Seasonaires - The Movie

It's the middle of winter and I'm firmly back in the UK, summer seems so far away in both directions. Finishing off this video though has brought back so many good memories from the summer to keep me going.

I was lucky enough to spend summer of 2011 working in Les Gets in the French Alps with the best bunch of like minded people I have ever met. About mid way through the season we decided it would be cool to make a film of us riding to remind us of all the good times once the season had finished. This idea quickly took flight sprouting some rather ambitious arms and legs. We were all feeling very inspired after a group viewing of Clay Porter's 3 Minute Gaps!

Since there were 5 of us who were the main riding group that were up for making the film, we decided it would be sweet if the 5 of us could have our own section filmed on the trail(s) of our choice and edited to the music of our choice. This was taken as the basic format. We then added a couple of joint rider sections and thought we would see what other footage we managed to get for anything else.

With the 2 different HD cameras we had between us we set about filming. After a lot of the filming had been done, but no editing, I put together this trailer whilst we were still in France:



By the time the season was over we had amassed a good amount of footage and assigned bits to edit to both me and Si. We then headed home on a super long coach journey before saying goodbye to everyone in London Victoria coach station. Parting ways with everyone that you have shared some of the best times ever with and spent every day with over the last 4 months was sad.

This is where the troubles of getting a final video together began. Due to lack of HDD space for all the footage, there was a fair bit of file sharing/swapping that needed to happen between me and Si to pull the full thing together. Me living in Scotland and Si on the south coast of England was a bit awkward. After many logistical nightmares and cock-ups (including a HDD of footage being returned to Amazon!?!!) we got all the sections edited and I was just waiting on a couple of files from Si so I could put the whole thing together. Si had gone back out to France for the winter season by this point though so I was waiting on CDs posted from France!

Whilst I waited I put together a quick teaser:



So the CD's arrived, credits were made and all the sections linked together. Rendering to a sensible format and file size whilst maintaining decent quality proved more challenging than I had anticipated and then there was the 3 hour plus upload still to do...

And finally here it is, the full film! It was a long time coming for those who were waiting for it but hopefully it was worth the wait, I think so.

Enjoy!




Title image thanks to Loz Webb - http://www.rootsandrain.com/photos/loz-webb/