Day Two (08.24.09) On route to Las Vegas from Salt Lake, I-15 briefly cuts through the northwest corner of Arizona before leading into Nevada. While I didn't think much about this when reviewing the map before going, I was amazed at just how significant this stretch of road really was. This brief section of interstate through Arizona was only about 30 miles long, an unexpected surprise between Utah and Nevada, but pretty much as soon as we hit it, the canyons and cliffs appeared. On the way down, this was actually a brief section of the road trip that I drove. It was incredible.
Dave and I rolled the windows down, the heat radiated through the car immediately, and I cranked up Vega4 on my iPod as we weaved through the towering rocks. It was exactly what you'd expect Arizona to look like, hinting at how spellbinding the Grand Canyon must be, and ultimately lasting no time at all. I shot this video on our way back through (with Dave driving obviously) and it proved to be one of the most scenic stretches of interstate that we saw on the entire trip. Leaving Arizona and entering Nevada the terrain shifted immediately once again. The canyons stopped and a vast desert appeared before us.
Day One (08.23.09) Through Montana and Idaho, by the time we reached the Utah border it was late into the evening. By that point Dave and I were fairly quiet, enjoying music and making predictions about what the landscape looked like that we couldn't see. I remember Dave selecting a lot of R.E.M. tracks. All of the population in Utah is practically located in the corridor surrounding Great Salt Lake, which gives the illusion early on that you must be close to Salt Lake City (if you're not used to the drive). In reality, by the time we reached Ogden, we were still a ways off from our destination, and with midnight rolling around we were feeling beat. Bursts of rain continued to hit us randomly and then stop, on and off several times throughout the day. I remember this becoming more treacherous as we neared Salt Lake. The dirt on our windshield combined with the lights of oncoming traffic and buildings made for one blurry mess. In any case, we made it to Salt Lake City, spotting the giant temple from the interstate and looping around the international airport several times in our effort to find our hotel. By the time my head hit my pillow I was out.
Day Two (08.24.09) We awoke the next day intent on exploring downtown Salt Lake before heading south to Las Vegas. We parked kitty-corner to Temple Square and took a casual walk around the complex, spending extra time to take pictures of ourselves mimicking the statues. If there is one thing I could say about my impression of Salt Lake, it's that the place was immaculately clean and well landscaped. We followed the Salt Lake Temple with a trip up to the State Capital Building, taking more random photos with statues and pictures of ourselves sitting on the steps. 'I'm Just a Bill' from Schoolhouse Rock was sung (by me anyway, haha). The entire time I was trying to contain my enthusiasm, not because of any single thing we saw, but because I knew that this was just the beginning of our road trip. We could have easily spent several days exploring Utah, but instead the brief stop actually helped to justify the distance we were covering for the sake of the things we were going to be able to see and experience.
It was upon leaving Salt Lake City that the clouds from the day before finally started to break up. Heading south to Vegas the sun suddenly appeared, giving everything a golden colour and revealing the incredible transformation from the green and grey of Montana. It was as we passed Provo that afternoon I remember quipping, "this is where the road trip really begins".
Day One (08.23.09) Crossing the border from Alberta into Montana wasn't that big of a deal. But as we sped to reach Salt Lake City before 1am we did get to see the first evolution of the landscape. Over several hours the prairies started to disappear and rolling foothills replaced them.
In contrast to the Alberta Rockies around Banff, I was surprised to realize that we had actually reached the mountains at first. That's not to say they weren't beautiful, but with the gradual ascent it was more like driving around peaks than being dwarfed by towering monoliths. Mind you, this was just the impression from the interstate.
Dave and I cruised south listening to everything from the Top 40 to a crazy Christian radio show where the host had the guts to go on and on about the supposed end of the world in 2011. Everyone was really friendly when we stopped for breakfast food in the afternoon in Great Falls, but stereotypes about how red of red state Montana was were easy to spot. It's kind of exactly what we had hoped for to keep the drive interesting. Montana was awesome.
Nearly running out of gas once (thanks for keeping an eye on that Dave) Montana was an otherwise fairly relaxing (if not relatively familiar) way to start off an ambitious road trip. The first day of the week long excursion had been spent, amounting to over 12 hours in the car.
