Campfire Chronicles Podcast #4 | The Secrets of Our Filming Process and Bryan's Smoky Mountain Story

Description

In this episode of Campfire Chronicles, we talk about the process behind filming our episodes and the gear we use (and would like to use). Most importantly, we talk about the secret creed behind our videos.

Please post your questions below and we'll address them in an upcoming podcast!

Thanks for your support!

Download & RSS:

http://shoutengine.com/CampfireChronicles

--OUR AUDIO & FILM GEAR!--

Panasonic GH4 - http://amzn.to/1GJjb7N

Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 Lens - http://amzn.to/1FRE9kc

Canon T3i - http://amzn.to/1qHphdE

Canon 50mm f1.8 Lens - http://amzn.to/1p29wQs

Tokina 11-16mm Lens - http://amzn.to/UUrhVC

Manfrotto 502 Video Head MVH502AH - http://amzn.to/1nhkBrF

Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod - http://amzn.to/UKa55r

Glidecam 2000 HD w/ Quick Release Plate (That quick release plate is essential. Highly recommended) - http://amzn.to/WUpTEv

Rode Videomic Pro - http://amzn.to/1p2a9JT

Roland Quad Capture - http://amzn.to/1zKzD23

Behringer XM8500 Microphone - http://amzn.to/1qHqOAq

Sony Movie Studio Editing Software - http://amzn.to/1tM7NDR

--OUR CAMPING GEAR!--

Condor Bushlore Knife - http://amzn.to/1JaBBv7

Equinox Egret Tarp - http://amzn.to/1BIqkmW

Kelty Grand Mesa 2 Tent - http://amzn.to/1TrK9Fc

Eureka Casper Sleeping Bag - http://amzn.to/1BXhlxH

Buck 119 Knife - http://amzn.to/1TrKgQY

Mora Craftline Q Knife - http://amzn.to/1TrKffT

Katadyn Water Filter - http://amzn.to/1onus3P

Platypus Bladder - http://amzn.to/1TrKfNc

Columbia Silver Ridge Convertible Pants - http://amzn.to/1pR5qXL

Sketchers Waterproof Boots - http://amzn.to/1JaBKyL

--RECOMMENDED BOOKS--

http://astore.amazon.com/advarch-20?_...

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All of the musical compositions or arrangements and footage in this video are original, and were composed, recorded, and captured by Andrew Lin, Bryan Lin, and Robby Huang

Original content and music is copyright Adventure Archives/Team Scoog Production (c) 2015

Tags: Adventure (TV Genre),Podcast (Website Category),Film (Media Genre),Best,Hiking (Sport),Outdoor Education (Literature Subject),Outdoor Recreation (Interest),Backpacking (Sport),Survival Skills (TV Genre),Top,Wilderness (Quotation Subject)

