Family X-Mas trip to South America

I come to this post with a feeling of celebration and relief. Celebrating a great portrayal of an amazing family x-mas adventure, and relief from scanning lomokino frames. I’ve certainly already put in a few years worth of scanning time over the past week, processing 8000+ frames individually. There really was no better workflow, and I’ve researched every possible avenue on this one. There are some programs designed to ease the Lomokino process, but they are so new and very faulty. To grab the full quality and effect of this camera, it was necessary to properly scan each frame. Hopefully someone develops an easier method in the future!

Every year our family meets at Christmas for a vacation. We’re all spread over the country so it’s the best way to keep the gang close, if you will. And of course, that’s what Christmas is all about. This year we found an incredible cruise leaving from Rio de Janeiro, travelling down the coast of South America to Buenos Aires. It was such a change of scenery and shockingly a destination we all never expected to visit in our lives. It’s just so far down there…

This would be the first time I’ve spent a Canadian winter in a summer location, as it is in Australia, South America and quite possibly somewhere else in this small world of ours. We obviously expected sunshiny beach weather, but we weren’t aware Brazil was the hottest place on earth at the time! Quickly we were all congratulating each other on spectacular instant tans, spending slightly more time in the mirrors speaking to ourselves about our new sexy faces. Soon after we were covering our bodies with towels and screaming as the sun literally ripped through our skin, properly toasting each and every one of us. At one point, I felt I could peel my whole face off, similar to a mask in Mission Impossible (the new film is amazing btw…).

Cruising is such great way to spend a relaxing vacation, cause you can really slack off and do diddly squat. The service is ridiculous from your rooms to the restaurants. Sometimes I would think to myself, “I could really use a diet coke”, and POOF, it had already arrived. The staff even lifted my body into the shower and went through the shampoo and conditioning process for me.

We saw amazing scenery and ventured into incredible atmospheres ranging from remote waterfalls to heavily over-populated metro areas. I was once again the crazy guy with a camera taking shots of absolutely everything, but this time I was holding a little black box with a crank on the side… it was so much fun! Ever since the first roll of film expired, I’ve been dying to get the edit done. I’m all smiles now as my newly digitized collection of 63 film rolls has come to rest in it’s new video form. I think you’ll love the way it looks, and hopefully understand why I went through so much to get it done. Aside from the fact it’s my ultimate passion to make films, there’s just no way you can’t be intrigued, at the very least, when watching the final product. In a world where everyone is blasting around with super ultra high-end resolution monster cameras, it’s sometimes nice to take it back a few years and engage in your creative realm with an original, organic medium.

You’ll see about half-way through the film, we were taken to a little island called Isla de Lobos (sea-lion island). Isla de Lobos is a nature reserve because it has the largest colony of sea lions in the western hemisphere. Many tourists venture out as far as we did, but apparently we were one of the only groups EVER to ask if we could swim with the sea lions! Since we didn’t take the tour with an official touring company, our captain gave a small shrug of the head when asked if we could swim around Isla de Lobos… the protected nature reserve. We took the small shrug as an “absolutely!”.

Never in my life have I experienced something close in comparison. I was blown away by the thousands of beautiful sea lions surrounding us (literally) and the shear terror of what may be going on beneath us. “Think of how good the shots will be!” I said as I threw my body into unfamiliar wild sea creature territory… not words I’d like as my last. I need to extend a huge thank you to Johnny McCann for being the brave one who jumped in first, as there’s not a chance in hell I would’ve otherwise. He was sort of an experiment. For about 5 minutes we all stood on the boat watching him swim into the pack (heard, flock, group?) of blubbery cute water monsters, expecting for something to pull him under. His short-term survival was enough to convince my brother Chase, sister Kiesa and I to follow suit. Thanks Johnny!

Best wishes in 2012.

Blayre

51 덧글

  1. stevebuttrick
    stevebuttrick ·

    this is so good, u must have spent a long time scanning all the negatives, makes me want to go out and get one, cheers for this upload, keep up the good work

  2. blayreellestad
    blayreellestad ·

    Thanks, Steve. It was crazy the amount of time I spent scanning... literally 7 days non-stop. It's all fun though and totally worth it!

  3. angelhaken
    angelhaken ·

    O__O wow thats a load of frames .. - respect !
    btw i always scan a full strip of frames so around 50 frames and i use Lightroom to seperate the single frames - i set an export profile - and then there is a crop tool where i select the frame size and all i have to do then is move the selection (virtually *g ) over the film - strip and always press the keyboard shortcut for the export and it saves the single frames.

  4. lupo
    lupo ·

    Bravo !! This is amazing !!! Have a big smile in my face right now :D Cause im from Buenos Aires hehehe !!

  5. earlybird
    earlybird ·

    wow!great work!!

  6. roberteaton
    roberteaton ·

    amazing! love this! so good to see long kino vids :D

  7. djramsay
    djramsay ·

    LOVE this, amazing. Give this guy a prize!!

  8. pollard71
    pollard71 ·

    Very impressed. You've done a wonderful job with a difficult format. Thank you for the excellent review/process, too.

