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Travel Filmmaking Pre-Production Tips
January 1, 2010
Message What is the message i want to communicate? This is important because it is the main objective of your film. Audience Who is the audience? Is it for the general public, kids, schools / education. It is meant to for public relations to attract corporate sponsorship. Is it an academic anthropological record? What is the best medium to reach this audience? ls film best or something else? If film, then what genre, style, format and structure?
Tags: film
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Curry, Dolma and Wilderness Mountain Biking in Armenia
November 15, 2009
Tom emailed me last week to tell me he was going to follow an old man on a horse to a hot spring at 3000m. That sounded like my idea of fun so I decided to go to Yerevan and do it. I went to the bus station in Ortachala in Tbilisi at 9.30 am and cycled practically straight onto a Marshrutka (transit van minibus). This dispelled my fears of being able to take the bike in the cramped little bus.
Tags: ArmeniaMountain biking
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A Caucausus Mountain Bike adventure in Khevsureti
November 10, 2009
Tom, David and I went for a bike ride into the Caucasus mountains of Georgia. I’d been planning it for a while and I wanted to get some proper riding in before the snows descended. Tom arrived on the Sunday but leaving was delayed until Tuesday. To pass the time we decided to build up my new Kona Caldera frame, ate Khinkali (Georgian dumplings) and deejayed in Tbilisi at a cafe at the TV tower.
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Bicycle Critical Mass Tbilisi To Protest Dangerously High Levels of CO2
October 26, 2009
On 24th October cyclists, walkers and skaters gathered outside the Philharmonia theatre in Tbilisi to parade down Rustaveli as part of Climate Week combined with the ‘Tbilisoba’ or Tbilisi’s day- a yearly traditional celebration. Meeting new people on the ride. People with banners and placards. Walking with the Georgian flags and Merabi local biker in the foreground. Georgia, Tbilisi - November 2009 - Critical Mass Bicycle Ride (10) Georgia, Tbilisi - November 2009 - Critical Mass Bicycle Ride (3)
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Weddings, unlike lightning, strike in the same place twice...
October 6, 2009
I returned via Public transport back from France to Tbilisi. I met Tom in Venice and we spent a long and strange evening drinking wine with two German girls and an American / Iranian guy. One of the girls had a Georgian name from her ancestry. Then we slept on a bench. It was one of those trips where it seemed we had to wait for a day for anything to turn up.
Tags: Money
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Tom's Wedding in Yerevan
October 6, 2009
Tom’s wedding happened on the 19th September. I went off to Yerevan on the 15th in the hair-raising Marshrutka (minibus). Continuing the theme of having to wait for public transport I sat 6 hours for the Marshrutka to leave when too few people turned up. I moved between 3 different Marshrutkas, and saw the world through the eyes of a Marshrutka driver, hanging about in the dust outside the train station.
Tags: Armenia
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DJing at Raves in Georgia and other Updates from Tbilisi
October 6, 2009
I got the bus back to Tbilisi. I arrived back and realised that I’d had such a good time and also realised a few things through my experience and change of scenery. Namely that I needed to get out of Tbilisi on a wild mountain bike adventure in the mountains (as you do), and also that I would return back to England again at Christmas to spend it with my family even though it would mean another arduous 6 days of public transport, intensive meditation and further draining of funds.
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Staying with a Stone Mason in Yazd and Seeing Zurkhaneh on the Way to the Pakistan Border
August 21, 2009
After Isfahan the landscape between the big cities was bare and remote but the roads were extremely good quality. I choose to take the highway because I wanted focus on my goal of getting to India. After cycling a one of my longest days and being towed the last thirty kilometres by a guy and his girlfriend on a motorbike I was dropped off at a big mosque on the outskirts of Yazd.
Tags: HistoryVagabondingArchitectureIranCycle touringTravelWriting
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Through the Desert to Isfahan
August 21, 2009
The emptiness of the desert spaces was in it’s way very beautiful with nothing to distract and nothing man-made. With no input it felt very meditative. Long trains of thought went through my head, which kept me occupied and sometimes I recorded them into my dictaphone. My bike was set up really well and I had a strong feeling of flowing with little effort, completing long distances. It became the norm to start early, push big gears and put in a long day.
Tags: Iran
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Staying with fellow cyclist Couchsurfer Karim in Tehran
August 21, 2009
Couchsurfer Karim has been hosting me for the last 1.5 weeks whilst I waited for my Indian visa. He had previously cycled from Tehran to Scotland. His mum was Scottish and dad Iranian. His dad had worked in construction, building roads in South Iran. We got on like a house of fire, having rambling conversations about just about anything, but particularly cycle touring and future adventures. He was also an incredible cook, and I was treated to daily feasts of delicious rice, bowls of Osh (chickpea soup), and Chello kebab.
Tags: Iran
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Cycling On From Tehran Alone and Staying With a Family
August 21, 2009
The ride out of Tehran was a leap into the unknown for me. I had been killing myself worrying about the crossing from Iran to Pakistan and the perceived danger of Southern Iran. Now I was actually making tracks towards that point, it didn’t feel that bad. Life was carrying on. No groups of terrorists emerged from the desert. No one tortured me because I was English. No Americans bombed me or water-boarded me.
Tags: Iran
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Crossing the border into Iran and sleeping on the roof in Tehran
August 21, 2009
At Agarak on the Armenian-Iranian border, I remember cycling next to the border fence. I felt scared continuing over the river bridge to the border crossing. Guards looked down on me from towers above, guns in hand. After tentatively pedalling across the ‘No man’s land’, I entered the administrative building. The border officers tried their best to nullify my visa by claiming it was fake because it read ‘Great Britain’ instead of ‘England’ and ‘Ireland’ which wasn’t England either.
Tags: Iran