Video Transcription

welcome to camp fire chronicles episode number four it is August twenty-eighth and it is 943 p.m. on a friday and i am Robbie who do I have here in Ohio this is Andrew Lyne and this is Homer Simpson I mean Brian Lynn and who do we have in California I'm back and this is Thomas excellent thank you all for watching our videos subscribing liking and sharing please check out our patreon at patreon.com / adventure you can donate money and get to see episodes early but you don't have to do that you can always watch them later but you get to see him early which we have a hood coming up in September we don't know when yet because we haven't even started editing but it's going to be from yosemite and it's gonna be great indeed is that wait look I can't wait ok so um last week we answer some questions right oh yeah but there was one question we were saving for this week and that is how do we film an episode and this is a spiced and stolen San yeah I think that's a nice tan for that wonderful question oh wait no a lot of time on it wrong actually that was a James Bolton every single we're sorry I was like at the wrong question yeah I knew that they were curious about it so I'm I think we should just start with saying what it was like when we first went out to film the first two original pilot that we tried to do at hocking hills and land between the lakes why don't you tell us about that Andrew oh well I remember at hucking hills we had your cannon and then my point-and-shoot and just a flimsy little plastic tripod which we actually used on the episodes too but we got there we got out of the car we're really excited as we walk down to that trail and then we were like trying to film lots of shots but there were so many people there and then we I remember actually like climbing up on this rock to get a good shot but there were just so many people and I don't think we feel it's back up just a little bit because i forgot about a really important thing is that part of what has inspired us to do this was that you used to watch bushcraft videos all the time on YouTube right yeah in about in 2010 I got a Canon t3i which for those who don't know is a DSLR camera that gives you a really shallow depth of field which makes it look like a film camera from any movie like it's where the background is worried but something else is in focus and so we make videos we make dumb videos all the time but Andrew was like yo we could make a really amazing bushcraft video with great production values that would be really fun to watch and we were already doing these things called good times videos which were just these five minute videos were Twitter dislike it's like like what adventure archives is only with like more music rights like embellish slide shows kinda like yeah exactly and we've been doing that since 2006 I think that was I took an After Effects class and I suddenly suddenly hit me as like I should do that with some of the trips we did but anyways yeah so we had the camera we had the idea to go and we went to hocking hills and as you said we were trying to get the shots and it wasn't good so what else happened after that well so we went on the main trail and eventually decided to turn back and leave to try find a less crowded trail and we filmed ourselves like stopped on the road in the middle of a country just like talking to the camera for like 12 minutes or something and then we drove to another trail I think it was consoles Hollow maybe but we were like hiking through the forest there's a lot more a lot a lot more solitude there and it was really beautiful but I think in the end just because it was like a trip where you drive around to a campsite it ended up not being anything and by the time we got to the campsite and it was like night time we hadn't filmed much and we just sort of like decided we weren't gonna film tomorrow we're just going to go home yeah okay well why don't we talk about what we actually bring so like what did we bring on the hocking hills trip as far as camera gear and stuff to actually film the episode I mean it just wasn't it just your t3i my point-and-shoot in a tripod no we had the Steadicam as well oh really there's a youtuber named Devin Supertramp and he does these amazing videos with the same Steadicam that we use it's a different model but it produces really smooth shots and so we didn't even know how to balance it at that point but we brought the Steadicam tripod and then that yeah the t3i so when we go out we have lots of extra batteries we found that out really quickly that one or two batteries is not enough and there's nowhere to charge obviously oh are you talking about what we bring now or order I'm talking about then o Radha Steadicam at hocking hills wow I didn't know that ok there's a particular shot actually that would turned out really well of you walking oh I remember that yeah walking in a drink you know actually I really want to edit that pilot together and see if we can turn it into something at least halfway decent well our other attempt was also at land between the lakes but as we talked about before there were like too many people and the weather was terrible and the mosquitoes were terrible so yeah so I think the I mean Brian and Thomas feel free to jump in any time if you guys have specific thoughts but I think the one thing that we learned really quickly from hocking hills and land between the lakes is that when you film for actual a positive viewing experience like you're not just like randomly filming and you want to like you have a specific like vision in mind there's a lot more work involved than what you realize because you have to not what you realize but what we realize because we found out really quickly that just any type of good shot you have to set it up and it takes a minute to set the tripod up take some effort and then you actually have to line it up really well and it takes like that's like two minutes right so two minutes to get the camera set up then you actually just do the like five second shot then you have to go back get the camera and the whole time that you're doing that you're hiking you're constantly on the lookout for oh is this gonna be a good shot is that can be a good shot what if we did this and one hard part about that is like at least for me everything looks amazing so I'm like I get this like a sort of anxiety like okay I want to just film it all but at the same time I also don't want to film anything I think the biggest hurdles that we had to overcome in our initial videos was the fact that we had to adjust to the fat had to adjust to the fact that we had to film whereas we were used to you know just walking and hiking and joining the scenery I think like what Robbie said we didn't realize just how much work that entailed so when you do factor in the video you know taking the videos you probably cut the amount of hiking and things that you do by half and we just didn't realize that in the beginning so you know you don't get enough shots where you just don't put enough effort toward towards it i think that's why a lot of our later videos are a lot better is because we we have that mindset we know just how much effort needs to be put forth and another thing is like not just the physical effort but also like the mental preparation like well even in our first dolly sods episode you could tell me and robbie were really camera shy and like just the the mental effort to both be on camera but also like not care about what other people think while you're filming things like like at hocking hills and land between the lakes part of it was like oh our friends are with us or like these other people you know we're here I think taking up that I'm really something you have to do is like when we actually prepared for that at Yosemite there's a specific scene that I won't spoil but before we did it like we before we actually started we prepared ourselves said okay if people come and they're watching and seeing what we're doing we have to ignore them or even use that as like fuel to do it even more enthusiastically because then you start to get self-conscious and then the shot gets ruined and then it's just speaking of which again I would love to hear Thomas's thoughts on our filming process since it you know somebody was the first time he's actually gone on like a full episode oh oh my god so I go hiking a lot I I go hiking a lot and a lot of the times I go hiking I don't actually a film it just because I like to hike so the week before I went to Yosemite I did Mount Baldy and I actually made to dissemble with my friends did no filming at all it was about ten miles at least with 3,000 feet elevation and that was a hard hard hike jump forward a week we're in Yosemite we're doing three miles about 2,500 feet elevation gain it's supposed to be easier but these guys are stopping every 10 minutes to get us to get a shot and yeah it's beautiful it's amazing but it's like I just started hiking I got my I got my you know I got my groove on and it's done we got to stop we gotta set up shot I was just blown away by how much effort these guys put into getting some shots it's just it's really frustrating if you're trying to like go if you're trying to hike and just keep going and going and going but these guys they're just like no we got to get the shot and I went at the time I just you know I did the best to hold my tongue but afterwards when we were reviewing the shots like ah all right that makes sense yeah it always becomes worth it afterwards like if you don't know what's going on I think I don't know about you guys but I've sort of gotten used to doing it to where I can tell if we're getting enough shots and I'm like oh yeah so it's like it's the activity itself has actually become quite rewarding whereas at the beginning it was just like oh man hi I hate having to set up the camera blah blah blah but now it's like really satisfying because you know what you're doing it for ya i will say that after every trip i still have this nagging paranoia where i'm like i don't think we filmed anything like didn't I did we actually film anything like and you never lose the 400 gigabytes worth of full SD card like literally every time after every episode of my ah crap dude this is gonna be garbage like what were we doing we didn't say anything all it is is just a bunch of dumb shots of us walking and showing our dumb backs like literally that's what I think every single time I got a question for you guys because you know this is the first time I actually got to go on a trip with you and see your filming process how how do you motivate yourself to go you know to keep going cuz you know for me it's just like I getting this mentality if I just I just keep hiking and hiking and then I hit this moment where I just can I feel like I don't have to ever stop but with you guys you go and like just as that like once you're about to break that threshold like oh we got to stop taking on how do you motivate yourself to keep going after that you know I I get we were saying cuz sometimes when I like run and then I stopped it turned around or something like that I like lose all the wind but with hiking I don't feel that as much for me it's like stopping to film is almost like being able to take a little breather but I'll also say that I'm just like we've edited enough of these episodes and like had all like late nights of frustration where we're like why didn't we get that shot like what the hell were we thinking for every episode really and then so I think like part of it is we're just like so used to it and so we know that it's worth it at this point that we're just motivated to like take the shot and then keep walking I think that it's when you stop periodically to take the shots it's also kind of well I don't like hiking long distances and you know when I I noticed that when i do hike long distance i end up just staring at my feet the whole time and like my mind wanders but when you when we do stop periodically to film you actually get time to you know realize and taken where you are and take in your surroundings and actually enjoy the scenery so i think that's what kind of pushes me is that you know it's actually more enjoyable to be able to stop and see what you're doing rather than thinking of hiking as reaching some destination you know in a matter of time so for me I haven't really thought about it because I don't really need motivation to hike its cuz I don't think distance has ever been like a goal of ours like all we're going to do 20 miles today or 10 miles it's always just more about the journey and like that's really good because in just about every other aspect of my life it's always about the goal it's never about the journey right mm-hmm and the journey is like the most important part because that's the time you that's what you spend the most time doing so i guess like when we're filming it it just i don't need any motivation because that is the motivation to just film and hike and everything plus i'm also one of those people who just I think video is kind of like one of my callings because I love seeing things like we call it living and reliving but you do something you film it and then immediately afterwards you watch what you just found and it's like having your cake and eating it too because you get to experience it and you get to rewatch it it's great oh great that thanks so what are there any moments that like stuck out as particularly frustrating when we were filming in Yosemite I'm trying to think for me for me you guys know I like to hike a lot and I was i I can't remember but I felt like especially going up that last well I don't spoil anything but there were a bunch of switchbacks at one point we were going up and I just did not want to stop because if I knew I stopped it would take almost as much energy to keep you know to get that inertia going again as it would for me just to you know finish the hike to the top as was and every time we got to a point where I just I don't want to say got that hikers high but you know just kind of got ins in my zone we'd stop we take a beautiful shot and then I'd have to go pick up the pace again yeah okay well I have a question for you Thomas for me like I'm like I have to commend you for being able to do videos by yourself because a lot of the inspiration and like the the motivation to go out and film for us is like we feed off of each other's energy right like oh like and rule have an idea Brian will have an idea or I'll have an idea and then will like be like oh let's do this let's do that but by yourself like it's just you you have to be the complete source of your inspiration so when I when you're hiking do you ever find yourself just like god I don't know what to film or I don't want to fill more like I don't know what to do you know what I'm saying uh sometimes I'd say when I film my stuff I I kind of get lost in my thoughts and then whenever I break that stream of conscious imma go I should film something oh I'm at a cool place let me just stop everything and then you know kind of collect myself film myself figuring things out so when I did win wolves I just would hike kind of like get lost in my thoughts think about what's going on back at home and then I'd be like oh this is beautiful let me as i am here taking in the scenery why don't I show me actually taking in the scenery so it's it's I don't know you guys you guys have a lot more creativity inspiration and stuff I my stuff is raw and so it's like I just like oh cool let me just stick the camera down and here I go well I guess with us we also like have to worry about making sure it's the right length and stuff to sort of to an extent but yeah that's that's that I just I just kind of reflect my own hiking breaks in my shots I guess with that should we get into the nitty-gritty okay so why don't we go ahead and run through one day of filming and talk about what all shots we generally try to hit every single time that we're filming so Andrew why don't you explain that a little bit um well so for a camping trip where we're first getting there um I always find myself sort of getting lost on the car right there and then suddenly remembering oh wait we need to start filming immediately like as soon as we get there like because we got to film ourselves getting out of the car getting our things packed even if we don't use that shots unnecessarily even when we get there we we try to do a lot of filming before we get there like some yes in the preparation than some of the car ride there mm-hmm and that's actually a really exciting moment is like when we first get there and you jump out of the car and then like muscle memory takes over and you're like oh yeah I remember what to do now and then you just start filming this and like I let's do this let's do that that's like an exciting time yeah and it's it's one of those things where and this happens later in the day um but like where you're just doing something and then you suddenly realize wait everything needs to be filmed like I can't just do this I need a film it too yeah yeah when we went to smokeys actually with any trip but particularly with Smokey's it's like you get to the place and I'd be thinking like all right so we got to get some maps we gotta get some registration I'll be like getting ready to go over there to the booth to get the register like oh we gotta film this I'm like that where you go you gotta film this like yeah we get yeah that happens a lot of somebody's about to do something like I hope you don't think you're about to do that that's actually one of the toughest things is a at the end of the day when we've just reached the campsite and you're like tired I'm like man I just want to set up my tent and and cook some food and you're like nope yeah we got a deal wait you're like you're like well like sitting there waiting to cook some food and the person setting up the camry like come on come on um so anyway after we like get our things packed and we're hiking one of the things we always look for is like where the environment changes so like you'll be walking on a road then the trailhead you want to capture that then if you're enough like take rid of River Gorge for example we're in the forest but then the path goes uphill and it opens up and there's rocks you have to make sure you film these environment changes so that there's like a transition in the story from one thing to the next sort of with hiking shots it's it's really easy to fall into this pattern of just getting a lot of shots from behind of us walking forward and forgetting to get more creative shots that make it more interesting yeah that's one thing you always got to be mindful of is like doing something you haven't done before and like constantly trying to like pull from your like kind of lexicon of shots and be like oh I saw that in a movie one time why don't we try something like this yeah just like as an example in the first episode of dolly sods I've we've done it multiple times but in that episode in particular we do a composite shot where you know yeah the horizon in the sky you do a time lapse so the clouds are moving really fast and then below it you do a slow-motion shot of the people walking that that's a shot i had been once all that so long no i don't think i saw that on anything oh i thought that you saw that on Survivor man no no that was a shot I've been wanting to get because ever since we had that camera that could do the time lapse and then the other one that could do this alone well I've been wanting like I kept thinking what if I went to a field and got the grass in slo-mo sky in time-lapse ah dude that's awesome I always thought that you had pulled that from Survivor mccall that's a and rule in orig evangeline effective that's all it's like Ken Burns yeah yeah yeah another thing is well we're hiking I'm constantly looking for things that are sort of interesting to talk about plants I know or mushrooms and a lot of times I have this like slight anxiety like oh man I really hope I find this or like what if I can't find this plant and I really want to talk about it but it usually works out more or less the like another thing that we try to do is have philosophy right and it says that kind of stems from just when we talk regularly we're always talking about different philosophy and like we're theorizing about this and that but the kind of problem with that is that less times you'll have these great conversations off camera and then you sometimes have to just force it on camera like oh wait wait or like we're about to talk about something really cool and we say no no don't say that let's set up the camera then let's talk about it yeah and you have to get over the camera shyness and you also have to boil it down to like a less than one minute scene yes sometimes sometimes you know when we talk naturally when roth camera we talk naturally we say something and sounds like really profound or whatever so then wat Casas for then we boot up the camera and like Andrew says you become a little self-aware and like wait is what I'm saying actually makes sense or is it really dumb yeah and that has gotten easier so like just to anybody who's making videos and whether you're like seasoned professional or you're just brand new just start talking in front of camera like if that's your weak point talking in from the camera it gets easier and easier I think you'll notes like if you just watch our videos you can see how much more natural we've gotten and we still have like a long way to go but it just gets so much easier for some reason the more you've done it and one thing I will say is we always talk about these talking scenes and like a lot of times we're like man I like afterwards at least for me a lot of them i like but a lot of them i really don't like like the ones where we're just standing there talking about what we're doing I think we've realized that those are not that interesting like it's more interesting if you're like sitting at an interesting area doing something and talking about something more interesting you know yeah when we just gay so we just crested this hill and now we're going to the campsite the end anyway um during the hike will also often come to like a nice Vista with a nice view so we try to get like those that are sort of like a standard procedure I feel like where we get like us walking into the camera then we get the first person view and then our face is looking all cheesy we should quickly talk about the tools i guess the tripod that we use is i can list the model number it's in are all of our videos it's the model number so we'll put it in the disease specifically a smooth ball head i I can't remember the exact term but it allows you to get really smooth panning shots that plays Thomas what how was it carrying that in Yosemite I feel like we could have had a more ergonomic tripod how much would you buy that tripod ways I i would guess somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds yeah I'm pretty sure it's oh yeah it's like 12 pounds with the head yeah the problem is it's it's not that it's not the heaviness that's the problem it's just bulkiest