It's been months since my friend Dave and I found ourselves in Southern California lounging in the desert, which is why it's great to finally have all this footage edited and ready to share. The wait and process of revisiting this footage after a few months break makes this feel brand new to me also. There's not much to say about the introduction because I explain everything within the video. For all of the edits that follow I'll explain a bit more of the back story, how we came to be in each spot, and my reactions to the destinations within these blog posts. My goal is to paint a picture of the journey as this wasn't about taking a vacation, it was about experiences. So, care to go on a video road trip? This is Indio Outio.
The evolution of Indio Outio is something that I've enjoyed sharing since the trip took place in the late summer of 2009. I never really knew how it would all turn out as my plans for editing it continued to change over the months, but part of that was because of how much great footage I was able to capture. Better to have a lot of options than too few I suppose.
This intro was initially cut in September of 2009 and helped to establish the preview trailer that I debuted at the time (hence the same opening cuts, just played in reverse). The project was going to take on more of a documentary vibe, but the challenge to screen it or successfully upload the full project the way I wanted kept things in limbo.
My decision to share a series of edits as one loose project (Indio Outio) ultimately won over my personal documentary concept, but that's not to say that the edits aren't still personal. I did cut shots of my buddy Dave and I in where available, and all the music I selected was either stuff we listened to on the trip or that I had been listening to leading up to it. In any case, the individual edits for the various destinations replaced the need for a longer set of titles, but just to share a bit of the process I thought I'd still share this portion that had been sitting idle for so long. Enjoy!
To say that my Indio Outio Project is a work in progress just doesn't quite sum things up at this point. It's now been half a year since that memorable road trip took place, and with exception to creating an elaborate coffee table book with my pictures, I haven't really done much with the hours of footage I shot up until now - that doesn't mean I wasn't trying though.
The biggest challenge was deciding on how I wanted to present the finished project, which ultimately influenced the kind of video(s) I was going to make. Originally, I thought I'd be leaning towards more of a personal-doc, similar to the lengthy Rushmore project I made in 2007. However, and if you click over to check out Rushmore, you'll see I ended up cutting that project down into select clips so that it was easier to share online. This reminded me of a legitimate issue with online screenings and had me thinking that even if I did make an elaborate 20 to 30 minute video, who, besides close friends, would actually stick around to watch it?
It was this problem particularly that had me hung up and re-editing portions of my footage several times from September through December. Should the video be just for me or do I want to share it? Well, I want to share it.
As several months had passed from the time of the trip it only became harder to address the footage and come up with a unifying theme - another big issue because of the variety of locales my friend Dave and I visited over a single week.
So here's where I'm at now, and I'm happy to report that the Indio Outio project is finally nearing completion after a renewed view that simplicity was definitely the way to go. I've cut together montage-style edits of each of the major locales or portions of the road trip that I shot from Alberta to California in August 2009. What I intend to do is release each of these edits as individual posts before finally summing up the entire project with a featured entry about the complete experience.
This scrapbook style is not only ideal for online viewing - say someone just wants to see a video of Salvation Mountain or Newport Beach - but it also gives me the chance to frame each section of the trip and put the various experiences into context.
A lenghtier project would've required a lot more energy on the viewers part, and let's be honest, most people just want a quick clip on YouTube. It's also the reason that I chose music that was relevant to what we listened to on the trip to cut my clips to as opposed to narrating everything (again, for the sake of keeping the edits versatile for the average viewer). Plus, a project like this is more about showcasing my editing style anyway.
My individual blog posts will help develop more of a back story, which will provide further insight for those who are interested. It's also a way to add that journal/personal-doc element that I originally wanted to incorporate.
I've also created a new 'Indio Outio Project' tab on this blog so you can check out all the updates (along with the complete edits as they appear) to unify both the trip itself and the experience and reasoning behind the process of making it happen (or not happen as six months have flown by).
To kick things off I thought I'd share a part of the original intro that I made for the Indio Outio Project back in September 2009. This clip is also where the first preview for the project came from. I'm sharing this now because my intent is to have a brand new narrated introduction that I can use to preface all the varied edits I'll be uploading and use it as a header for a video playlist.
