleeting situation, for the sake of being relatable.

This all is weird. These opportunities all happen before I’m ready, and they defy the limits of this supposedly impossible job market. I’ve been learning how to swim by getting tossed in the deep end, and thankfully (so far), I’ve managed to adapt my strokes to stay afloat and keep swimming upstream. The only way 2011 could have accomplished a more elevated status of weird – edging into surreal – would have been if National Geographic called to fulfill the quintessential travel documentarian’s dream. At least that would be a relatable job description that wouldn’t leave me hungering for the right words for my self-definition.

More weird on the radar?

Shortly after the stroke of 2012, I flew to Thailand, roughly my hometown’s counterpoint. This year is already bound to be off course from the expected and normal. I’ve got my floaties on in preparation.

With two terabytes of content to weed through, the process is slow and deliberate. As media specialist, I have to provide the window into life and academics at the world’s first and only global, mobile high school. What my viewfinder sees is what prospective students, teachers, and interested parties see. It’s challenging, but I can be creative, innovative, and create the kind of media that organically comes out of my system.

My hands have only process a small fraction of what my eye saw in Ecuador, this being my current photographic output.

There was rarely a time when I didn’t feel the necessity to document something; it all carried the weight of potentially useful in the eyes of a one-person production crew. My schedule seemed the product of an ADHD-ridden ninja. And on those rarest of occasions, I was able to venture around the corner of my hotel home to see angles of Cuenca myself.

Photography is relatively speedy to edit and publish, but video content takes exponential amounts of effort and time to produce. I won’t be able to fully illustrate the South American voyage with experiential video for months, but for the time being, this science class underwater is the sole window.

What is it you’re pining to see from Ecuador?

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail

What was meant to be a longer trek through areas of Maine and Vermont had to be cut short due to the panic surrounding Hurricane Irene. The trip had no conclusion in real time. It felt like a rush job of a trip, even more so the documentation of it, but what resulted is a video exalting the thing I studied most – the water that I feel sources so much of the grit and character of New Englanders.

I was surprisingly unfocused on my fleeting dollars being allocated to gas, the pile of money I dropped for the rental car, or my lack of accurate driving instructions or lodging reservations. The nausea I usually reserve for typical tourist activity – the expensive kind – took a vacation as well. Instead, I felt loosely propelled by the desire to consume miles of coastline and smell a breeze conceived hemispheres away.

Like gulping sweet water in the middle of the night, driving was refreshing after my nine month car-fast, a guilty binge on air, music, and speed with a known expiration. And with this limited excursion, I caught wind of what a conventional adult vacation smells like – not bad at all, in fact pleasantly normal, if infrequent and savored for its rarity.

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail

On top of air chaos, I often didn’t know where I was going to be living or how to coordinate the housing of my cat (while she was still being a vagabond in New York). Newly cat-free and with a new job supplying accommodations for nine months out of the year, I decided against having a place in New York City and got a subletter lined up immediately.

There was a lapse of time between leaving my apartment and the start of work accommodations, leaving me temporarily homeless and living out of bags – something I tend to enjoy. During one of those weeks, I decided to rent a car and witness a region I’ve barely visited: New England.

Until I can whip up a fantastic video, here is a photoblog courtesy of my Blackberry.

Driving out of Queens in my first rental car

Reaching Mystic, CT at dusk to witness fishermen and draw bridges

Beautiful blue light at dusk around the marina

Stalked by a skunk while exploring Mystic at night

The woodsy Harbour Inn & Cottage in Mystic, CT where I soaked in a hot tub by the marina

French toast with apple and cheddar at Kitchen Little in Mystic, CT

Too bad I skipped the eggs

Cape Cod’s Chatham coast where JAWS had some scenes filmed

First bowl of clam chowder in a fitting place – Cape Cod

Sunrise off Cape Ann, the filming location and real life setting for The Perfect Storm

Seasick while whale watching, but well worth it

Gloucester had that crusty charm I was hoping to find

Beautiful skies while driving toward Hurricane Irene and New York City

Await with bated breath the real deal documentation.