actually if you have a backpack on yeah there's just no good way to comfortably carry it you sling that thing over your shoulder it's it's jamming into your your your balance the irony everything so is that with my old backpack it was so low that like I could just sling it over my shoulder with ease but now with the new one there's like the the lid the headcrab in the way so i have to like tuck it in between like brian doze when he carries it yeah i find that pretty comfortable but really the thing about it is the fact that even if you do find a comfortable way to carry it you're just setting it up every three minutes so it's like you're carrying the tripod you're comfortable and it's like oh wait we got set up shot okay okay let's go yeah it's also cumbersome when you're trying to like keep your balance on like a trail that's really rocky because you you're losing one arm to help yourself steady and also there it's like pulling the weight to one side and also the weight itself does sort of matter to annex like after you hike for a while you start noticing the extra late the new slider that we got that I think we've only actually seen it in the dolly sods winter episode that I carried when I carried that thing I definitely noticed a huge difference in the weight on my backpack because that thing was like I don't know why but I just remember because I remember so long yeah it was you can't shorten it and then I was stuffing it like underneath the headcrab my backpack and I was like man something this is so heavy yes so the the slider is the third piece of equipment that we sometimes use in the early episodes we had a homemade wooden slider that Andrew made yeah which Thomas a lot of credit to him because he made the one that was a lot longer and then he showed me all the things I needed and stuff so the slider shots are really great they produce like these really nice shots that go from left to right but it's not just a panning shot but they're so like cumbersome to bring that in the last two episodes I don't think we've even had a slider but you can kind of get away with not having one as long as you always smooth flowing red river gorge we could have brought it I think we just forgot it that no I think we purposely left it we definitely purposely for I purposely left it okay can kid can we can we talk about our fourth and dream well it what did we talk about States oh yeah we haven't talked about city oh yeah nevermind all right yeah the steadicam is actually the third piece well the steadicam is the second piece the try the sliders the third piece zoe skipper you two three and then connect to yeah so this slide the Steadicam is the other crucial element of it which gives you like just really steady walking shots so you can do movements you can go around people and basically just move the camera without it being a shaky Matt and I don't think we perfected it until Red River Gorge right yeah I'm not even sure we've perfected yet but as far as like the balancing of the Steadicam we did not understand I understand what the balancing of the Steadicam was until yeah Red River Gorge know the smokies the smokies I but the camera was too light for the smokies I couldn't even balance it anyways suffice it to say that until Red River Gorge that the Steadicam has never been balanced properly so it hasn't been like a completely smoothly shot if you notice if you look at Red River Gorge they're significantly smoother yeah but yeah that's just a really versatile nice piece of equipment because it's actually not too light it's a little bit cumbersome but it's not battery-powered either so we can just use it forever and we use it all the time but there are some nice electronic ones that are more portable and I've been looking at some of those recently and they last a full day on one battery so we might eventually switch over to one of those but also we should also note that sometimes we have two cameras so like when we went to red river gorge we only had one camera that's kind of a pain because every time you want to do a Steadicam that would move it to the Steadicam and back to the tripod back to steady cam and I it's not so much an to keep rebalancing it every time you put that put it on the study cam yeah the city cam never stays quite balanced when you take it off so for years Semin a we actually rented a second camera so that way we could just have one camera on each piece of equipment and that makes filming so much easier and I think the next pipe dream as Thomas was saying our fourth piece of equipment Thomas yes the dream piece of equipment that we're hoping to eventually get to would be a wrong man that would just take it to the next level and quick aside I had ordered a drone and it was a pre-order for the latest DJI phantom and we would have gotten it had they've shifted on time but they kept delaying it so then we didn't get it and now like the parks are banning it anyway it's like a temporary ban oh you're out what they want to do with it yeah because phones are a tricky issue man yeah I don't know how I feel about it because on the one hand I'm like dude just let us do what we want but if there was like 50 people using drones it'd just be a noisy mess and it'd be terrible oh they should just do permits man yeah permits just like the same way they do camping permits you should just be able like there'd be like three people any at any given time that are allowed to use drones on each day something like that you know I'll tell you what the reason I think a drone would be awesome for venture archives it's remember those shots and lord of the rings of like the entire team just running through the mountains of middle-earth and it's just the most epic music I just picture that with us just running through the hills of dolly sods or someplace and ya know the drone like it's going to happen like if I might just get one and we'll just go film drone stuff in our neighborhood well the patreon czar definitely helping us get there this is true yeah well I was just gonna use my own money but use that money to buy the way I've used mostly all my own money to buy all this stuff yes Robbie has been tremendous I mean we've we've all used our money I just mean that like we haven't used any of our paltry YouTube admin which could buy us like half of a camera goodbye us maybe like seven one-fourth of the camera for the camera maybe mice a good amount of batteries that would be pretty cool if I get the name brand one like the actual oh yeah yeah became batteries or batteries hey how many how many batteries and SD cards do we bring Robbie that is a good question so when we were using the Canon t3i zwi did have tooth

