It’s been a heck of a lot of fun sharing with you my entire journey through China all the way from Shanghai up to the monks of Shaolin and onwards to the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an. With so much footage I took along the way, it’d be a shame to let it go to waste so I decided to put together an extended cut if you will of my original journey to the terracotta warriors.
Read more about China
- What Is The Airbnb Experience Like In Shanghai
- Get Into China Without A Visa
- Essential China Travel Tips
How to get the best deals in travel
- Hottest deals – Bookmark the travel deals page.
- Car rentals – stop getting ripped off and learn about car rental coupon codes.
- Hotels – Use corporate codes or get Genius 2 tier with Booking.
- Flights – Have you ever heard of the “Everywhere” feature?
- Insurance – Make sure you’re covered and learn more about where to buy the best travel insurance
Here's what we're covering:
Introducing the Extended Cut
I may have been influenced by Peter Jackson here. I essentially took the core of what I had and filled it in with all the other clips that I wish I could’ve included the first time around but couldn’t because I wanted to keep the whole video under 3 minutes.
The now lengthier 4 minutes and 30 seconds paints, I hope, a much fuller video of what my trip was like over the course of 14 days and gives YOU a good reason to travel to China.
The Making Of
The Idea
I knew going into my China trip that I needed to have a plan for what I wanted to do with video. From experience, I knew that just taking random videos with my GoPros (one GoPro Hero 3+ Black and 4 Silver) wasn’t going to work. So literally after going through security at the airport, a lightbulb went off with this idea to take the same concept as Murad Osmann’s photos where he took the same photo of his girlfriend holding onto his hand all over the world except extend it into video.
Filming
So there I was on the movator at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, having this incredible epiphany and I turn to my girlfriend and say “okay take the GoPro and I want you to walk behind me and frame me in the middle, half body…and walk with me!” At first I got the puzzled “Huh? This is crazy!” face but we soon got our first shot done which turned into that opening thumbs up clip.
After that, it was literally me asking to get shots of me walking along in all sorts of places. I know for a fact people thought I was a weirdo because even our guides asked “Why is she shooting him from behind all the time?”
The good thing was that I knew exactly what kind of shots I wanted and that meant I wasn’t shooting random b-roll and other things all the time.
Post-Processing
Post-processing the video after coming back was probably the hardest part. With so much footage and to select the good ones and then pick out 2 seconds from each one was a big pain in the behind. I literally had to go down to the lowest zoom level just because of how fast paced the music was and having to time it all perfectly.
Credit
I have to give a huge shout out to my girlfriend for shooting ALL of this footage. After 14 days, you can imagine that I felt pretty bad every time I had to turn around and say, “I need another GoPro shot of me right now”. She mastered the art of synchro walking while holding onto the GoPro on a pole to perfection. She even started doing all these pan shots even when I didn’t ask. I spy a new videographer in the making! No seriously, thank you. You’re truly the best <3.
So with that, I hope you enjoy the closing post for this amazing trip. There’s so much to explore in China and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Leave a Reply