The life and times of Tahi the unicycle

I've had another change of heart for my project 2 concept... this is probably the most undecided I've ever been for a project.  I usually over think most things.  But let's go back a bit.

I just returned yesterday from a two week road trip across the South Island.  Those of you who are keeping up will remember that I was planning on taking my newly acquired unicycle (aptly named after the one-legged kiwi at the Wellington Zoo) on the road with me and finding nice stretch of wilderness to ride around in for my video.  This I have done.  I probably acquired about thirty minutes of good footage riding on Stewart Island and Abel Tasman National Park.

However, I wasn't satisfied.  While mountain riding is probably my favorite style of unicycling, it isn't the most exciting and unique to watch.  Seeing a unicyclist fly down a mountain is cool, but it really palls in comparison to watching some guy on one wheel climb up onto a picnic table, jump off the top onto a wall, and then ride the wall for awhile before hopping off in a spin and riding away backwards.

I wanted to capture a location through the view of a unicyclist, and a mountain trail just doesn't offer much material.  Usually it ended up being the same thing of riding down a path or climbing up a hill, making sure I didn't fall down.  With trials unicyling I'm able to take public locations with many objects that are used for specific and well-known purposes (picnic table, bench, walls, trash can) and then turn them into something that people would have never envisioned them for.  That surprise factor has a much longer impact than mountain unicycling.

So I'm scraping my footage and starting over.  This is kind of sad, and it only leaves me a week and a half to refilm and edit everything, but I've been much worse off before when it comes to making movies under deadlines.  And at least this case I'm choosing to start over, and I have a plan.  I'm going to go down to the harbour where there are endless possibilities for trials lines and film it truly (hopefully) through the eyes of a unicyclist.

The upside of having already shot footage is that I've perfected ways to film from the unicycle, whether it be holding the camera myself or strapping it underneath the seat.  So, with the linguistics already worked out, I shouldn't have to spend too much time out in the field shooting.  Tahi and I will just get straight to work.  I really think this is going to be a better end result because people will be able to relate better to the objects in the material, even if it isn't as pretty to look at as the jungles of Abel Tasman.

I'll be updating again soon.

Project 2 Update

So it's Good Friday and I'm getting ready to go on my trip for the break.  Being an exchange student I have limited time to see New Zealand while I'm here, so this is a perfect opportunity.  Also, it gives me the chance to film at a location not local to Wellington for my project.  As mentioned before, I wanted to do a perspective video on trials unicyling, interpreting a space through that particular point of view.  Well I have since acquired a unicycle from Unicycle.com NZ and assembled it a few days ago.  

Because I've only had it for a couple days (I haven't even been able to pump up the tyre yet) and I was busy finishing up other class projects before the break, I have not started filming yet.  But this is ok since I'm planning on filming on the South Island anyways.  I haven't totally decided on a place yet.  Before I was talking about the harbour here or something along those lines, but I think I want to go with some more natural.  

I like to try to tie things back to their context, and, for me, it's all about being here, in New Zealand, experiencing a new country and culture.  And it's important for me to try to show people at home what I've been doing, what I've been experiencing.  So, since NZ is more famous for it's rugged nature than it's cities and buildings, I think I would get more out of this project by trying to show that aspect of New Zealand.  To really capture the wilderness of the forests or the mountains or the bush through the unicyclist's eye.  And I also think this will be much more enriching for people back home to get an idea of New Zealand.

So anyways, that's where I am at the moment.  I'm taking my own film gear on the road with my for the next two week's all over the South Island and, after gathering plenty of footage from multiple locations, I will decide where will be the best place to show to my video.  A thought: using Highway 1 down the east coast or Highway 6 up the west coast as a location.  I'll be blogging from the road with updates.