Collaboration: This wasn’t a typical project where I could just setup a tripod and shoot. I needed help from multiple people because I wanted multiple camera angles. My brother and girlfriend at the time volunteered to be my camera-operators. I borrowed a couple cameras from friends as well. Thank you all.
Setting: This is a location that I’ve been going to since I was a teenager and there have been many hot summer evenings where we stayed overnight to watch sunrise here.
Weather: I had a vision to shoot this weather with a particular weather pattern: I wanted the marine layer to penetrate into the valleys from the coast overnight and be just thick enough so that it would look like I am above the clouds. Too thick and I will be engulfed in fog and it will look bad. (I did happen to get engulfed for a portion of the video, as you will see, but luckily it was temporary.) The fog that happens is a result of this weather phenomena in california that happens only at certain days and only between May and June typically, and lasts only for a couple hours between the early morning hours.
Timing: I had to check the weather several days ahead of time and read the weather discussions in great detail to know whether the marine layer was going to be just right. Then I had to ask my friend if they could make it then. And by “then” I mean… we had to wake up at 3am… drive to the spot… then hike 30 minutes. Then do the damn thing and wrap it up before sunrise, which was about 540am… which means I had a very small window of time during magic hour (aka golden hour). (there were 2 days i woke up at 3am and scouted the location and the marine layer was too thick and i had to reschedule)
Planning: Since I only had a small window of time during magic hour (one hour before sunrise) before the fog lifted, I had to be ready and I couldn’t waste my helpers time either. So I had planned the entire sequence ahead of time so I could just do the whole flow during magic hour (that special time just before sunrise).
Editing: This was the first time I recorded a video with multiple cameras rolling at once. I had to learn how to edit a multi-camera project and I learned how to use Sony Vegas to do this. I had to sync up all the video clips and then figure out how to choose which cameras had the best shot at the time.
Voice: Normally, I’m used to just talking and demonstrating at the same time. But I had to do a voice over for this, so after the video clips were all lined up, I had to just start talking over it, transcribe it, then improve my transcript and make it really great. I had to record in a quiet environment with a good mic. (I had to coddle poor medax to stop her from snoring many times.)
Feedback: After I got my first draft done, I asked friends for feedback. I ended up having to add music which made it sound much more professional. Then I ended up adding cross fades to all the transitions because before they were hard cuts and that wasn’t flowing with the rest of the scenery and vibe. I even added a bird sound track for the first few minutes to make it nice. All in all, this was 6 months of learning from start. Not bad for my first big video project and being a one-man production studio doing all this on the side as a hobby, right? I hope so.
