Video below is of Kauai taken by Devin Graham, the same island where my family vacationed at last year. My prior post has many pictures taken from some of the same spots as in this video. China too is endowed with many incredibly beautiful landscapes.
The difference, however, is that China is now the factory floor of the world. She is polluting in order to get the work, so developed countries like the U.S. can more easily preserve their environment. These footages are beautiful and inspiring, and I hope the Chinese people remember that they need to reclaim theirs somehow. Her population is enormous, so it will take extra imagination and creativity to realize.
In case you aspire to make this kind of video, below is the caption Graham left for this video at Youtube. He is a really good cinematographer. As you see in his comments below, he spent many days filming. It takes a lot of experience and patience to get those moments of nature. The most dramatic moments are near dusk and dawn, and there is no way around it. Anyways, since I have the same equipment, I must say, I feel inspired after watching this and some of his other videos.
Film made by Devin Graham.
This entire film was filmed on the island of Kauai over a 9 day period. The first 3 days were spent hiking the Napali coast, a 11 mile hike along the coast. We did this for 3 days. After this we spent 2 more days exploring the island. I did this with 8 other friends. After the 5 days were up with them, they all flew back to Oahu where everyone was living, and I stayed on the island on my own for 4 more days.
I had a rental truck, that’s how I got around. I didn’t want to spend money on hotels though, so I slept in the truck, in a Walmart parking lot for the other 4 nights. A lot of cars get broken in on the island of Kauai, according to rumors, so that’s why I would camp in the parking lots, so I was a lot more exposed if someone tried to break in where I was sleeping 🙂 That way i wouldn’t get robbed, raped, or murdered, ha.
At night when I got done filming, I would go into the only Walmart on the island, where they also have a McDonald’s, and I would bum off there wi-fi with my ipod touch, and plot my path for the next day, then I would head out before the break of dawn every morning, and I would get back after sunset to do it all over again.
On a technical side, this was all all shot on the Canon 5D Mark II. Most of the shots were done with the Canon 16-35mm 2.8 L Series lens.
The smooth shots were done with a Glidecam HD-4000. You can check out the exact model on their official website here where you can also buy them. I’ve been shooting with there glidecams for the last 5 years, and love them. They do take a little bit of a learning curve, but once you get past that, it’s all smooth!
http://www.glidecam.com/
Also, here’s a link to some of the photography I did as well while I was filming. I did this just on the side, just because I was already at the location, but my main focus was capturing it on video. Second was photographing it.
I’ve had around 30 emails within the first 12 hours of releasing this video, all with common questions, my response to them all was to big to put in here, so I posted it on my blog. For any other technical info, check out my blog below, and any other questions, feel free to ask there.
http://devingraham.blogspot.com
Allen says
These guys did the Na Pali trail. I’d have done the dive, but not the back flip.
Awesome video…
colin says
Another distinction I would add is that Kauai has been largely undeveloped and pristine. China, as a land mass, has had to sustain a grand civilization for over 4000 years, so any comparisons will be apple to oranges.
YinYang says
True, colin.
In that sense, China has more work to do in order to bring back the natural vitality of her environment. Btw, I am hopeful too. With that population is also a tremendous labor pool to tackle a lot of things.