t3 eyes for a while we had a package we had little bags and we had um maybe 20 batteries at our at the height of the batteries but they were third-party batteries so they didn't last very long each time since we've switched to the Panasonic gh4 we carry eight batteries and those last much longer it wasn't how many of them are the official ones so we have two official ones and then six third party ones so the official ones will easily last an entire day of filming which is kind of incredible because I'm used to terrible camera batteries but the non official ones will probably last like half a day and then SD cards it's been a constant like batteries and SD cards have been a constant struggle but most recently I think s have been more of one like I don't know how many i like this we got so many gigs this one was 400 gigs as close to 400 gigs in like each card is 64 gigabytes so you just need tons of cards yeah it never switched to 4k now from 1080p like we need 400 gigabytes you're kidding i had no idea was that big yeah you're somebody who ever gorge was 320 so it wasn't that much more this time that's like well i think it was 380 361 for Yosemite or something oh okay yeah you could probably take all the pictures all the digital pictures of like the 1990s and it would not equal half of what we got in your semi yeah and then so with SD cards we always joke about once we fill an SD card that's like all the content so we always guard those with our lives and we're like look like if its life or death you can let a battery go you can let a camera go but you risk your life for that SD car you throw it up on the cliff and let yourself so many times we were joking in Yosemite is like if somebody fell off its like you throw the sdss ma said edit it's worth it yeah so another another piece of equipment I guess you could say that we have used I guess some starting since Mammoth Cave have been lav mics oh yeah