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail

In this evolving career of mine, I’ve taken many different tactics to attracting and pursuing jobs. I’ve ‘dressed for the job I wanted’ by creating the content I like to make, hoping those who need that work get wind of mine. Years of shooting resumes and cover letters into the online abyss that is an HR email account has never wielded the results most Baby Boomers seem to believe in adamantly. That act feels like tweeting to zero followers, “I’m awesome! You know you want this, and you CAN get this!”

But for me, nothing proves more fruitful than re-engaging in this multi-faceted industry. I like travel, media, the digital realm, education, art, and a unique combination of all. While my involuntary immersion practices don’t allow for fully connected ‘field’ time with my peers, it’s in those months between travels that I reemerge a human with new ideas and the ability to answer e-mails. And on this particular instance, I truly realized how few degrees are in between me and something I would love – the same goes for you, too, I’m sure.

We are always a few friends and clicks away from a fantastic gig, apartment, love interest, and/or Kevin Bacon.

Searching for the Next Travel Media Gig

Off of Thailand and onto the next endeavor, I was looking to tune my favored creative voices, namely writing, photography, and editing. I self-taught some cool effects, showed my portfolio to an art magazine, and wrapped my mind around different trajectories for my career. I e-mailed friends who run in these same circles, informing them that I was, more than ever, flypaper for new opportunities.

Though I guess this could be true for any office worker, my title from job to job can completely change, making it hard to search for listings that would appeal to me. And this time around, the search word that applied was ‘videographer’, even though that description is painfully simplistic for what the job entailed. I e-mailed a co-worker who, when she received notice of this position without an owner, thought of me; something that involved the documentation of students in a transformative, mind-expanding, globe-trotting program quite commonly referred to as a ‘school’.

Don’t chuck this immediate connection to a perfect work fit up to just luck or timing (generally you should avoid upchucking altogether). I believe there was a lot more at play here. Again, the lesson seems to be dress for the job you want, not the job listings you would settle for.

Why I went to China

Thus far, I’ve explained that I visited a school in China in June. Let me tell you about this ‘school’.

Name: THINK Global School
Description: a high school that reaches 12 countries in 12 trimesters
Company status: USA non-profit
‘Doors’ opened: September 2010
Grades: 9 & 10 for the 2011-2012 academic year, 4 levels in 2013
Class average: 15 students
Student demographic: curious and open-minded 14 & 15 year-old international students from all walks of life

I’m using ‘quotes’ on school and doors, because this is beyond most people’s concept of a school. This also isn’t a brick-and-mortar school, so the only doors these students see daily are those of whatever host city accommodations they occupy. Just knowing about this program and witnessing it for a short period of time, I’ve come to reconsider everything I’ve ever learned about formal education. That’s a powerful effect and something that frankly shocked me.

Every school year, these students from countries like Bhutan, Kurdistan, USA, and Aruba travel to three countries and base themselves in one city per trimester while engaging in the entire nation and its offerings. I got an invitation to China in order to document one of their cultural and historical trips, this one through the Yunnan province. They took part in traditional cooking, learned a disappearing language, danced with a Tibetan family, and conquered a 25 km hike through Tiger Leaping Gorge. I got the great privilege of filming and photographing all of these moments.

Linden Centre in Dali, China. Photography by Joann McPike. Edited by Lindsay Clark. © TGS-THINK Global School, 2011.

And from that two-week trip, I realized the school had an intense need for media beyond just documentation. The fact that not all students are native English speakers at this English instruction school makes media is an obvious solution to so many approaches in their avant-garde learning environment.

On August 1st, I became the Media Specialist for THINK Global School and will leave at the end of the month to live and travel throughout Ecuador for three months, after which we will migrate to Thailand and Germany. It will be more than documentation but engaging the students in their own creation of digital arts by teaching a class once a week. The school’s online property will be ever-bubbling with content from myself, the students, the faculty and staff, all covering the way the world is teaching us.

Here’s an excellent video on the school’s concept (not created by me…jealous!).

