Friday 9 January 2015

No Life Wasted: My take on this project

"In the end, its not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." Abraham Lincoln

To me making a video always meant a significant amount of, thought, planning, and preparation. Of course it always involved a lot of fun times too. 

The whole idea behind this video was to do things we have been dreaming about doing for a long time. We did not have a lot of time, but sleep was low on our list of priorities. We went out to show what could be done in our holiday after our Matric(Gr12) exams, with the right mindset. To many other students it was one long party doomed to get boring after 48 hours, wasting money and being drunk with other trouble- all for a  memory with no significance. Our adventures continued after the video was made. We made our memories, and our mark. No Life Wasted was one of the six finalists in the Wavecape Shortcuts Video Competition. See Here

In the making of our masterpiece there were a few frightening moments where things could have gone wrong quite badly. May it be on camera, ahead of the camera, or behind the camera. We saw Ivan bounce off the ground after letting go of a rope swing with a radius of 10m, the poor fellow flew forward, off-axis, one story above the ground. We went OTB(over the bars) going down the trails a bit too fast on our bicycles- enough times to be able to compare the effect of wearing Motocross-armor or not. Landing a belly flop from that ramp did hurt, and four kiteloops with big splashes for one good kiteloop is not good success rate.

Sometimes a tree stump decides to position itself right in front of your front wheel... In this particular case It was take-2 on the MTB trail with all the narrow bridges. I was too fast for the cameras following me on the first take, and obviously with that in mind, I was going down to make myself known to planet Earth in round two. Again, too far ahead of the cameras, I cut a slight bend a bit short, and it cost me. I could feel how the front tire absorbed the tree stump's punch. My knee slammed against my bar and I flew over. No bones were broken, so 10 minutes later I could get back on the bike.

If I had not been brought back down to earth from that bail, I might have injured myself worse on other trails. But most importantly, my reflexes were slowed. That sounds like a bad thing, but a Boomslang snake was in our path and my stopping reflex only came after I cycled over the snake. According to John-Marc and Joubert, the snake struck at me, but its body was held down as my wheel went over, preventing it from reaching me. If I had stopped in front of the snake, our day could have fallen short of footage, and men. I claim the sequence of events a miracle.

Being in the sea with dolphins is always special. I have been on a kayak and kiteboard with dolphins, whales black tip sharks and hammerhead sharks before. What made the footage extra special in the video is the fact that we had smooth camerawork and no fog in the lens problems. I took a chance hopping off the kayak and swimming with these awesome creatures, a first for me. I had imagined and mentally prepared myself for the swim, so that I was ready for action the next time I come in contact with dolphins. My vision was very bad underwater, as I should have known, but fortunately the camera was more capable of capturing the moment. Nevertheless, swimming in the "deep end", 500m from shore, with 2-4 dozen wild animals around me was scary enough.
  
I present to you the piece of work(ehem, "play"), a team effort, and a shipload of adrenaline. Praise the lord for his protection! Until the end of this year for the next one!



"No Life Wasted from JCDC on Vimeo.
Planned locally, sourced nationally, and dream't of eternally. We, friends with a desire to share interests, make stuff happen, and live our lives out to the maximum, had one thing in mind for the end of our Matric year- get out, and reinvent the mainstream tradition of a month long party. This is our fest of outdoor adrenaline: refueled by the juice of action cameras. http://www.wavescape.co.za/video/shortcuts-2014/no-life-wasted.html
Soundtrack By Rameses B, "Bring me back to life" (ft. Charlotte Haining)
Thanks!

Rameses B Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ramesesb
Youtube : www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYhx9Msa2jA