and if you pay attention you can probably see them clipped to our shirts so that yeah those lav mics are a huge deal because like even the viewers all of you guys could you could hear the difference because lots of times we'd get complaints on the first few episodes like that they couldn't hear us so then on the third episode we bought this thing called the road shotgun mic which you put on top of the camera and we thought that would magically fix all of our problems but the big thing with sound and microphones is that the number one indicator of quality is how close the mic is to the sound source like you can have a really crappy mike but if it's close enough to the sound source it'll sound better than any expensive Mike that's really far away because just you've got to have a really strong signal for it so lav mic is something that you clip to your shirt so it's right next to your vocal cords and it gets a really nice sound and it's kind of cool because you it makes the instantly makes a quality of the production look more professional like that's a deal hitting a house effective professional video is sound but with the lav mics came another challenge of managing another battery life which was our phone oh yeah because we use this app called wreck forge on our phones to record ourselves so now we always have to set our phones on airplane mode and make sure we don't drain our batteries yeah and one thing that happened is like during dolly sods they drained pretty quickly so we had to we realize we had to keep them like I kept it in my head you know sock next to my field to keep it warm because the cold will suck the life out of batteries yeah and the program itself is so janky sometimes in like I don't know sometimes it won't record sometimes it'll start a chord I've never actually had a problem with the oh I have amber I think it's your phone I think it's probably the broken screen may be bad but you know that that's another thing that you know about recording is when it's sunny it's about as optimal as you can get but then when when you take into account whether it just throws a whole whole nother wrench into things especially wind yeah well I mean wind cold weather like screws batteries and I mean in the Smoky Mountains we had to deal with rain for like sixty percent of the trip and so we had like

