I got chatting to Dan one day as he was de-kinking my body. During the Sydney lockdown I somehow managed to tweak my shoulder and Dan, my chiropractor, was straightening it back out. I knew him to be a runner. We’d discuss races and racing each time I paid him a visit. He told me how he planned to run three 100km races this year but being in lockdown and unable to leave the Local Government Area (LGA) meant that was no longer possible since races were now canceled. Instead, he had come up with a novel idea to keep his goals alive. When he told me I knew I had to document it.
Over the last couple of lockdowns, I have been slowly getting my head around video and video editing, online tutorials, and shooting little bits here and there. I hadn’t shot much though as I wasn’t quite sure what to shoot. I have always preferred videos that have a story rather than a selection of clips thrown together and wanted to shoot something along those lines. Having planned to shoot stills for Dan I realized that his story would benefit much more from being a short video instead.
The Shoot
I spent a couple of days out shooting with him on training runs in the lead-up to the day. We would just visit some scenic local areas and shoot for a couple of hours. The original plan had been just to show his training leading up to the actual run and finish on the scene of him running out the door. But when we were recording the voice-over and I heard the full story I knew I would have to include footage from the run. It went from a 2 minute short to over 5 minutes.
I didn’t get all the shots I would have liked to over the run though. The tracker I was following him on played up and only relayed his position periodically. I knew the course he was taking so I could jump ahead but I couldn’t be sure if he had come through already or was still due so just had to jump far enough ahead to be sure. Still, I think I got plenty of shots but there were a few scenic locations that I missed that I would have liked to have shot.
Moving On
For me, it was a great introduction to short storytelling. I have made a few videos before but they’re more like snippets than short stories with a maximum length of under 1 minute. Throwing myself into the deep end like this has taught me quite a few things about video editing. You can read and watch so many online tutorials but until you go out and shoot there will always be a hole in your knowledge. There is still so much to learn about video creation and short storytelling and I am excited to be undertaking a new journey. I think it might be a long one though. Like shooting still photography there will always be some new direction to head or a rabbit-hole to lose myself in periodically.
I shall keep learning and in the meantime be keeping my ears open for over great adventures and challenges of which I might be able to tell the story. If anyone has any exciting plans that they think may transfer across to a great short story feel free to contact me and let’s work on something together. In the meantime….Enjoy!!!