Hey folks,

So I'm working on a Travel/Documentary Film, and I've wanted to post about it and get feedback, but I didn't want to while we were in full fundraising mode, since I didn't want to seem like I was grubbing for money - we've raised plenty now, so I just want to hear people's thoughts on the idea/aesthetic notions and also perhaps the specific route we're taking (starting in Seattle, going up to the top of Montana, then heading straight south to Utah, heading east through Colorado, and then coming up north through the Appalachians. Here's the gist/our little spiel:

This is the car we're doing the trip in:







Some of the roads we'll be driving:


Buffalo River Road


Glacier National Park


Going to the Sun Road


Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/user/justgofilm


And the website: http://www.justgofilm.com/



If you feel like taking a look, by all means please do - I'm just curious as to people's thoughts, and any/all feedback.

Thanks folks!

 

This is exactly the sort of thing I need! It's a good point - one that we are trying to address. I think, for me, the most important thing we mention and keep in mind is that, more than anything, this trip has to be a metaphor, a rather dramatic example. Not everybody needs to just go out and go on a crazy road trip. But everybody has the opportunity for adventure in their life, somewhere, and we believe that adventure is important. As such, we're hoping people watch the film, enjoy it, and then go about finding their own adventure in their own way, whatever that means for them. Although, of course, we recommend road trips

And if you have any suggestions on places we should make sure not to miss on the way, definitely mention them.


EDIT: I want to thumbs up your post, Ched, but I'm out of thumbs. Accept my virtual thumbs up, for the moment.

 

This looks really cool. Me and a few of my friends have vague plans to do something similar around Europe at some point, without the whole documentary thing though. I don't have any advice or anything, I just wanna say good luck.

 

I appreciate it. We can use all the luck we can get. It's a thirty year old car with a carburetor and we're going 5,500 miles (after I've driven it three thousand to get to Seattle in the first place) and we're driving up the highest paved road in the country. The car might not make it!

So yeah, I'll take good luck any day.

 

This looks awesome. I was actually thinking of doing something like this with a couple of close friends after we graduate. I don't have much to say in the form of advice except this: make sure to add whatever you can to the seats to make them as comfortable as possible. I recently drove ~1900 miles from TX to CO with said friends and the worst part of the drive was the soreness. We took a break from driving every 2hrs, but even then pretty much everyone in the car was sore. Good luck.

 

This is fantastic advice, thanks.

And thanks Raven, I'll definitely let you know when we're there. And thanks for that catch on the map - we just had to update it because we had too many points plotted and one map couldn't hold it, so we made West and East maps - I need to go add the East map to the website. Again, thanks for the catch!

 

The only thing I can see that is problematic is 100 dollars a week, including gas money...

I drove from Kentucky to Seattle (a very similar route you are taking) and gas alone cost us almost 1,000 dollars (our trip was only 10 days). This was only a month ago and gas prices were a lot cheaper than they will be in August. We didn't take as many scenic routes as you guys are as well.

To fill up a 13 gallon tank will cost you almost 50 dollars in Seattle. This will only get you to the other end of the state. You will have spent 100 dollars in gas on the first day alone.

300 x 4 = 1,200. This will not be enough just for gas unless your car gets amazing gas mileage.

Oh... and every national park will cost you 20 or more for the vehicle (and most camp sites in the parks are not free).

 

Fortunately, we're not camping in national parks - we're camping in National Forests! National Forests are free to camp in, and you can camp anywhere in them. We've actually used roadtrippers.com which calculates your route and gas prices to give you an estimate on how much it will cost for gas - the trip for us, the car we're using gets around thirty mpg (pretty awesome for an older car) and we're doing virtually no city driving, entirely highway - the estimate is that it'll cost us about 760 dollars for gas. That'd be about 200 gallons of gas at nearly four dollars a gallon, and at nearly thirty mpg, that would cover some 5700 miles!

All of that leaves us with 500 as a team to feed four people for three weeks. We're camping and cooking for ourselves the whole time, so we're hopeful on that front.

Good points to think about, though.

 

Yup - you're totally right, and it absolutely bears mentioning - we actually had a write up on a travel website asking about ways to save money on adventures, and going as a group is absolutely one of them - undoubtedly. Solo it would be incredibly more cost-prohibitive.


And yeah, splitting as evenly as possible. I'll actually be handling some of the hardest off-road driving to begin with, since I'll have had the most experience with the car at the start of the trip (I'm actually driving it out to Seattle from New York solo before we start filming - a trip I'm almost as excited about, to be honest) - but the goal will be to share the driving as much as possible, to keep us all fresh.

 

This looks amazing. Wish I could come with. Only word of advice is to bring plenty of reading material. You have a lot more free time when traveling than you might expect.

I'll echo Raven from above -- hit me up when you swing through DC and I'll buy you guys a round.

 

I've done 2100 miles - Calgary to Toronto - in 4 days before. Twice. It sucked hard because we were rushing (both times it was for work) and didn't really have time to stop and just enjoy it. On the other hand, it's the trip where I started reading the Dresden Files, so, silver lining.

Take lots of books, multiple cameras (video and still) and for god's sake, get out and stretch, very often...

This looks awesome, even though I don't really 'do' camping. Still, if I wasn't a responsible adult with a fucking mortgage, I'd be begging to come with.

 

Well, you're actually hitting my little old state of DE. Let me know when you roll around and if I'm in town I'll hang out for a bit. I can introduce you to some weird folks that might make for good documentary stuff. Larpers and RPG players and just other weird stuff.

 

Hey, so here's a teaser trailer we cobbled together from some of the footage - there's tons to go through!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQdUai-8Ro

 

Looks like you had a lot of fun and shenanigans that will keep me entertained. I'm looking forward to when you release the full vid.

 

Pretty sure that's a trailer, not a teaser, as it is 3+ minutes long. A teaser is typically much shorter, and they tend to have less film footage and are generally meant to 'tease' the audience with the very little amount of footage and the use of quotes/dialogue displayed graphically.