I've been learning about so many awesome vehicles in the past week or two and I'm starting to feel a little antsy. Being in Portland is nice and all, but hitting the road (or Un-Road) in one of these contraptions sounds pretty darn tempting...
First off if this glass-bottomed hot air balloon. I never did use a hot air balloon during the trip- mostly because their route is pretty unpredictable and it requires a chase vehicle (which seems sorta un-un-roady). But this seems like one heck of a ride and a little terrifying too:
And lastly (for now, since I'll probably hear about something cool later today) there's this adorable three-wheeled camper.
It's like a tiny house on wheels! It's only a concept but I'd be happy to take it cross-country if they build one for me. Are you guys reading this? Maybe Halogen can make another series about that? It is small, but it's also so cute and efficient that I think I'd be up for it. Get in touch!
Flipped through The Oregonian this morning to find my face smiling back at me.
Always a little strange, but it was a fun article by Peter Carlin. He's been one of my favorite writers there for years so it was awesome when he started covering the Un-Road Trip a little over a year ago. This article covers my cross-country journey along with a bunch of my other side projects. It's nice to get some press for my beetles and kazoos too. And hopefully reading about my Tiger Beetle documentary in print will inspire me to finish editing it even sooner! Check out the article here.
It was just about a year ago that I completed the Un-Road Trip and two weeks ago I headed out to North Carolina to tape the final intro and in-between segments for the Un-Road Trip TV show (the series is scheduled to premiere on Halogen in early 2011).
Halogen is cutting together all the footage from my trip into ten 30-minute episodes which will be strung together with a sort of conversational narrative. We wanted to try something new that wasn't a straight-to-camera hosting situation and I think it should be pretty cool (or at least interesting). Essentially the show takes place as I'm presenting a slide show of my trip to pals at my house in Oregon. It moves in and out of video as we count up modes of transportation, joke around, and delve deeper into the trip.
I flew in a few days before the rest of the cast so I could work on the script a bit more and help get the set in order. The set was one of the coolest parts of the shoot. They essentially recreated my house (okay - who are we kidding - I haven't lived anywhere for two years) in a studio in North Carolina. It looked pretty authentic and pretty Oregonian too. It definitely looked like some place I would live. After two days of prep work the rest of the cast arrived and the cameras started rolling. In addition to four cast members, there was a crew of about ten folks. We had three cameramen, a script supervisor, a gaffer, an intern, a producer- even a make-up person to touch us up every few minutes. I've been involved in some big productions before, but never in the middle of them like I was this time.
Take a look at some photos from the shoot:
I think it went pretty well, though it's pretty hard to tell when you're in the middle of it all. Were we funny? Was it interesting? Did I look too pale? The whole crew seemed to think it was going great so I'll have to take their word for it for now. I guess I'll find out for myself in a few weeks when I see the finished pilot.
Post-production is really in full swing now. The theme song's been written, the opening's being animated, and the first episode will start getting cut together next week. It's starting to feel pretty real, and I'll document as much as I can right here. Stay tuned...
