Welcome back, Benjamin, to Part 2 of Paragliding Atlas.
And first thing that comes to my mind when it's all about
storytelling is that how do you basically start building a
narrative? Let's say your Guineas, world
record fly Minorca has a very deep meaning behind it, the way
you explain the migration of the butterflies and the challenges
they face and everything. So when it comes to developing a
narrative, how does your process for that one look like and how
do you do it? Sure.
There's a few different approaches that I can imagine
someone going into something like this.
And so there's 3 to be precise, that I can imagine. 1 is, OK, we
really want to do this thing. Let's paraglide from Mexico to
Canada. That sounds cool.
And so let's just do this thing, right?
OK, done. Now we're looking at that
footage and we're saying, OK, what's interesting, what's
relevant? Where are some parallels?
How can we weave this into a story and then start building
that narrative on the editing floor, right?
Because you still haven't presented anything to the world.
How are you going to make it mean something to people beyond
just, hey, I've got a bit of an ego and I'm going to do this
thing to be overly simplistic? Then there's the other approach,
which is to say I can't start unless I know how the intro is
going to go, how the middle's going to go, where all the
twists are going to be, What are the UPS, what are the downs?
How's it going to conclude? What's the moral?
OK, so now here's the second option where we've constructed a
story the way you might screen write like a Hollywood film.
And, and, and then you go ahead and you try to have your
experience and you try to have that experience of paragliding
from Mexico to Canada and actually meet all of those check
boxes. Like, OK, got that scene.
OK, got that scene. Oh yeah, I was hungry right
there. OK, got that scene done.
So now you're just going to slap it together again the way that
they would a commercial sort of documentary made for television
where that's how they do it without elaborating on why.
And then there's the middle ground, which is that you have
some inspiration. In my case for this project, it
was the monarch butterfly. I discovered them, although I
grew up with them in Canada, and they were just a run-of-the-mill
standard butterfly that you wouldn't bat an eyelash.
The finding them in Mexico and then realizing that they
actually flew there, that blew my mind.
That blew my mind because I thought nothing of them.
But I would think highly of anything that could fly from
even a bird, never mind the equivalent of a post it note,
the monarch butterfly. I would have a tremendous amount
of respect for a goose that did that.
Here we have this little piece of paper doing that and with an
accuracy that I don't even need. For the viewers that don't know
this, the monarch butterfly, a little butterfly is flying three
4000 kilometers from 1 country across an entire other country
down to the southern part of this continent and landing like
top landing autumn, very specific mountain where they've
never been before. Their parents had never been
before. Their parents had never been
before, but their parents had been born to have that kind of
pinpoint accuracy on top of this monumentous, seemingly
impossible. Even now when I think about it,
project is so inspiring to me as a cross country pilot who just,
you know, desperately tries to tag waypoints on a a flight that
I planned, that I feels it near impossible to me.
So they're without going off too far.
I I'm saying that is my inspiration.
I am motivated. What can I do to try and
experience something of what they've experienced?
OK, now we have the inspiration. Now we have the general idea,
now let's go and live it. And yeah, of course we can try
to find parallels while we're going and make some notes and do
some vlogs about that. But let's take the original
idea, not be too attached to how the the project is going to go.
Have it go however it goes. Again, this is a part of not
being having too much pressure on oneself.
And then look at all of the parallels that we can draw all
of the exciting points that we should offer to our viewers and
just mash them together into an hour and a half.
Whatever it's going to be to try and create something that is
inspiring and easy enough to watch.
That's what I found works. It's worth saying, 'cause you
probably won't ask. I've tried both of the other
methods, just doing something and then trying to put the story
together at the end. That that works.
But it can seem, it can seem a little bit amateur, or at least
that I feel that way. Maybe it's because those were my
earlier works. But then the other extreme where
you literally have a storyboard and you try to check off those
epic scenes. Because if you can achieve this
up and this down and this twist that you're going to have
something just that is sensational that never works.
I there, there are films and films that I have shot or half
shot that no one will ever see because I tried to do them that
way to save time to create better content.
And they seem so fake and they're not interesting to me.
I do not want to put energy into them.
They're inauthentic and I feel like they would seem inauthentic
to a viewer. Got it.
I think you you put it across beautifully and I think just for
the information of our audiences, for those who are
interested in checking out Benjamin's work, just Google
them up or head over to benjaminjordan.com and you see
all the magic out there put at clicks.
