Guides D’Aventures ~ Ecuador
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES FEATURING ADVENTURE GUIDES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD
After a long 2 year break due to the pandemic, I finally got the opportunity to jump back on a plane and travel to beautiful Ecuador. We were there to film another episode of “Guides D’Aventures”, which is an international series showcasing Canadian adventure guides. This episode was about whitewater kayaking and we spent 7 days going down multiple rivers including the incredible Jondachi river in the Amazon rainforest.
Ecuador is covered in dense green vegetation, beautiful mountains and waterfalls, amazing people and cheap food…what’s not to like?
Guides D’Aventures is produced by Balestra Productions and this episode was directed by Isabelle Major.
Guides D’Aventures ~ Moab, Utah
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES FEATURING ADVENTURE GUIDES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD
For our final trip around the world we flew to Salt Lake City, Utah and then drove 4 hours to the town of Moab to film mountain biking. Moab is a small town of 8000 residents, but apparently up to 4 million adventure seeking tourists visit every year. The area around Moab is famous for mountain biking, hiking, base jumping, skydiving and driving off-road with huge jeeps and all terrain vehicles.
The landscape around Moab was incredible to put it mildly. Massive red rock canyons in a desert environment surrounded by huge snow peaked mountains. The area is very popular for filming all the big western movies and even some iconic scenes from Star Wars. Our film crew was required to have a chaperone from the Moab Film Commission all week while we worked. It was a little annoying having a babysitter shadow us every day, but the laws in Utah are very strict, so we had no choice. The film commission officer made sure we didn’t break any rules and we had to be very careful not to destroy any of the delicate desert terrain as we hiked around with our equipment.
Everyday we would meet up with our guide and his clients and film them biking through canyons, desert trails and panoramic mountain ridge lines. Recording sound for this adventure required a lot of wireless microphones as it was nearly impossible to follow the bikers everywhere they went. We ended up hiking around 10km a day up and down trails to film the group. The heat was intense, usually around 35 degrees with zero shape and very little cloud cover. The scenery was unbelievably stunning however, so I guess the dehydration and exhaustion was worth it haha. In the end, I think we were able to capture some awesome content and create another great episode of Guides D’Aventures.
Well that’s officially a wrap on my world tour, and it has truly been the craziest year of my life. We hiked through the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, went white water rafting in New Zealand, back country skied in Japan, surfed the North Shore in Hawaii, went paragliding in Mexico, kite surfed the west coast of Australia, filmed underwater cave diving in France, and finished it off with mountain biking in Moab. Over the last 8 months, I’ve been on 46 flights and was away from home over 90 days. It’s been an amazing journey and a life time worth of memories, something I never thought I would get to experience. Truly a dream come true!
Guides D’Aventures is produced by Balestra Productions and this episode was directed by Isabelle Major.
Guides D’Aventures ~ France
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES FEATURING ADVENTURE GUIDES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD
For episode 7 of this docu-series, I travelled to France to record sound for a show about underwater cave divers. Our first 2 days were spent filming inside an incredible 1000 year old abandoned mine. It was an endless labyrinth of precision cut corridors and atriums, sometimes hundreds of feet high. We drove down into the mine and zigzagged our way through the maze until we reached the water a few hundred feet underground. The water was an accumulation of decades of rain that trickled into the mine to form a huge lake and a very unique experience for cave divers. Each day, our guide would discuss a plan with her clients and figure out what route they would navigate through on their dive.
We spent the next 3 days travelling around the countryside with the divers and filmed them go in and out of multiple caves. One cave was all the way down an old cistern and the divers could explore up to 80km of tunnels and caverns below the surface. In order to get down to the water, the divers had to use ropes and pulleys to lower all of their air tanks and gear 100 feet down. Each diver would then climb down a huge ladder and jump into the water. The entire process took about 3 hours until they were finally ready to dive. After they went below the surface, our film crew could take a break until we saw the air bubbles from the divers returning to the surface. One of the divers was a professional underwater cameraman, so they did all the filming in the caves for us, and some of the footage was unbelievable.
Being a sound recordist on this shoot had its challenges, but in the end it was a very memorable trip, and I think one of the best episodes yet! Only one more adventure left before this crazy journey is over. Next up, mountain biking through Moab, Utah!
Guides D’Aventures is produced by Balestra Productions and this episode was directed by Isabelle Major.
