The John Muir Trail (According To Chris) Movie Trailer 2

Oh, and I forgot to mention it will be free :)

Looking forward to it!

Ok here’s the full length movie:  https://youtu.be/Masta9yxAUE

Merry Christmas!

Thanks for sharing. Enjoyed the video. :)

Excellent video! I’ve enjoyed the creative license you’ve taken with lots of different treatments. I often limit myself, trying to everything very consistent but your video gains interest from different things you’ve done with your raw footage. Very enjoyable!

Thanks Chris. I think that is the best video report on the JMT I have seen.

Thanks guys!  Hope you had a Merry Christmas.

I learned a ton of lessons through this experience.  I’ll probably do another one soonish.  I’m thinking a short Yosemite winter trip video.  Then next summer I’ll do a longer one documenting something more offtrail and adventurous in Seki.

Liked that one!

That was outstanding. Thank you for sharing your trip with us.

Great film, thanks for sharing.

Chris,

Just watched your movie tonight.

Thank you for sharing your journey that is uniquely you.

I appreciate the honesty of your story and how you show yourself as you are…warts and all.

Really refreshing to see something real and very personal.

When I did the JMT in 2011, the last three days I was getting a little sick of the stench that was myself and I was missing my family too.

So could relate to your experiences…thanks for sharing and reminding me of my own JMT trip.

Really makes me want to do it all over again.

Tony

Thanks!   Honesty was something I was going for.  I wanted my kids to see the reality and set expectations accordingly.  It’s smelly, dirty, and completely amazing and worth it.  :)  I think many here on BPL would concur.

Funny story:  In an attempt to make the film honest to my experience, I spent dozens of hours color grading the footage to match my memory of each view.   The problem was that I had polarized sunglasses on most of the time while hiking.  So I matched the film colors accordingly.  I reduced midtones, increased contrast, and darkened the outer edges to simulate the feel of the sunglass frames.  The scenes where I’m not wearing sunglasses are much more color accurate.

A real film professional would have used objective tools like vector scopes and stuff to color correct.  But I’m no professional.  ;)

Btw thank you all for being so forgiving of the vertigo inducing footage.  I learned a lot from this, including the importance of a slow steady hand while filming.  :)

“I often limit myself, trying to everything very consistent..”

Yup, that a big problem of mine too.

I just found this, and only watched a few minutes so far, but I can comment that the cinematography is outstanding.  I think the grading is great so far.  :)

Thanks Larry!  The truth is that I was learning during the editing process.  So everytime I learned something fun, I incorporated it into the film.  :)

To retain focus, I tried to use reoccurring elements like the map sequences, clouds, fonts, voiceovers, etc to retain an overall theme.

My next project will have lots of new elements, but hopefully retain focus as well.  I’m working on it now.  Wish me luck!