Everyone has their way of finding sanity. When buried in tasks, or caught idle for too long, creative companies or individuals revert to their personal way of finding inspiration once again. We found ourselves buried in corporate work, work which we love, but can threaten to give us a permanent lazy eye. In times like this we come together for what we call “team building exercises”. These exercises can simply be stepping out of the office (to weed around the office) or power washing our attack vehicle. On other occasions they can be an impromptu road trip to Southern Utah proposed by our team lead – aimed to test our equipment and clear our heads. This video is of the latter. Our curly haired DOP boarded a plane from LA to SLC while the the rest of us geared up for the weather forecast – dusty, with a chance of a dirty good time. We were off.
The open road provides a pathway to the uncontrolled spirit, a state of being that is universally felt yet so challenging to capture through a medium; even for an experienced film studio. We brought both our Red cameras to shoot the story of our traveling family, or as it turned out, old farts drinking next to their chinook campers. The team flew down paved roads, our helmets low as we sliced through the wind. Shots of the team cruising were captured in our pursuit van at high speeds; stabilized by our Movi. The off-road shots of our motorcycle bromance were captured with our octocopter. At times pushing it’s speedometer at 40mph. Our trip took us along train tracks and directly into desert sand storms raging through Knolls Utah. We reached as far as the daylight took us and spent some time gettin’ stuck/crashing our bikes while filming clouds and the sinking sun. Our octocopter seemed to be running on the “eternal battery”, our battery-life indicator still flashing green as we realized the error, the warning light hadn’t reset. The damage from the crash would cost us a pretty penny when we got home, but we were able to clean it enough to get it back in the air and ready for our second day, heading in the opposite direction.
“The open road provides a pathway to the uncontrolled spirit, a state of being that is universally felt yet so challenging to capture through a medium; even for an experienced film studio.”
Our second day we traveled through the darkness of night to location at the Sand Rafel Swell. Plans to get shut eye and rise early for the sunrise were lost in the whiskey-breathed conversations and the guitar strings of Pat and Corrigan: two friends who drove down to share a spot by the fire. Arriving under the cover of night hid the sensational scenes just feet from our campground, but as the light brought us from our tents we were introduced to a wonder known as the “Little Grand Canyon”. This became the crescendo of our expedition. We took our bikes to the edge and drank in the view, capturing the final images from our RED camera suspended hundreds of feet over the canyon river. The ride home was spent enjoying our needed getaway from the everyday grind, all of us feeling we were ready to push through the remaining corporate videos and even digest the Movi repair bills…Cheers to staying in business.
Head on over to Vita Brevis Films to keep up with all of their latest projects. This is a Team to watch.
(Words & Photos provided by Vita Brevis Films used with permission)