HORS QUÉBEC
TV SERIES FEATURING FRANCOPHONE COMMUNITIES OUTSIDE OF QUÉBEC.
There seems to be this misconception that French Canadians only live in Québec. Hors Québec is a show that showcases francophone communities across our entire country, with many different cultures and traditions. I had an amazing time recording sound for this show and working with the 5 hilarious comedians of Improtéine. Vincent Poirier, Olivier Nadon, Stéphane Guertin, Martin Laporte and Nadia Campbell each take turns hosting the different episodes.
Hors Québec is produced by Les Productions Rivard.
Guides D’Aventures ~ Australia
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES FEATURING ADVENTURE GUIDES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD
The next stop on our world tour took us all the way down to Exmouth, Australia to film kite surfing on the west coast. 20 minutes outside of Exmouth is Cape Range National Park, which is where we filmed most of the kite surfing and wildlife. Our first day we filmed our guide Sylvie at Sandy Bay, which had an incredible beach. The white sand felt like icing sugar between your toes and the crystal clear aqua blue water was simply perfect. I used a waterproof wireless microphone and high range antennas to record all the sound on the water. After filming, we all jumped in the water and got a much needed break from the heat. Each day was around 35 degrees, with zero clouds in the sky. Temperatures hit 48 degrees only 2 weeks before we arrived, and with almost no trees or shade of any kind, the heat can get pretty intense. We left the beach at sunset so that we could film kangaroos on the drive home. Sunset is when they all come out to feed, so we saw hundreds of them, including a couple close calls when they would run across the road. I’m happy to say no kangaroos were harmed while filming this episode!
The next day we took a break from kite surfing and went snorkelling at Turquoise Bay, which was another awesome beach inside the Cape Range National Park. After doing a few interviews on the beach, I was able to take off my gear and swim around with the crew. I strapped a GoPro to my wrist and swam around filming sea turtles, coral, tropical fish and the occasional eel. Exmouth is world famous because it is located beside the Ningaloo reef which is home to a huge population of whale sharks. Our cameraman Ivan was able to tag along with some scientists who specialize in whale shark research. He filmed in the water with the scientists and gave them some video footage for allowing him to tag along. The rest of our crew was definitely jealous that we didn’t get to go as well, but hard to complain when you’re getting paid to be on the other side of the world !
The wildlife in Western Australia definitely didn’t disappoint. We saw kangaroos, dingos, emus, whale sharks, massive ant hills and 5 foot long Bungarra lizards. Going to the outback was a pretty incredible adventure, and something I won’t soon forget.
Guides D’Aventures is produced by Balestra Productions and this episode was directed by Mark Chatel.
Guides D’Aventures ~ Mexico
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES FEATURING ADVENTURE GUIDES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD
We flew to Guadalajara, Mexico, then drove 2 hours to Colima, where we spent the next 7 days filming paragliding in the hot sun. Each day was 35 degrees and sunny, not a single drop of rain or a cloud in the sky during our entire trip. As nice as that sounds, it was pretty challenging at times working in the Mexican heat.
This episode features Canadian pilot Jonathan Pinnsonault and his journey to becoming a professional paraglider. Each morning we met up with Jonathan and drove up the bumpy roads to the top of the mountain, where a group of paragliders were waiting for the perfect wind conditions to launch themselves into the sky. My plan for recording sound while the pilots were in the air, was a combination of wireless mics and small portable recorders. As luck would have it, the launch point at the top of the mountain was filled with multiple TV transmission towers, resulting in a lot of RF interference. We made some compromises, but fortunately we were able to get some amazing sound bites, while members of our film crew participated in tandem jumps.
Many thanks to all the amazing people we met in Colima, and for a birthday celebration I won’t soon forget! Delicious food, cheap tasty cervazas, volcano sunsets and many laughs amongst friends. Guides D’Aventures is produced by Balestra Productions and this episode was directed by Isabelle Major.
Rising ~ Night Lovell
THE JUNO AWARDS DOCU-SERIES SHOWCASING THE STORIES BEHIND INSPIRING CANADIAN ARTISTS
This episode of “Rising” follows Shermar Paul, aka Night Lovell, who is a 21-year-old unsigned rapper living in Ottawa, Canada. Despite being completely independent, Night Lovell is one of Canada’s biggest underground artists with a massive following in North America, Asia, and Europe. I had the pleasure of working with the amazing crew at Juno TV and director Avery Stedman as we filmed all across the city this past fall.
