Our First Time Getting Filmed
Back in early January, we got an unexpected email from Lori Knight, producer with Efran Films. She was researching topics for a client of theirs, Autoblog, and somehow came across us. Our solar RV conversion and on-the-road living interested her and she wanted to do a story about us for Autoblog.
After talking to her over the phone we figured nothing more would come of it. But a couple weeks later I got a voicemail and email from Brian, a cinematographer and photographer, trying to schedule a shoot day for that same week (actually two days later). Before I knew it, we had scheduled a day for Brian and Maury, another cinematographer, to fly to Tucson to film us.
Maury and Brian flew out from LA to film us.
The ironic thing is that out of all the places we’ve boondocked, they came to the least ideal one. In fact, Snyder Hill was the place we initially thought about leaving because it looked kind of questionable, but turned out wonderful (not really because of the spot itself).
The nervousness didn’t kick in until they showed up. Aside from being on the news, Jerud and I had never done anything like this. We weren’t sure how to prepare for it and didn’t know what to expect. We did at least clean the Toaster and showered.
Brian and Maury were great. They worked with us and were patient when we got tongue-tied and couldn’t eloquently answer their questions on film.
Jerud sitting in as Brian and Maury got lighting worked out for their cameras.
The camera gear that Brian and Maury used.
We spent probably a total of 6 hours over the course of two days to get the shots. The first day was at our boondocking site, interviewing us. They went off on their own beforehand and afterwards to get B-roll footage. The next day was spent getting drone shots of the Toaster parked, us hitching it up, and driving on the road.
Maury filming the Toaster.
Of course after the interview was done, Jerud and I fretted over our answers and how we sounded. You know how you always have the perfect answer or comeback after the moment has passed? That’s how we felt.
Brian is filming Jerud making lunch.
When the final video was made live on AutoBlog, we didn’t actually find out from Efran Films. Rather someone posted the video on NuRVers Facebook group and our friend, Jim of Live Work Dream tagged us in the comment section to give us the heads up.
Nervously we watched the video. We realized we only vaguely knew how our interview was going to be used. Brian had mentioned that either Autoblog or Efran Films wanted to show the dichotomy of our RV with one that is over the top and talk about car clubs. As Jerud and I sat down to watch the film, we thought – well they succeeded in finding the most opposite RV from ours.
Maury flew the drone to get shots of the Toaster at our boondocking spot.
We are overall really happy with the final result. Brandon, Efran Films’ editor, did a really wonderful job. And we don’t sound as terrible as we feared. But Efran Films did make two mistakes: 1) We are not affiliated or even members of Escapees RV Club, which they said we were in the film; 2) No mention of Live Small Ride Free was made anywhere in the film. Not even in the write-up below the video. I emailed Efran Films afterwards letting them know about our concerns. Obviously at that point nothing could be done about the actual video, but it was like pulling teeth trying to get Autoblog to include our URL in the write-up. Eventually Efran Films managed to get Autoblog to add two hyperlinks in the write-up, but they wouldn’t include Live Small Ride Free in text anywhere. (By the way, Jerud thinks I sound like a grandma by saying "hyperlink". But then we decided that grandmas are cooler than I am.)
They also drove behind and next to us to get more drone shots of us towing the Toaster. See the speck of black and white in the air - that's the drone.
What I eventually put together is that since this video was an episode for Autoblog’s Car Club USA, they needed to tie things together by affiliating us with an RV club. We have nothing against Escapees RV Club. From what we know, none of which is through personal experience, they provide a great service to RVers and a lot of our RV friends are Escapees/Xscapers members. We just haven’t found a need to join.
Obviously us being newbies meant mistakes would happen because we didn’t know exactly what to look for, ask and follow up on. Now we know for next time.
They suctioned a camera to the hood of the car for driving shots of us.
But like I said, overall we’re really happy with the video about us – because it correctly represents who we are and why we made the lifestyle change that we did. And, it’s pretty damn neat to see a professional video of yourself (once we got over the awkwardness of seeing and hearing ourselves).
You can check out the video on Autoblog (I’m not able to embed the video) if you're interested!