E-mails aligned, not stars

It pays to be open to any path, communicative with those you admire/relate to, and always display your integrity in work and life, so your network knows to think of you in the future. Trips happen fast. ‘Gigs’ fly in and out of reach based on the tiniest factors. Monster.com ads probably won’t result in your next unconventional job, but e-mailing those who do incredible things will bring you into their orbital ring of the incredible as well.

Especially in industries so small and interconnected, acting with integrity in what you do means everything for your future. I stand by every video I produce, every photograph I publish, the written prose I deliver to the populous digiverse; my most recent work always needing to be more inspired and evolved beyond its predecessors. Anyone can see my succession of digital work from past to present and know what steps I took to improve myself.

This time around, I get the great fortune of collaborating with not just the staff but the students from THINK Global School to create content that encapsulates their learning experience in ways I’ve never tried before. This will be my biggest challenge yet – and one I will further delve into with later postings.

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail

The opinions stated in this post are mine and do not reflect the positions, strategies, or opinions of THINK Global School.

I went to art school, a study I’m sure many people would claim needs no formality or implied success with a degree, so I expected a little retaliation by film schoolers. Surprisingly, none have surfaced yet. Just I wait.

Without belittling the certain perks of attending film school (or formally studying any specialty for that matter), I believe if you’re motivated, there’s a way to teach yourself enough to obtain a great job, gain work experience, and prosper with continued self-improvements. As many advocates for the self-taught film path cite, it’s likely your favorite filmmaker didn’t study his craft at school either.

The underlined actions to take away from the piece include:

Get schooled for free at your own pace – with Vimeo Video School and online tutorials by self-taught filmmakers such as Philip Bloom

Get fluent in the ever-changing tools – Zacuto instructional videos, NoFilmSchool.com cinematography guide, and getting creative with basic tools like iPhones

Position yourself for the current job market – learn how to be autonomous like Alexander Fox of CrewOfOne.com

Get constructive feedback on your work – connect with other filmmakers, hear online critiques, or pay someone to watch your work

Connect with people that help you grow – submit to festivals, post online, and network with access you already have

Clarify your thoughts on higher education – because it might not help you achieve your specific angle

With ample video embeds and links, this is a meaty post worth reading and commentating. And if you disagree, please do provide the insight I need in order to determine if film school is on my path.

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail

I spent the day researching ways to improve filmmaking skills that don’t include paying for or attending film school, a theme I’m covering for Matador. While doing so, I ran across this gem of a video, which attracted me with its RJD2 soundtrack alone. Also, I’d give ‘the art of…’ anything a chance (even that horrible Art of Travel movie).

Perusing the many videos highlighting brilliant title sequences in film and TV, I’m immediately jazzed about learning animation and advanced graphics. My previous practice with titles in online video is to produce the title within ten seconds of its start. Aside from some stylistic guidelines, that’s all the thought I’ve applied. With this study spanning decades of filmmaking, I’m inspired to pay closer attention to my video introductions, more than just watching the timeline and using a provided Motion template.

Perhaps the most intriguing comparison with past and present concepts is the affinity for an aged appearance. It’s comforting and pleasantly dusty, and it gives me more ideas for vintage effects. Do you have any favorite video motif that you rely on the title sequence delivering?

If you like or produce film, I encourage you to find some of your favorite movies and title sequences on Art of the Title and read the thoughtful copy and interviews below them. The post on the 2011 Emmy nods for best title is especially great.

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail

Here’s a vignette of my weekend with friends in Boston, Massachusetts.

I’m overly focused on the long-term trip, when really there are far more people (especially in America) poised and prepared to go somewhere for a couple days than there are people raring for an RTW. Are there any weekend trips you’ve always wanted to take but haven’t yet? Tell me about it, and then go book your Megabus ticket.

Video Editing Note: In this vignette, I wanted to play with the idea of aged, albeit timeless, summer footage, which matched perfectly with this Peanuts-reminiscent soundtrack by Jeris. Of course, I had to include the beautiful capacity of the DSLR video during most of the video clips. I also did a lot of research on how to create the 35mm slide projector look. If you’re pining for the HD version, head to Vimeo. Any tips or feedback?

