The Video - panamericanrider

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What type of movie are we making?

Think of it as a documentary of sorts. Motorcycle travel will have a pretty big emphasis and would probably be considered the key interest, as many riders dream of this exact trip. The difference in our trip though is that we are heading the opposite direction from most riders, and showing how affordable it can be on a small, fuel efficient motorcycle. This also saves the common and expensive one way shipping of a larger displacement typical American bike.

The smaller bikes lend especially well to the “budget” travel side of things. Cheap to purchase, maintain and run, we can go anywhere we want without having to pay bus fare to get there. We will have large duffel bags strapped to the back. In the bag, all of our camping gear (light weight and small pack size) as well as all of our clothes, video equipment and other needed items. We will end up camping a fair bit on the trip, often for free by a river’s edge. We will also be tracking expenses so others can see how much a trip like this might cost.

A third, less emphasized feature will be historical places. We will be visiting so many ancient sites, and will create mini-documentaries of our time at each one.

We will be visiting many other beautiful places, and hope we can capture and represent each one of them on film. It should be quite an adventure.

The bikes will be equiped with HD helmet cameras. Some helmet cameras are really quite something. Not only do they have a pretty amazing video quality, but if you run them to the power of the bike then they can record all day. Another pretty important feature some helmet cameras offer is called "video tagging". If you ride and record all day long, at the end of the day you have a mountain of footage to go through, but all you really want is the good parts. With "video tagging" however, you only save what you want. When you see something great, you hit the button and it saves both the previous minute as well as the next two! This way, you never miss a thing.

In addition to the helmet cameras, we will also have portable HD cameras for times we are off the bikes. These will be used when camping, walking towns or visiting historical sights. Due to the size and quality, action cameras seems to be the best choice and also have mounting options for the motorcycles if needed. For those stealthier filming moments, our Pivothead HD sunglasses will certainly get some good footage. Lastly, we will have a drone! DJI will be flying overhead and filming us from time to time.

Above is a 10 minute clip of riding footage, spliced and cut together.
This is just a little playing around with action footage. We plan on
editing much better on the final production

Soundtrack

"Bill Murray" by Matt Nathanson | "Serious" by Headwater (Ladysmith Artist)
"The Boxer" Mumford & Sons (Simon & Garfunkle cover)

This is another short clip.

Once the trip has begun, we will link from here to youtube, where you can follow our progress and watch our videos. We will take video on a constant basis, so there should be hours of amazing footage by the trip's end.

With about a year to go, I am practicing my video filming skills as well as editing (for YouTube clips) . We will do the best we can with these clips, but although the raw footage should be awesome, keep in mind that the videos are probably being edited in a tent somewhere on the road and uploaded at a coffee shop!

We will also save all of our footage for when we are back home at which time a professional video editor will create a final production. Just simply due to the duration of the trip, we could end up with a 10 or 12 episode series! Who knows... perhaps the video can be used by a travel or history network. The video could also be used by a countries tourism board!