New Zealand - Chapter One: "The Crossing"

I'm always amazed by tourists with video cameras. They seem to shoot some of the most random footage and with very little regard, it seems, with how the shot looks. Nor do I imagine there being much consideration placed on how these random, shaky and poorly composed shots will be put together. Is there a vision in place, or will it simply be hours of mind-numbing footage that only really tells people watching it that you should have spent more time enjoying yourself rather than spending your time viewing the world through an LCD screen?

I just can't imagine getting home from a trip and plugging in my video camera and watching potentially hours of stuff I'd already seen, but which looked better in real life. Let's face it, home video is the modern-day equivalent of being invited over to someone's house to watch a slideshow of their trip to Hawaii. People generally want to sit through that kind of stuff as much as they would a movie about a couple of monkeys on walkabout.

So with that challenge in mind, I set about documenting this most recent trip to New Zealand with the aim of creating a "home video" that people might actually enjoy watching. The first installment of this sprawling masterpiece is what you are about to watch. Entitled "The Crossing," you'll see me unsuccessfully searching for hot water at Hot Water Beach, and wonder at the sublime beauty of Tongariro National Park. I hope you enjoy what you see, and perhaps the next time you see a video camera toting tourist lacking direction, you might want to consider giving him a few pointers...

The Video



Click here: "The Crossing"

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