ziploc bags covering our cameras try and minimize any water you know and just having to deal with that and it just makes it just adds another level of irritation and like frustration when you're trying to get a shot you know speaking of the lav mics so Robbie recently we switched to recorder which I think we're going to do soon but we used our phones to record things and I think so there's a scene in mammoth cave where I'm using it i'm fiddling with it I think someone left a comment like playing with your phone in nature or something they're like chastising me out like look if I had any other choice I wouldn't be using it it's on airplane mode know it's funny like that that comment it's like it's kind of like it's like a slap in the face he's like do you know how much effort it took for me to actually get out this phone hook it up sinking the audio afterward and now you're telling me that I was playing with my phone it was anything but playing I kind of take look at the whole issue of equipment and weather and all this stuff and all the struggles you have because none of its ever perfect right here I kind of look at it as like the universe way universe's way of saying how badly do you want this yeah it's like how badly do you want to make a good video because i'll let you I'll help you out in fact we're going to talk about this in just a second but um there's a certain deity that and um he's always asking us he's saying how bad do you want this how do you think you you think you're working hard you're not even close to work so yeah his name is Greedo and if you've ever seen Star Wars yes it's that guy here's what happened Andrew was editing the episodes and as he's want to do he's doing it like two or three in the morning and if you're ever gonna get angry about something it's at two or three in the morning so he's just like seeing how crappily we filmed these early pilots that we never release and he created this whole like Noah that's a season one episodes to actually oh really we also made a whole manifesto no no it was before dolly sods episode one oh yeah you're right yeah or that because we I mean we remembered the grito in that one so he made this whole manifesto that just like oh you're tired no you're gonna do it anyway oh you don't your fingers are cold so you don't want to clip the camera onto the tripod too bad do it anyway so we basically called it the adventure archives Creed and then somehow when we were filming that turned into assassins creed eventually it turned into assassins grito and then eventually I just turned into 30 so now we know how ya go we have this like a fake belief in this deity grito who's always watching over us and we wait like it's actually helps us helps motivate us but whenever when the wilderness we're like okay remember the grito we gotta get best shot and uh we joke about how like you know you're on the beach and then suddenly one set of footprints and you ask Greedo where did you go you're walking right with me and he says when there was only one set of footprints because you were carrying me on your back and I was whispering in your ear take the shot so that the metaphor even goes further like we uh we say grito shot first or you have to be haunted you have to shoot before grito shoots but it's actually got to the point where I i ordered a group here and he now sits on top of my speaker looking at me he's even got a gun pointed it's like he's always looking at me like how you want to be lazy huh I never shoot those solar canopy can that be d thumbnail to this podcast yes yeah alright so if you're looking at the thumbnail that's this was decided now yeah Thomas you remark that it was really cool see when we can't talk about it was super culty it's like you guys were getting ready for a seance to bring grito back from day 07 man when Andrew made a very simple flow chart to explain how the grito works ok so the flow chart says uh well the shot look good yes maybe no and if it's no it goes down and says don't take the shot if it's yes or maybe it goes to another question that says do you feel like taking this

shot yes no and then both of those say just do it a picture of shyla boof with burritos head on I'm not sure if we talked about that but we have this thing called grito church where every now and then we'll just make something dumb that involves credo to like motivate ourselves like what time Andrew made a Photoshop of grito with a lightsaber and then i made like a after effects of guidos head on Michael Jackson screaming hey that was funny and more we every time we so we started doing these meetings to talk about adventure archives and one of them is a band meeting from flight of the conchords and all three of the characters have Greta's head another one was the Jedi Council meeting no well so one of them with the small council meeting from Game of Thrones I it was like people greet is it the other was the Jedi Council meeting it was every single Jedi with like qui-gon jinn Anakin and obi-wan in the middle and every single person had Greta's I think you're missing the best one Andrew which wha Luke Oh Yoda with Oh with Greedo as Yoda's face we're gonna put Molly knows that Andrew has a folder on his computer that is just burrito faces for him to photoshop on the things with the background already cut out early well I was like we're wasting so much time on these I might as well make this can I ask a serious question here getting away from burrito for a little bit how much of this do you think actually kind of you know seriously though how much of this do you think actually stems from kind of Yuri I don't want to see ego but your enjoyment of seeing yourself on camera iono finished production how much of your motivation comes from that oh I've got a great answer for this if you guys don't go for it okay my big thing is about that is is that in our culture it's it's looked down to be excited to see yourself in the mirror on camera to talk about yourself and all this but my big thing is if you're not your number one fan who is going to be your number one fan like your mom is the only other person who will be as big a fan of you as than anybody else and you should be your number one fan like if I don't enjoy yourself on camera yeah exactly yeah exactly are not gonna enjoy watching a finished product then what's the point of even making it so I mean for me it's not an ego thing is like oh I can't wait for other people to see me but it's it is an ego thing in the sense that like yes I love looking at myself on camera good job good you look great outcome you sound great you did a good job getting a shot and everything for me it's like I want to look good in the shots but for me it's more about like I think well overall I want a good product that I can enjoy and like if someone else was in there I'd want it to be a show that I can enjoy but um I think a lot of it is like like I want me to look good in shot but I also want to make sure what I'm doing is like competent and a lot of times I've done things that are really incumbent actually and I look back on the episodes I'm like God why did I do that or like why didn't I do this yeah like I think that's also something that motivates me to make sure I learn more so that I can actually like speak competently about something we're doing for me I garner enjoyment from seeing a full completed product yes the full completed product just come together I think me and Robby have talked about this but when you're editing the video you know I yeah this is this is okay and then start adding in the narration and then you write the music and you put it in there and it's just so enjoyable to see everything come together and kind of like this harmonious unison I had pictured in your head and you just enjoy so much and that that's kind of like what I you know like seeing in the very end when we finish an episode the music and narration is like the glue that meshes it all together yeah it really does and just just going back real quick to about greed oh and as far as like eagle and stuff I think the main motivation for all of us is we just want it to look we want it to be as best as possible like that is like the driving force behind everything we don't care about any of like if there's nothing specific we care about we just like every meticulous detail we want to be perfect