  9. morry
    morry ·

    Incredible! I love how brief and fragmented it all is - it looks really close to the way memories look in our heads. And those sea lions! Wow.

  10. polarhei
    polarhei ·

    good, make sure you use negatives to make

  11. teanroberts
    teanroberts ·

    This is beautiful, it made me smile so much! Thank-you!

  12. amandaglass
    amandaglass ·

    beyond amazing. wish I could go!

  13. castawayplanet
    castawayplanet ·

    serious dedication to do all that scanning, bet it felt good at the end though! nice job. i really want to pick one of these up an attempt a longer feature like this. you've inspired me!!

  14. everyoneismyfriend
    everyoneismyfriend ·

    this is great! how many rolls of film did this take?

  15. blayreellestad
    blayreellestad ·

    @everyoneismyfriend Thanks! It took 63 rolls of film.

  16. blayreellestad
    blayreellestad ·

    @castawayplanet it felt amazing to finish! Definitely worth it. Once everything is digitized, the editing is so much fun...

  17. jyoti
    jyoti ·

    This is seriously amazing. Good Job! :3

  18. rjk_89
    rjk_89 ·

    Wow! Excellent video :) well done! I'm from South Africa and it's a beautiful country :) glad you had such a great adventure!

  19. gvelasco
    gvelasco ·

    Nice. I think this will hold the record for longest Lomokino movie for a long time.

  20. johnkylven
    johnkylven ·

    Really good job !

  21. life_on_mars
    life_on_mars ·

    very nice long fun

  22. number47
    number47 ·

    훌륭합니다

  23. asharnanae
    asharnanae ·

    That is both epic and beautiful, so packed with memory and emotion, I was smiling all the way though and I didn't even go on the trip! Great work. :)

  24. asharnanae
    asharnanae ·

    oooooh! I forgot to ask, what music is this, I love it, was wondering what it was?

  25. earthforever
    earthforever ·

    That's a huge piece! Amazing, well done! I guess it will be a very great memory film for the all family. I think, I'm gonna get on of those ;)

  26. amandaglass
    amandaglass ·

    still in shock over how amazing this video is. I'm completely in love... amazing amazing amazingggg job! @blayreellestad

  27. blayreellestad
    blayreellestad ·

    Thanks @amandaglass and thanks EVERYONE! Amazing comments! Love hearing feedback :) This is the best way to remember a vacation... especially a great one. I'm looking forward to next year's getaway!

  28. gonzalo-al1
    gonzalo-al1 ·

    Excellent film and amazing places Rio, Punta del Este and Buenos Aires (i'am from Bs. As. =) )
    What a job you make by compiling such and amount of frames. Congrats!!!

  29. carlos_perezderozas
    carlos_perezderozas ·

    incredible. Congratulations

  30. carlos_perezderozas
    carlos_perezderozas ·

    incredible. Congratulations

  31. carlos_perezderozas
    carlos_perezderozas ·

    incredible. Congratulations

  32. carlos_perezderozas
    carlos_perezderozas ·

    incredible. Congratulations

  33. migue
    migue ·

    You were in my country (Uruguay), hope you like it !!!...excellent video !!!...

  34. collinhca
    collinhca ·

    This is amazing! seriously, it makes me want a Lomokino, @blayreellestad where did you even get 63 rolls of film, and what did it cost you?

  35. blayreellestad
    blayreellestad ·

    @collinhca Thanks bud! The Lomokino is quite an amazing camera. I bought all the film from the Lomography store in Toronto... 3 rolls for $10. Cost me around 240.... totally worth it. It's a good way to remember a great vaca!

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  37. pangmark
    pangmark ·

    Wow! This is absolutely perfect! You have set an impossible benchmark

  38. patrix
    patrix ·

    oh, after watching this short film I have a feeling that I had this trip all along with you and your family. you certainly did a great job man, bravo))) while watching film I was wondering how many films did you use and then I found out that it was 60!!!! films, gosh, incredible)))) you must have spent a lot of money to develop them :) thanks for sharing!

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  40. milkandcereals
    milkandcereals ·

    W O W!

  41. kathepalacio
    kathepalacio ·

    Beautiful !

  42. catarinasalgado
    catarinasalgado ·

    amazing, amazing, amazing!

  43. junenenez
    junenenez ·

    Vestidos, vestidos de noite, vestido de noite, vestidos de noite baratos, vestidos de noite em linha, vestidos de noite do desenhador

  44. samsa
    samsa ·

    best lomokino movie i ve seen so far...

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  46. caragamo
    caragamo ·

    this is the very example of why i love film so much, this is amazing, it really is. :)

  47. kidrobot
    kidrobot ·

    what a beautiful film and a beautiful family. it looks like it was a lot of work but surely a labour of love.

  48. stwak
    stwak ·

    I love it !

  49. bendawes
    bendawes ·

    Absolutely love it!

  50. saidseni
    saidseni ·

    This is amazing! Congratulations, great job! (:

  51. lord_brendanni
    lord_brendanni ·

    I'm overloading with awe and best wishes to show my appreciation of your work! Too much to get more concrete about it. Awesome!