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail

I’m reposting here some of my points, but be sure to check out the full post on MatadorTV and provide your own commentary.

Why time lapse for storytelling?

As a member of the MatadorTV triad, I appreciate the whole spectrum of travel video production, from the cinematic to the gritty. Video is an accessible vehicle for storytelling that can avoid the obstacles ever-present with language. And even though written word can facilitate a sensory experience, the combination of visual and audio elements is powerful on fleeting attention spans.

In browsing TV’s most popular posts to date, time lapse comes away a clear front-runner of stylistic and technical approaches, and these videos tend to follow a different editing pattern than most. Cuts are longer. Static shots are still dynamic. The resident audio is usually stripped from the footage and replaced by a soundtrack, and people still manage to follow a storyline and maintain focus on the evolving subject matter. Warped time appears to keep viewers engaged.

Shooting nature. Photo by Erika Luetzow, 2007

Believe it or not, I did some journalistic research for this feature. For real! Home girl went to Wiki!

Why time lapse the subject matter?

Among the most popular subjects for the time lapse technique is nature, as evident by Terje’s work. This isn’t a shocker considering time lapse was made most well-known by Dr. John Ott, a photographer who documented growing plants. From the first time I watched a bud morph into a full blossom and added my own soundtrack of “whoaaa,” it seemed clear we could forever capture these natural elements and continue to amaze virtually everyone.

Of course, simply pointing the camera and tripod at any old vista won’t make for a viral, compelling, and timeless video. Ross Ching, a filmmaker in Los Angeles, stipulates, “There needs to be originality. There needs to be pioneers. There needs to be something more than beautiful shots. There needs to be a human element. There needs to be a story.”

Though this one borders on just plain fast rather than time lapse, here’s my personal dabbling into the speedy film realm with my ‘Nomadderwhere’s 2010 in a Minute‘ video. My experimentations are more successful with work footage, which will soon be visible to the public.

Maybe our obsession comes from relating the natural world to our own human interaction with it at an altered speed, warping our day to day, minute to minute perceptions of being present and active with the surroundings.

On occasion, I feel the perspective time lapse affords me is akin to a mini-spiritual awakening, an out-of-body experience while armchair traveling…

Time lapse is one of the many vehicles through which filmmakers and storytellers have learned to transmit concepts from the world to the world effectively. And with the amount of attention we give these works today, it appears to be an approach that works.

Moving to New York and the east coast was a strategic escape from the Midwest region that I’ve already traversed and learned to appreciate. In this portion of the states, aside from the city whose Indian name is Big Apple (or more accurately, Manna-hata), I’ve only meandered through Rockport, Maine. And I’m not even sure a trip centered around a daunting photojournalism course counts for leisure.

I wanted to be surrounded by unknown territory and be inspired to constantly day trip or weekend elsewhere. There were music festivals to attend, mountains on which to frolic, friends and family to visit – an abundance of excuses.

Well, the inspiration and excuses weren’t strong enough for the first eight months, but the road called me this weekend. Yes, she dialed me up – on Skype – and said:

Lindsay, it’s Road here. Look, you’ve been flying over the North Pole and crap, hitting up Caribbean islands and such, all while your home base is here in the States…in the unknown land of New England! Why have you neglected me? I suggest hitting the…me for Boston this weekend. Why not? Join the rest of the working world and take a weekend. Make me screech –I mean proud.

Her video was super choppy, but I got the message. In the name of the road and seizing my potentially fleeting New York days, I booked some Megabus tickets to Boston to visit my good friend, Katie, and of course the puritanical motherland.

Museum cocktail parties, national park hikes, fancy sandwiches, ocean air – I’m not really sure what side of Boston I’ll see this weekend, but if you have any recommendations, how about leaving a comment and spearheading a Nomadderwhere, user-generated guide to Boston! I took the same approach when re-discovering Chicago in 2009, and your comments facilitated a unique week. And I don’t mean to draw uncouth connections between Beantown and the Windy City…

Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail