This project has been under tentative pre-production for the past 18 months, but just became official in the past few days, so I figure I'd make an announcement.

Two months from now, me and about 13 others will be leaving for Tanzania, Africa, where we'll spend 4 weeks doing community service, backpacking, going on safari, and attempting the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It's now official that me and one other member, unofficially dubbed the expedition documentarians, will shoot and photograph the entire trip and then create a one to two hour documentary for screening and eventually video and television distribution. The film is tentatively titled "Four Weeks In Tanzania," but that could change.

For those interested, I'll keep you updated with our progress in this topic. Lots of purchases and lots of planning will need to take place in the next two months.

We depart on June 27th.

Today was the first production meeting with me and the co director. We're trying to finalize equipment right now, and then we're going to talk further about how we plan on shooting, etc. We already have a camera on order, but the primary concern right now is power and audio. More updates to come.

wow, that's really cool. Best luck.

Power will be very tough. You can use an inexpensive power inverter to charge batteries off a car during your safari and community service. But for the 5-6 day trip on the mountain, unless you pay a porter to cary a 12v car batt or a generator (which won't work at the top of the mountain anyway), you're stuck with what camcorder batteries you can carry.

So, what's the format of your documentary? Is there a specific subject or is it more of a chronological documentation of your trip?

The format is more of a chronological documentation of the trip, but we want to focus on the human side of it, rather than just the landscapes. We realize many people won't make it out there anytime soon, so we want to show people what the place is like from the perspective of a person, not a camera. It's difficult to explain, I hope I'm making sense. If you've ever seen the Everest IMAX film, we're sort of using that as a starting off point as far as our style goes.

www.mojadosmovie.com
This guy followed a group of mexicans across the border into the U.S. on foot, he had his backpack full of batteries for the trip. I'm not sure how long it took him but check it out.

Hey JW, congrats on the project man! It sounds like it'll be a really fun trip, not to mention a good flick.

Definitely keep us posted on what's happening with it!

yes sounds enthralling...
im about to piss my pants from excitement!

We've got most of our equipment ready to go (cameras, batteries, tapes, cases, etc) and we're trying to put a rough script together. We've been shooting some prep meetings and fundraisers and such, and hopefully we'll get in some sit-down interviews before we leave.

A few weeks from now we're going to spend 3 nights in the northern White Mountains around Mt. Washington for some final equipment tests and shooting tests. It looks as those that will take place on June 17, 18, and 19....roughly one week before we leave for Tanzania.

More updates to come.

Only two weeks to go. We're heading out on the White Mountains trek the day after tomorrow.

Well, today is the big day. I leave for Charlestown, MA, in a few hours for final build-up, and then early tomorrow we'll jet out of here. We have an 8-hour layover in Switzlerand and will probably land in Dar es Salaam in the AM on Monday.

See you all in 4 weeks. Wish us luck (and think about us on July 20...that's the day that we'll most likely be standing on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro).

WOW! CONGRATS!

GOOD LUCK! that is incredeble! i can't wait to hear how it goes!

if you meet any of the people who keep sending me offers for $15 million buisness transactions be sure to tell them thanks.

yeah hopefully the documentary will turn out decent...(altitude might FUBAR your camera and electronic gear)

let us know how it goes...

have fun--

well! by now JW's been to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro! Wonder how it went. can't wait to hear!

haha, i know... just not the same SF.com without Josh...

http://forums.studentfilms.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=2086066451&f=713107995&m=838108846