When time stands still, we can observe everything from another perspective. The moments that are really important, those of which we´ll always remember: that day at the beach, that afternoon walking around, that tempestuous day when you thought it would never stop raining….. and a long etc. of which everyone has their minds filled with memories. When time stands still, it´s even easier to remember the wet sand of the beach, how the sunlight is reflected on the surface of the ocean, the airplane you see flying regardless the impossible weather conditions…When time stands still… hopefully we could all stop time during those amazing moments, those small time lapses which make us feel alive.
For some time now I have been making videos with professional filming equipment: Mini Jib, motorized slider, glidecam, steadicam etc. Always trying to make my shots look like big Hollywood productions. But then I started really watching my videos and other videos on internet made by other Filmmakers and it got clear to me that this wasn´t the way I was supposed to make my videos. When you set up your jib, slider or glidecam it simply takes time and time is something crucial for making videos. I started to lose the essence of why I wanted to make videos in the first place, which is capturing moments that mean something to me and show them to the rest of the world. So these moments where just impossible to capture as they passed by so quickly.
We can see how youtube and vimeo are showing every day us how powerful an image can become, as thousands of people upload their videos on a daily basis. Showing us their vision of the world that we´re living in. I think that every day and every opportunity that passes by, is something worth photographing or filming, and as I´m always trying to do both at the same time I learned that I was taking too much time preparing for every shot. That´s why I started to take photography and filming much lighter than I did so before. In a way that I didn´t want be the kind of photographer that can only achieve a got photo or shot, when he has loads of professional gear with him. I got a new camera bag which wasn´t the typical big heavy expensive photography backpack, but just a small camera bag in which I could only fit my camera and an extra (small) lens and an extra battery. I knew that by making this change I would only be able to take Handheld shots, so in a certain way I would be faster but less “professional” as I was used to be doing. I must say that as you walk down the streets and look around you, you feel more freely to take a few shots of your surrounding as supposed to setting up a tripod or a glidecam. It became almost as an obligation to take the camera with me, as I felt the need to film everything interesting around me. Something that, after a few weeks became so natural to me, that I didn´t want to leave home without my camera.
While I was making this video I thought about what I was going to show the world and I wanted it to be something personal but not too personal. I wanted it to include different aspects of my everyday life without making it intrusive. As a foreigner living on this sub-tropical island I think I somehow owed it to the people back in the Netherlands to show them how the people live here. In the end everything that we experience in some way is different than how somebody else experiences it, yet it is very similar in a way that we all experience the same in life. I wanted to show aspects in life that we can all relate to. Moments that don´t seem important to us at first but if we think about it are usually the things that make us feel something or make us think about life. I hope that everyone that watching this short film can relate to the things that I filmed and feel some of the things that I felt as I filmed it.
After finishing I felt pretty happy about the result of the film, as I was able to fit in everything that I wanted to include. I learned that it doesn´t matter what equipment you use, but that with very little equipment we are able to tell a story or make a statement. For me it felt very good for once not feeling obligated to use fancy equipment but just think about the instant that I´m filming and why I´m filming this particular moment and not something else. We all try to grow in what we do in life and I hope that this small production has helped me grow as a videographer.