so there's just like the grito is like it's a joke about it but it's actually not hard to do once you get into it is you you can't live with yourself if you didn't go all out like every single time we are thinking like should we do this shot until you take that effort for it if there's even a question do we know it's something we have to do there's a lot of times we reading and we're like oh man like every time we do one we see so much more room for improvement so it's like that's sort of what the grito also is is like just motivating yourself to make sure you do improve on these things all right now to address some of the other listener mail our first questions from sit down back and he's asking what's been our favorite moment in the wilderness either a while we're filming or on our own during our own trip and what sticks out the most in our mind I think we've sort of answered some of this like to an extent with our own personal stories but maybe those weren't our most favorite moments so okay so for me there's so many different ones that it's like it's hard to just pin down one because just picturing in my head right now I can literally think of ten different moments that I'm like ah that was so amazing like just a dumb one like Zaleski when we went by that one lake that had those beavers the trees not out by the beaver like that memory is just like so indelibly etched in my mind that it just really sticks out but probably the one that had the most impact on me was the first time we went to the sand dunes at Sleeping Bear that we went all the way down that huge sand dune that you saw an episode we actually went all the way down and had to climb all a backup but when we got to the bottom of that it was just we were like the only ones there it was quiet and it was sunset it was the most gorgeous thing and up to that point I had never experienced anything like that in nature before so it's just really a whole new world and experience and it really like honestly open the doors to everything that we've done up to this point and if it weren't for that I don't know if we would be this excited about making videos and like making videos this much but that was actually the first time we started taking pictures and stuff too so it was kind of a yeah really y z pictures Alice in a lot of ways yeah so for me

there's a few moments during the filming that stand out so I'll run through those really quick one is with Morgan Monroe hiking off-trail and being out in that forest like in the valley of all these hills and being able to walk wherever you wanted that was such a great feeling for me another one was in Hoosier when we were just like I remember standing by this Lake the big lake you see in the video as the Sun setting and then when the stars come out and just watching all the numerous stars that was like an incredible experience um dolly sods the first night just lying out watching the stars our most recent trip also watching the stars are you just gonna take all the right oh you can use them okay but but my moment is one that happened during the camping trip with a really good friend in Idaho not during the filming obviously we were in the Sawtooth Mountains and we had hiked in I was like no one else around we were backpacking on a trail and the whole time we were hiking we like for some reason we had this feeling I was anxiety because I guess we were in bear country and we had gotten there sort of late as we are want to do so it was like evening and we were trying to look for a good campsite and we hadn't found one for a while but finally we got one we set it up it was like on this rock and it like right over the ledge you could see this waterfall in this river and that evening we went on the trail a little bit and climbed up this like rocky slope on the mounds and SAT up there and watch the sunset and it started like drizzling lightly I don't know if that was the evening actually but we watched the sunset and then it was just beautiful and then the next morning we went back up there and like it started drizzling slightly as the Sun was rising and like you could see it all glinting through the raindrops and it was just like such a magical moment and up up on that mountain slope you could just see like four miles and it was like oh it was an experience I think my favorite one was when we I think we actually talked about it but was when we went to hocking hills with some of our other friends the evening had set in and it was nice and warm and obviously this was before the catastrophe of the freezing nighttime but we all went over to this little it was just a little Dyke between like the lake and we just lay out on the grass and that was really probably the first time I had seen just so many stars in the skies and I was speechless I was just left speechless I was amazing and i think that was like what really sparked like an interest in outdoor stuff because it was just like wow because i mean when you live in a neighborhood or anything like that you never really it can believe how many stars you can actually see when you're out in the wilderness so it was just mind-blowing yeah if you think the city skyline looks great at night you ain't seen nothing okay so stance on Lynn asks what international trail do you want to go on the most and I guess for me i have two answers while one and a half answers one of them actually i don't know if it was you Stan who even brought this up in the first place it might have been but there's like a prehistoric appalachian trail or something where it basically like it's trails all over like different like Iceland or something and it's where like the Appalachian Trail would have been back when like all the continents were together or something like that I'm doing terrible job explaining what it is but basically it's like where the Appalachian Trail would keep going on like all the Appalachian Mountains if the parts that broke off of north america were still together so it's like in iceland and stuff like that which is really cool but i think one thing i would love to do is like hike the entire Great Wall of China and I've actually heard you can go camping at some parts of those like I think I think like under or inside of the wall or something like that but doing that would be pretty incredible i think i went there three or two two or three years ago and we like stayed at this we went to part of the Great Wall that's sort of out in the country and we had a nice meal with these people and it was just beautiful and I don't know I think it'd be great I don't know of any international trails so I don't know specifically where I want to go but as far as just international travel man Norway has always for some reason been like the place that I've been drawn to not just for the wilderness but I feel like the culture is really interesting me too and strangely I liked a lot of their rap music okay Weejun rap music is really cool actually for me I think you know I always hear stories about people going to the Swiss Alps I think that'd be something super interesting to do because you just hear so many people talk about it and I don't know if I'd be able to handle doing the Swiss Alps but to actually to at least be able to go out there and spend it a couple days at least out there would be really awesome yeah sorry Stan we don't have many like very specific trails to mention but you get an idea also I don't know if this counts but another one that I've heard about I don't know if I'd ever be able to hike it is the eastern continental trail which i believe is part i believe the 80 is part of it and i think goes like way up in Canada all the way down to the tip of Florida and then I think in me might even go past that somehow like you might take a boat or something it looks like it yeah but I actually heard about that in some of the books that I read where some 80 hikers ran into other hikers who said they were hiking this Eastern panel mount trail which is and it's like crazy it's like five thousand five thousand four hundred miles or something like that geez that's something that's insane okay well speaking of a bunch of stories and places we'd like to go in places we've enjoyed being so we've done stories for me Thomas and Robbie so far and now it's time for Brian's personal story since this is the fourth episode ok this is this story is I think it's kind of funny I don't know if you actually if you guys ever actually knew what happened when we first went to the Smokies and we split up wait what so no I don't ok so when we first went to the Smokies right oh the first time so not the brakes are ya the very first time we went to smokeys it was me Robbie Andrew and Thomas and Andrew had planned this trail what it was you right yeah yeah and this trail was pretty intense like we were still pretty much newbies to hiking and we had terrible gear like our backpacks were awful and we got there late obviously so we were hiking and we got to this river that were supposed to cross to continue our trail but it had rained the previous few days so this river was serious business and we got to it and it was twilight with setting in and we were like there's no way we're gonna get across this we're not gonna risk this is clearly a really strong current so what happened was we decided to go to a different camp site we like took a different fork in the road we went to a different camp site we camped there for the night and then we hiked back basically we hiked back to the parking lot and we decided to change our plans I was at this point that Thomas and I basically chickened out we were not like physically in shape to do it I guess and so Robbie and Thomas am sorry Robbie and Andrew decided to do a smaller loop yeah just get real but they had they were so like they they were well after that backpacking trip we had dumped everything out of your bad well we had like these lanterns and how does that like five wardrobes of clothing like okay like he had like two 50 gallon bags full of clothes and we had like these big lanterns no one needed and we were like okay yeah we're emptying everything so so you guys went on this loop and we're like starving no time so let me tell you what happened what me and Thomas did wow you guys were doing this so the first night we stayed at a nice campsite in the morning Thomas and I spent some time cooking pasta and having a nice breakfast and then we drove to the nearby like tourist town i think is Gatlinburg we went there we went to a restaurant and i had burgers we sat down and had burgers in this restaurant while it was raining outside and then after that we spent the day kind of like just you know checking out some of the sites we were driving around in a car we were super comfortable and then I don't even know why I agreed to this but Thomas was really in the mood for KFC hahaha so we went to KFC and we had KFC

