Travel videos, they all give us those travel feels right? (Yep, credit to Matti Haapoja for that one - great YouTuber). So I was very excited to have an opportunity to film one myself in the beautiful Lake Como area of Italy.
The trip was 8 days, although travel took basically 4 of them with an overnight stop in France. While coach trips aren't exactly the most convenient, they are at least a bit more environmentally friendly. We also got some stunning views of Switzerland on the way though and saw some beautiful storks up close during a brief stop in the beautiful town of Riquewihr in Alsace.
Lake Como was simply stunning - having the lake, mountains and beautiful blue sky all in one place meant that wherever you pointed a camera it was gorgeous. More challenging was getting shots while keeping up with the trip itinerary and making it work. For example, while visiting the picturesque town of Bellagio across the water from where we were staying in Cadenabbia, the bright sun and contrasting shadows on the streets made it very tricky. The biggest challenge was trying to get an external shot of the luxury coach we were travelling on, considering ideally I should be on it whenever it was moving! I never quite nailed that one, but with the help of 50fps from our newly purchased FS5 I at least got a quick usable shot. It was a good challenge to have to adapt to a new bit of kit quickly, although I did have to learn never to trust it's auto focus the hard way (don't judge me! I maintain that there's no shame in using auto functions in suitable situations such as filming observationally - although with the FS5 I would definitely advise only going for the one push auto settings when in need).
We made a television advert and a series of social media videos from the footage, my favourite of which can be seen here.
March 2018