Check back soon as the edits start to appear, and for now, enjoy this glimpse of how the project originally started out.
You may remember that back in September I debuted a selection of posters as well as the trailer(s) for my new movie/travelog/personal doc titled Indio Outio. The project has been pushed to the back burner several times by work, other independent edits, and by further personal projects (most recently, We Two Kings).
Indio Outio isn't being abandoned though - far from it. The reality is that I'm really focusing on the details of this edit because I want to do it right the first time. It's incredibly time consuming though as there's over 5 hours of footage that I'm trying to compress into an impressive 30min or less. Stay tuned, it should be worth it.
In the meantime, check out the trailer and the brand new poster.
When things are good, things are also busy. This year I've tackled a few personal projects, I've made some big revisions to this blog in how I showcase my old movies, and I've also been busy editing promo videos both independently and for the companies I work for. Usually there's been more free time to space some of these things out, but tonight I was in a creative meeting and it hit me just how busy the rest of my year is going to be.
My Indio Outio project is still being pieced together, I'm working full-time shooting promo photos for a website these days, and on top of this I'm still putting in extra hours as an editor for the corporate video company I've been with since I moved back to Medicine Hat. With so many random projects on the go my schedule has been filling up fast. It's both semi-stressful and fulfilling to find yourself in a position where you're actually in demand - where people are interested in how you do things and are hiring you for your specific creative contributions.
This year has been flying by and it's interesting to reflect on what's been going on without seeing the personal projects dominating my schedule. I've done a lot of work for other people and I suppose that's where things were meant to be going - it's what I talked about a lot as a film student. It's just a new learning experience to try and figure out how to balance everything and still feel like I'm continually challenge myself and moving forward. I have to admit that the confidence others have shown in me is a huge boost.
With a trip back to Regina (the city I went to University in) this weekend, I'm looking forward to the break, the visiting, and the sense that things really have improved since the year and half ago that I decided to branch out. Still doesn't give me any extra time though does it?
As I expected when I found myself making an elaborate photo book of my Indio, California road trip from August, the progress with the accompanying video slowed down. It didn't help the Indio project that my deadlines at work also became more demanding and that I was hired to make another independent promotional video this month. In any case, Indio Outio - the travelog/personal documentary/movie - is still being made and will just be completed at a later date (instead of September as the trailer said).
For those of you who forgot or didn't know this project was underway at all, check out the promo of original footage below. You can also see the posters for this project here. I'm not giving much away, but you can get a sense of how diverse the trip was. When all is said and done, I think the video will be worth the wait.
Having never been much of a photo album kind of guy, when I got back from my Indio, California road trip with my friend Dave at the end of August, I looked at all the cool pictures that I had on my camera and knew I wanted to print them.
The issue I've always had with photo albums is that they're often generic looking. My approach to the stereotypical 'slide show' or home video has always been to cut an entertaining travelog together, so it should come as no surprise that I wanted to approach my photos with the same energy. What I opted for was creating an elaborate published photo book using Blurb.com. Combining the bulk of my candid shots, landscapes, and even stills from the video I shot, I created a 158 page, 13x11 inch, full color, hardcover, professional grade book. It just rolls off the tongue, haha.
This is the cover of the book, I'm sitting on the foot of the T-Rex in Cabazon, California.
While the quality and detail of the book should be top notch, it certainly wasn't the cheapest option. At nearly $130 spent on the project and hours spent designing the pages and layout it was fairly consuming. Still, I was happy to do it for the sake of creating a meaningful memento and making the photos even more enjoyable to see. I'm sure this kind of thing isn't for everyone, but with the user-friendly and customizable software that you can download from Blurb.com I'm already thinking up my next book idea. While photo book options are available through different photo stores, this is the only one I found that actually advertised professional grade options - hence the higher price tag. In any case, I just thought this was a great service worth sharing.
