In the past decade, I鈥檝e gotten to spend a lot of time at adventure film festivals, watching beautiful and inspiring movies on the big screens at Banff, Mountainfilm, Five Point, Kendal, and others. I even got to direct and produce a few short films that showed in those places, and I got to rub elbows with talented directors, cinematographers, and storytellers there. It was a true joy.
But lately, I鈥檝e been getting inspired by the films I鈥檝e seen on YouTube by people like the Australian adventurer , my friend , and other people, who sometimes have a whole bunch of people involved in the making of their films, and sometimes just do it all themselves.
So when I started thinking about making a little film about the adventure I call 鈥淭he Seven Summits of My Neighborhood,鈥 I wanted to see if I could pull something together with only the equipment I could carry in a running vest: A GoPro on a small GorillaPod and my iPhone. I did hire a friend to do some drone shots, another friend to make some fun music, and one more friend to polish up my editing (and more importantly, cut footage I couldn鈥檛 bring myself to cut). But that鈥檚 it.
I don鈥檛 think anyone鈥檚 going to recreate this adventure exactly (nor would I recommend it), but I hope it might encourage people to make up their own contrived thing to do with a day or a week鈥檚 worth of days. I love this kind of stuff.