Jul 26, 2009

Rushmore: Edits (2007)

It was one of those trips that started out as nothing more than a novel idea. A road trip to Mount Rushmore had been in the back of my mind for quite some time, but the reality of ever actually going seemed like wishful thinking.

The idea really came about because of my location in university. Regina, Saskatchewan is the largest Canadian city to the famed monument near Rapid City, South Dakota despite still being hundreds of miles away. I figured with the isolated location of Mount Rushmore, I might never be in a more convenient spot to actually see it. It was something I really wanted to cross off my bucket list, and having previously explored places to the north, west and east of Regina, it only seemed appropriate to check out the landscape further south. Little did I know that just over a year later at the end of the 2007 winter semester, my friend Andrea and I would decide to take the lengthy drive through the open prairie and into the Black Hills (here's an old school postcard I found while there).

The original project, Rushmore, was a travelog I cut together using photos and footage I shot along the trip. I added my personal narration to elaborate on the experiences and my general mindset at the time, while also using it as a way to tell a condensed story to my family and friends who I was most likely to share the video with.

It was just after returning that my blog, Editing Luke began. In an effort to share some of my previous projects and edits, some of the first things I ever shared included a post about why I love editing travelogs and a history of the video postcards I had cut together. Below you can watch the original South Dakota video postcard (also used as a preview for the complete travelog Rushmore) I cut together just a few weeks after returning.

Original 2007 South Dakota Video Postcard


During the week long trip, Andrea and I visited Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse memorial, the town of Deadwood (made even more popular by the HBO show of the same name), Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and Chimney Rock in Nebraska traveling along parts of the Oregon Trail, Pony Express, and the path taken by explorers Lewis and Clark - just to name a few of the detours. Because sharing the entire Rushmore travelog would've been way too long and indepth for the average stranger visiting my blog, I decided that there would need to be revisions to the main project. So, I cut some new postcards to highlight my footage - making for some great editing exercises.

I figured that my personal story was still connected to the footage and was certainly available to anyone who wanted to hear it, but for the sake of sharing my edits I was content to focus on the locations. What I find endearing still, is that even the simplified cuts maintain the enthusiasm and low key energy that made the trip so amazing and memorable in the first place.

There have been several small revisions and additions to these edits since 2007, however the South Dakota postcard is exactly the same. The newer edits include a video for Mount Rushmore, an edit for Devil's Tower, an edit of our day driving through Nebraska, and a Black Hills Photo Collage. Watching them now, each video embraces the nostalgia that I was feeling even then - just weeks after being home.

It's tough to fully explain what the meaning of the trip was, but in a poetic sense I think our quest for Rushmore was about getting lost, finding new places, and enjoying a journey out of the ordinary. For a mountain carving in between miles of what could be described as almost nothing, the trip was eye opening. Of all the things I expected to find traveling the open road, inspiration was the one thing I hadn't prepared for ahead of time.

All footage shot and edited by Luke Fandrich.

Mount Rushmore 2007 - South Dakota


Devil's Tower 2007 - Wyoming


Chimney Rock 2007 - Nebraska


Black Hills Photo Collage 2007

Jul 22, 2009

'Free Hugs Prank' by MediocreFilms

It's very likely that you've heard of the Free Hugs viral video; maybe you've seen it online or got it in an email. Hey, you might have even seen the original here on Editing Luke way back when. It was one of my first posts in 2008.

The Free Hugs video is the one where the guy, you guessed it, gives out all those free hugs leaving everyone smiling and feeling good about themselves - seriously, the videos are pretty uplifting. If you haven't seen the original, go to YouTube and type in 'free hugs' to see literally hundreds and hundreds of spin-offs from around the world. I've been a big fan of all these vids for quite a while now, but came across this comical twist just a couple days ago - the Free Hugs Prank: $2 Deluxe Hugs video by MediocreFilms. This should make you smile :)


Jul 19, 2009

'A Chill in the Air' Original Notes






Date:
January 2006

Associated Post:


Story:

It's interesting having old notes like this to look through. This little Andy Warhol notebook is filled with pages of rough ideas and shot descriptions that I wanted to capture in my rush to complete my submission for the NFB/Citizenshift Make Shorts, Not War Contest. After writing a poem to serve as the structure for my short, I scribbled out a rough shot and edit list of the symbols I wanted to create. 

The focus of the contest was about Canadian soldiers in WWI and recognizing their sacrifice in regards to peace - using (in part) historic clips from the National Film Board of Canada to put the film in context. I wrote about contrasting the decaying bark of a tree with the ruins of cities, leaves representing dead soldiers on the ground, the symbolism in the changing seasons as a reflection on the generations that followed, etc. Looking through these old notes remind me of just how anxious and motivated I was for those few days in late January. You can read about the full story and how the contest went by clicking the link above.