After a week of traveling thousands of miles on the open road to California, getting back to the office seems so painfully ordinary. In just one week my friend Dave and I drove to California and back again, spending 3 nights in Indio, California at his parents' vacation house. With a long list of things to see, Dave and I explored Salt Lake City, had a night in Vegas, explored the middle of the desert and the hidden treasures of the Salton Sea, made the trek out to Newport Beach and the ocean, and took a ride up a mountain in Palm Springs - just to name a few of the highlights.
Like I said many times before, this trip was meaningful in that it wasn't meant to be just a vacation or an excuse to relax, it was also meant to create experiences. It was an escape from routine, from post-university transitioning and the everyday. Seeing the landscape change from prairie to mountains to canyons and desert was amazing. My previous Vegas and California trips were all linked in a matter of hours. With my cameras at my side, I shot as much as I felt was necessary. This latest project titled, Indio Outio, inspired by the location and the speed of our visit, is going to be a fun project to edit.
Below I've posted the short preview I cut together using two different audio tracks. My Vimeo account features the original video, and because of copyright issues, my YouTube account features the second version. For now, I'll leave the story here. There's a lot to say and a lot to show.
Five years ago this summer I found myself in California enjoying the beach, Disneyland, and countless other attractions. Now here I am on the cusp of returning in just over a week, and the trip is going to have an entirely different flavor. No doubt, it's going to be a lot of fun and a great adventure.
With my thoughts focused on my Indio, California road trip, I decided to review the edits from my 2004 California post. With several of them being uploaded in sub-par quality back in 2007, and the resolution far worse than what's now available on YouTube, I decided to re-upload 3 of my original travel edits. The updated clips have been rendered to a higher quality with some filters to clean them up. They're still old digital files so there's only so much I can do, but they do look better than how they were.
The 3 clips include Newport Beach, Day at Disneyland, and Disney's California Adventure. The edits themselves are exactly the same, and they do bring back a lot of memories watching them again. They're energetic, well timed, and thorough edits of each location if I do say so myself. I can't wait to get back!
As an idea that seemed wishful at best in early 2009, it's exciting to think that in just 2 weeks my friend Dave and I will be starting on a road trip to Indio, California. It's a trip that will take us almost entirely across the Western USA from north to south, obviously with us starting out in Canada and ending just a few hundred miles from Mexico. I can't wait.
Much like my Rushmore trip in 2007, our journey to Indio is being fueled mostly by a desire to explore, relax, and change up the scenery. Dave's folks have a place down there, which was the reasoning in the beginning to even consider the trip. With a bit of time in Salt Lake City, a night of celebrating planned in Vegas, a visit to the ocean, and a few days of drinking in the desert, I'd say that all the ingredients are certainly there for a memorable adventure.
As I remarked to Dave, I'll be shooting pieces of this trip as I do with almost all my trips with intention of putting a small project together. It has a lot of potential to be one of the most meaningful things I produce this year because of the personal narrative involved. This video is likely to be a mix of travelog and self-referential documentary as Dave and I have had somewhat of a touch and go friendship since first year of university.
In high school I sat next to a guy who knew Dave named Todd. He explained that Dave was going to the U of R too, and sure enough on my first day there I met him. Since that first day Dave and I have always been loosely in touch, connected by the same people, and have had our occasional lengthy discussion about things - this trip is by far the most time I'll have ever spent with him one on one though, and with both of us having such a broad view of things I know there's going to be no shortage of things to talk about.
After years of events, parties and hang ups, this road trip kind of seems like an opportunity to clear the air about a lot of things. Not just between Dave and I specifically, but about university life in general. As spontaneous as a lot of the road trip will be, I think it's also a great opportunity to put some of that post-university 'what now?' we're both experiencing to rest - or at least an opportunity to recharge or find some new motivation.
It's tough to say that this road trip is going to be as meaningful as my artistic mind is trying to make it, but let me just say, both Dave and I seem perceptive enough to grasp at any enlightenment the desert decides to throw at us. At the very least, it's a chance to get away from the ordinary. As a side note, I just happened to be listening to Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear and thought the first few lyrics were fitting: "Save up all the days, a routine malaise, just like yesterday, I told you I would stay". Nostalgia is a powerful thing. Still friends after all these years - here's to a memorable road trip Dave!
