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Saint West Filmworks Roadtrip 2015 Day 5

November 30, 2015

Day 5 saw a gathering of dusty, dirty, tired dudes crawling into the Story & Heart studio in Portland, OR. We had one last plan to finish this roadtrip out with a bang. To see more about our antics, check out some of our tutorials we shot with them on their awesome Academy. Also, Vimeo has been sharing some of our work on their Video School. Cheers to those amigos, we love us some Vimeo. Oh, we also smashed some stuff in slo mo. But we are still waiting for S&H to send us that footage...

Photography courtesy of Sean Horton @ www.hortonvisuals.com

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Saint West Filmworks Roadtrip 2015 - Day 3

October 8, 2015

Day 3 allowed us to sleep in a little bit and grab a solid breakfast at Red Hut Cafe in South Lake Tahoe. After buying a couple of Keep Tahoe Blue stickers for our Pelican cases and downing some pancakes, it was time to head up to Angora Lake.

Angora may be one of the most beautiful best kept secrets in the country. With limited parking and nearly no signage, it’s very hard to find and if you don’t arrive early you will not get a parking spot for hours. We were lucky enough to have some local firefighters give us dibs on their spot as they were leaving, and we were off. The hike up is about 20 minutes with decent inclines, so hiking with 30 lbs of gear was less than ideal. But the view once we arrived would more than make up for the effort. We wanted to capture the fun of jumping from the granite cliffs into the crystal clear alpine lake water. There is a small audience of tourists and locals that line the small granite sand beach to the west of the small lake, cheering people on as they conquer their fears and jump. After lugging our gear across half a mile of huge granite boulders and steep hillsides, we finally made it to the 20 ft jump on the south end of the lake and set up our MoVI and RED Epic to capture the action. We also rented a rowboat to give ourselves a perspective from the water. This proved a fantastic decision, doubling as a gear cart for our return trip. Once we wrapped, we had to hit Big Daddy's Burgers back in South Lake Tahoe before making the long drive north to Chiloquin, Oregon. Luckily, the drive afforded many creative opportunities that we took full advantage of, including a sunset flight over a Nevada valley and long exposure star photography from the middle of the highway in the pitch black night. We rolled into Chiloquin around 1am, dog tired. Day 4 coming soon!

Photography courtesy of Sean Horton @ www.hortonvisuals.com

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Saint West Filmworks Roadtrip 2015 - Day 2

August 24, 2015

Day 2 found us waking up pretty early and hitting the road from east L.A. Our first destination was lunch in Lone Pine, CA on our way to Mammoth Lakes. On the way, we saw a sign for beef jerky, 75 miles ahead. We thought, must be pretty good jerky. For the next hour, every ten miles, we were reminded of this jerky shack. By the time we were 10 miles out, it was a forgone conclusion that we had to stop. And stop we did. In between Inyo National Forest and Death Valley National Park in a little town called Olancha, CA, lies an unassuming if not well marketed Jerky joint called "Gus’s Really Good Fresh Jerky”. Here you will find some of the best road trip jerky of your life. You are offered samples immediately upon entering this crazy little place in the middle of the desert. We took our samples, bought our sweet and sour packages and went on our way. But not before we threw a couple of Saint West Filmworks stickers on the wall, an obvious pastime of visitors through the years. If you are ever in the area, and find our sticker, take a picture of it and we will send you a free Saint West TShirt. Because that would be awesome.

On the way up to Mammoth we decided to call an audible and go further to Mono Lake. Located in California’s spectacular Eastern Sierra mountain range, Mono Lake is an oasis in the dry Great Basin and a vital habitat for millions of migratory and nesting birds. It is a wild, beautiful lake like nothing you’ve ever seen before, almost like another planet with it’s extremely high salt content and tufa rock formations. We filmed our own crew as hikers exploring the lake’s ecosystem. The video production options in this area were as abundant as the black flies that lined the lake’s muddy waterfront. Once we finished up, it was PB&J’s and Turkey Sandwiches for dinner and it was really starting to feel like a road trip. Once we had our fill, it was back in the van’s on the way up to Lake Tahoe for an overnight in a mountain cabin. Day 3 coming soon!

Photography courtesy of Sean Horton @ www.hortonvisuals.com

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Saint West Filmworks Roadtrip 2015 - Day 1

July 30, 2015

We decided the best way to kick off Saint West Filmworks would be with a good old fashioned road trip. We invited our friends at Story & Heart to join us, and when they agreed, we thought we might as well make their office our destination! So it was set, San Diego to Portland. Our first day on the road found us in La Jolla, sharing the San Diego sun with some Sea Lions and waves splashing up onto the rocks. We made sure to keep our gear dry as we captured these stunning creatures in 5K and 120 FPS. From there, we hit a favorite Mexican spot for lunch, Las Olas in Cardiff. There, we met up with Greg and Lauren, our surfers who agreed to shoot with us for the afternoon. After some fish tacos curbed our appetite, we were off to Encinitas to find our secret surf spot. The resulting footage was some of the most fun we've shot to date, chasing surfers from the ground and the sky. The surf was surprisingly cooperative and the sunset was spectacular, making production a breeze. We packed up our video gear in the dark, and said goodbye to some new friends. We decided a quick stop at Pizza Port in Carlsbad would be the perfect way to end a perfect day. Stay tuned for details from Day 2!

Photography courtesy of Sean Horton @ www.hortonvisuals.com