The journey to Lapland as well as my filming of it has concluded a couple of days ago and I want to write a short conclusion of my experiences, struggles and learnings.
All in all I feel like filming worked out quite well, both technically and story-wise. I have been struggling a bit with the cold, but the main issue was mostly my hands and fingers and not the cameras which was good. The batteries have lasted me longer than I had expected and I made it through the whole journey without any battery struggles. I even managed to fly my drone twice, but there the low temperatures did significantly affect how long the battery lasted and I had to do two emergency landings. Nonetheless, I managed to get some nice footage of the snowy marshes and forests of Lapland with members of our group skiing and reindeer sledding. Other than the battery life, I was also a bit concerned with the safety of the camera’s LCD displays because I read online that they might break in really low temperatures. And while filming in minus 30 degrees celsius I noticed that the display moved slower and showed some artefacts. However, once I got the camera warmed up again, the display returned to normal and showed no sign of damage. The times where I was most afraid for the safety of the cameras was while taking Timelapse content of the northern lights where I had the camera out on a tripod in minus 34 degrees for 10 minutes. But even then, the cameras showed no sign of damage after I slowly warmed them back up, so I am positively surprised at the durability of the cameras in low temperatures.
One thing I realised fairly quickly during the filming process is, that most of the time I went with the flow of the journey and group instead of very strictly sticking to my shot list. This also worked out well with the travel group I was filming, because while they were all really good with being filmed during the journey and didn’t mind me recording them, they were quite opposed to “faking” anything. I got frequent comments about how unauthentic things were, even if I just quickly asked someone if they could repeat a movement or move slightly for a better camera angle. So I pivoted towards recording what was happening with almost no interference or commentary from my side, which however sometimes also made it pretty difficult to achieve certain shots I had imagined. Nonetheless, I believe that the footage I collected now really authentically represents the journey, the group and the experiences they had together. Now I just need to manage to create a film in the edit that accurately depicts these experiences while also conveying the story and message I had in mind during the planning phase. But what I mostly learned from this was that you cannot plan for everything that will happen and have to stay flexible and spontaneous enough to adapt to unexpected things that are happening while still keeping the message you want to convey to your viewers in mind to make sure you focus on the right action.
That was also one thing I was struggling with, to let go of the idea of documenting everything and instead focus on what I will actually need for my story. There were many interesting things happening, which, however, did not serve my story or would have just been too much to also fit into my film. While it was difficult to put my camera down at times, it was quite liberating to realise I did not need to film every little detail that was happening.
I really enjoyed the trip and the sense of community in our travel group even though I was technically there to work. This sense of belonging to the group and being part of the experience allowed me to really get a sense of how the journey felt to the participants. However, it also made it difficult at times to stay neutral and as an outsider of the story. What I also realised is, that the moments I most wanted to film because there was some struggle with having to catch a train or packing your bags quickly, I in fact also had to run for the train or pack my stuff, so I could not actually film all that I wanted to film.
All in all, I really enjoyed the experience and could also collect some footage I am quite happy with. Now it is just about refining that footage in the edit and telling the story I have in mind. I also provided photos for the travel group every day and got some really positive feedback from everyone, which, I think also helped with easing their scepticism about me being there and documenting them.
