Kona produce Mongolia video trailer

I was incredibly happy to see this video created from some of the footage that Tom and I shot in Mongolia.

The video editor from Kona has hand picked some fine moments from the twelve hours of footage that we shot and created a trailer which captured the essence of the journey well.

We knew that we wanted to make the filming really high quality. We had been able to hone our skills and there was no excuse to be lazy. I think that both Tom and I bring different styles to the filming. I feel driven by Tom's attention to detail.

We were we able to capture top quality footage and I felt that we also found a rhythm in front of the camera enabling us to capture a deeper message behind the filming. This came about through a process of communication between Tom and I and experimenting to see what worked.

The Sony A1 camera which I took performed well. We took three spare batteries because we thought we wouldn't have a chance to charge them but two would have probably sufficed. The camera is rugged enough to cope with being taken on a tour. Over two years of touring I have had it repaired once, when the flip screen needed replacing.

The trailer is short and there is a  lot more footage in a similar vein. I hope that the rest of the footage can be turned into a documentary or a series of podcasts which tell the story fully.

It is immensely satisfying to see something created from the footage, especially by a professional editor. In the past we have had problems with editors not really quite getting the point, but then again we probably weren't communicating the message well through the filming. The editor has to have a certain sensitivity to the story and travel experience to produce something which isn't sensationalist or cliched.

It is unusual to see the wide shots of riding across the steppe, sped up for the trailer, and then to think back to being there. It looks so epic but I got used to the lack of people and featureless landscape pretty quickly. The range of different shots which can feel a bit pointless to capture at the time; close-ups, cut-aways, travelling shots, establishing shots, all come together in the edit.

I hope you enjoy the trailer. The film company String Films are working on the feature-length Ride Earth documentary coming soon.