and the whole time yeah I felt super guilty I was like man we are eating healthy and we're just looking out after that we spend another night at a campsite and then we hiked like three miles in the trail to meet you guys and we were complaining the whole way not really not really but I remember we were like like oh man with the hike three miles oh my god but that I think you back on that man it was just hilarious like reality yeah I I had no idea you went to KFC that is hilarious cuz our experience was the exact opposite cuz we're starving yeah but I have two reactions one is Game of Thrones shame shame but but the other one is is you know what man if that makes you happy dude go for it like man you can everybody enjoys it on their own terms you know it's funny because I went with my friend to smokeys one time and are so tempted to go this salt and pepper museum there's a salt and pepper shaker museum or like man that sounds like really fun and like what are we doing we got to go hiking but um it's funny because like I remember during our backpacking trip at the end we had like literally to walnuts left in her back and I remember the night like during night time I would literally dream about eating food you know it's like that was that in a way like especially now like it was so fun it was so fun to be that hungry like at the time I love this land to actually yeah is that the time you're just so hungry you just food is all you can think about you're just like I I can't imagine doing anything but eating for the rest of my life after I get and I kind of did that don't know if he talked about that I had two entrees yeah yeah yeah I had a burger and fries and then I had like the prime rib dinner roast beef dinner or something I remember that I'm really hungry that was one of our best post hi nails too if we had like frog leg appetizers and oh man that was so good I still fried green tomatoes too yeah and just trying to pull up his journal entry so he can specifically tell us yeah so the restaurant we went to was called riverstone family restaurant and that was like so incredible we had fried green tomatoes frog legs apparently I got fried okra turnip greens mashed potatoes and sweet potato fries you got like a veggie platter like you good yeah I was vegetarian back then still Brian got onion rings sweet potato fries shrimp Thomas had mashed potatoes with open-faced roast beef sandwich Robbie had you had a burger with fries and lightly fried catfish and a baked potato oh we also have fried clam and that roast beef thing yeah I thought oh yeah that's what you probably just oh you ate his leftovers I think yeah you did I remember that I man i was so full after that but god that was good i wish we had known the name after our last milkies trip cuz that that was a great restaurant you brought your own hell you know I've got video footage of that actually okay well I guess that brings us to a close on this podcast of campfire chronicles yes please again support us on patreon there's an annotation linking to that we appreciate your support we love you guys and feel free to leave any questions comments topics of discussion that you'd like us to mull over live on microphone and yes if you don't have any money just share our videos yes please yeah share it with everybody you know print some fliers out put them on your community center shout shout adventure archives at the top of your lungs canvas your buildings canvas your neighborhood no but really please do share them it helps a lot and you can also check us out on Instagram on Facebook Twitter and technically Google+ we will never ever see anything you post on go back what is that but I'd say we're probably the most active on Facebook so yes either check us out on facebook or contact us on facebook that's probably the best way to reach us and as always if you have questions for the next podcast go ahead and you can post them here in the comments section on youtube or you can post them on facebook to in our facebook page and we will definitely answer them next time okay and that does it for this episode thank you guys for listening and we are out alright well I kind of gotta pee so I guess we can put that fire out mmm good job that was good