I started about 6 months ago a project of traveling solo without an agenda, in other words:

You Choose – I Go.

At least that was the concept. How did it work? I would ask my FB friends where I should go next. With no plan or tickets ahead – just I go wherever they told me to go. The most votes/comments would determine my next destination.

How did I manage to cover this idea (economically)? 

I work as a designer full time. I work from Monday-Friday, but remotely, so it allows me to work wherever I want as long as I have a good WiFi connection. So I said “WHY NOT?” Gotta travel right?

My first destination was Italy. I spent two weeks sailing across Amalfi Coast, Pompei and Sorrento. I made a couple films, and people (friends mostly) started to react positively, so I got motivated on this whole idea of travel + video + anywhere. I decided to stick to it and continued doing this for:

Barcelona, Egypt, Turkey & India.

I started realising my friends were my biggest motivation, but I needed to push this a bit further and get people outside to watch too, including analytics on who is watching my stuff.

So I decided to start a mini-series in India called “inda por media calle” – it translates in English “India in the middle of the streets.”

It’s a Costa Rican slang term we use for people that for some crazy reason decide to walk in the middle of the road instead of the sidewalk. So since my biggest audience was Costa Rican, they identified with and loved the concept.

Basically, I have never really given importance to Facebook Pages before, so I decided to start one for my travel videos – I called it “Lost N Free.”

It rapidly took off. Friends started sharing it, and in the first five days I was up 2000 followers. I was impressed and shocked how well these mini-vids were enticing people to follow and watch more.

Once India was completed, I took a short break at my brother’s house in London to begin editing the film “Land of Kings,” which took me about three weeks to prepare and launch.

MUSIC

I had started a playlist for all the locations/countries I visit prior to arriving via Spotify .

For Iceland, I had a good idea for the feeling + style of music, but the Track “Solo Dancing by Indiana” was chosen right on the last day on my way back home. It was like those glorious moments where it was extremely rainy and hard to drive, and then suddenly the track starts to play and I saw a huge ray of sunlight shine through the whole sky, and that moment sparks.

My whole body went numb when it all clicked together. It was so cool. I had goosebumps running down my spine and chicken-skin all over.

The editing process started in my head almost after hearing the song, repeating it 100 times on my way home. I had the whole video in my head, seriously – everything I had captured was already put together in my head, and I was so excited. I needed to get home and start the edit as fast as possible.

I am glad I did. It took me about three days in total to get all footage indexed, filtered, rough cut, preparing the sound to make it shorter, color grading it, and adjusting everything to match the flow nicely. I was finally happy with it, and decided to give it an early launch.

Unfortunately it didn’t make it into the “Vimeo Staff Pick,” but they certainly loved it so much they put my video in top Travel & Performance films category!

I am extremely satisfied with how it ended up, short film with a bit of a my own flavour of Iceland – a very personal experience alone in heaven.

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In July 2015, my family and I spent 18 days traveling through Sri Lanka. It was truly astounding. Never ever have I met people this kind and caring, nor have I seen a country this rich in natural and cultural beauty. In my film “The Holy Land” I did my best to capture as much of it as I could.

Living in Austria, in the middle of Europe, cultural diversity is not exactly far away. It’s actually right on the doorstep. So why sit in a plane for 15 hours instead of 2 ½ and travel to a country as far away as Sri Lanka for holiday? Because it’s different. Different in every aspect.

Travelling with gear is always a bit of a hassle, but leaving something at home that you’d regret later is worse. My cabin baggage always ends up being too much for the limitations, but being nice and friendly goes a long way, and I’ve not had any troubles with carrying two full-size backpacks so far. I just don’t feel comfortable with checking either my camera or my drone. On the other hand, staying cool, while explaining to Turkish airport security what the hell I want with a drone in my carry on, is not exactly the most comfortable I’ve been, so that’s that.

When we finally arrived at the airport in Colombo, the single best travel guide was already awaiting us for pickup – a funny, friendly guy who was ready for showing us his country. He introduced the driver to us, and so we had our team set for the following week. After they dropped us off at our hotel for the night, we were on our own in the evening, so we decided to take a stroll on the beach. That’s where we had the first close encounter with the people of Sri Lanka. Ever Sunday they gather on the beach and simply enjoy life. The kids fly DIY kites and play with each other, while the adults have picnics all over the place. Serendipitously, a family’s soccer ball was blown – carried away by the strong wind – and landed right in front of our feet. Next thing we knew, we were playing with them, having fun while the sun was slowly setting. That evening, we met about 50 locals who were just happy to get to know us. Only having been in the country for 3 hours, we already knew it was going to be an amazing experience all the way through. And that was without seeing anything besides the airport, the hotel, and the 200 meters of beach.

Shooting there was simply a pleasure. The people were always welcoming us with shining smiles, and everywhere we went was beautiful. Because Sri Lanka is one of the lesser developed countries, the folks were fascinated by our shiny cameras – and of course by my drone. Wherever I unpacked the little quadcopter, they were astounded and wanted to catch a little on-screen time.

The whole week of touring through the country was a great experience with lots of temples, national parks, great food, and there was never a boring second. I had my camera with me pretty much all the time during the week, so I ended up with a LOT of footage with a few casual drone flights in between. After that, we proceeded to a small town on the east coast for a little over a week of beach, sun, and watersports. The people we met there weren’t any different in their kindness. I didn’t spend too much time behind the camera in that hotel, so from there I mainly had underwater and aerial footage.

Editing pretty much started on the plane home where I put together a little trailer. Back home, the tedious search after a suitable song started, but after quite some time sifting through Musicbed, I stumbled across “The Spectacular Quiet” by Lights and Motion, which was a perfect fit for what I was planning. After my preselection of the footage, I easily would have had enough material for a feature film, but compressing it in just under 4 minutes forced me to pay really close attention to perfection. What I really love about shooting while travelling is that the minute you return home the beautiful memories slowly start to fade, and while editing I have them available at the click of a button.

It was such an astonishing experience that I still struggle to find words for describing it. I can only recommend everyone visit this amazing island and meet these awesome folks.

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Email: p.kommenda@me.com

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The post A Videographer’s Holiday in Sri Lanka appeared first on Wispeo.