Yeah, just absolutely. Just Benjamin jordan.com, like
Michael Jordan's brother Benjamin Benjamin jordan.com is
that is where you want to find any, anything that I've feel
proud of that's come up in the last 1520 years.
All right, great. I think we've talked about
building a narrative and finding a purpose and how you're doing
it right and making sure it reaches the audience that we
intend to. I'm just wondering, Benjamin,
when you were working on all of these and you did explain it a
little bit, not to put any time expectation around it.
But when it comes to putting together a visual project, what
has an average timeline from the start to the finish look like
for you? And if you can talk us a little
bit about behind the scenes and budgeting and all of that so
that anybody who is willing to get into this gets an overall
idea from Someone Like You who has made it and realize these
things. OK.
So you're hopefully your audience is getting a sense.
I certainly am getting the sense as I say a lot of these things
out loud, that my MO is really to try to keep as much pressure
off of myself as possible. So my timelines may be way
stretched out versus the current expectations of people that may
be looking at doing similar things.
But I like so overall big picture.
I like to spread out projects by two years and there's a few
reasons for that. I found that works best when you
need to do 4 parts pre production, which I consider
conceptualization of a concept. So redundancy there.
Birth of a concept, search for support, which is I got to say
in parentheses. That's not a requirement, right?
If people want to get on board, that's great.
If people don't want to get on board, it's.
What's perfect is if projects can happen with or without
sponsorship and ironically, sponsors are more likely to
support something that doesn't need them versus something that
is requires them. That is the.
I don't want to go off on a tangent, but I've learned that
painfully over time that if people don't think that you need
them, then they start to feel like they need you.
The same way as if I had a project that already had a whole
bunch of sponsorship. It would be really easy to get
additional sponsors because those sponsors recognize
ultimately, not that they're having FOMO and that they want
to be like all the other sponsors, but they what they
recognize is this person's already has the support to do
what it is that they want to do with or without me.
And so this is actually a good place to invest.
And so that can also apply to having no sponsors for a
project, no support for a project, but that they recognize
that this project is going to happen with or without because
the requirements are well within your means.
And so that's just a side note, But so that's a part of pre
production. As you got your idea, you're
putting together some materials perhaps to get some support that
could take six months, especially if you're working
another job or you have some other obligations like family.
Then you have your project, which not to spoil anyone's
dreams, but that's usually the quickest part of the whole
process, right, of this two year cycle that that I like to look
at, which can take anywhere from as long as five months, six
months for this, like this Ply Monarca to as little as a few
weeks, which was the time it took me to shoot the Boy Who
flies in Malawi, Africa, teaching the first person to
paraglide there. And then at that, after that,
then you've got another six months, let's say, of editing
and your photos, writing articles, editing a film.
And then, OK, so you've used let's just say six months, six
months and not, let's not even count the time for the
expedition. Now if you actually want to
monetize that thing that you've created, you need to be able to
promote that and possibly do what I have enjoyed doing, which
is going on my own film tours where I'm driving around and I'm
I'm presenting and I'm doing Q&A's and I feel I really enjoy
doing that. And they can't be lucrative
economically, but even just being a part of film festivals,
etcetera, etcetera, all these things take time.
You submit today and then hopefully they accept your film
in five months and then three months later it's on the screen.
So right there, that's like a year.
And while that's happening, you've entered your next six
month cycle to begin preparations for your next
project. So just in terms of being
realistic for me to do this as a professional and be able to pay
my way through life with these projects, I need to give myself
that kind of time on either end of the actual expedition in
order to do it. And then I would say as a side
effect, giving myself that kind of time, it also allows me to
have renewed passion when I get get going on my next project.
This is versus maybe what I would have imagined and wait,
maybe what a lot of other people would imagine, which is like,
oh, you could, you got 10 years, you could do 10 expeditions.
You could do something every summer, every paragliding
season. I could do something every
paragliding season. But if I did that, I don't think
that I would be able to do it professionally, at least not
without an entire team of people around me doing all of the film
editing and publicity and all of that kind of work.
I would literally just have to be the athlete, which I'm just
not in that position. And I don't think I would really
like to be in that position. It would feel too much like a
job. So that's I think that answers
your question just in terms of the flow and the realistic
expectations. It does very well and thank you
once again for explaining it so well.
Like you're a podcaster's dream man.
I ask one question and you answer all the side questions by
yourself. Hey, it's I love being a
podcaster's dream. I'll add that to My Portfolio
by. Go ahead man, I'll vouch for it.
If you knew the testimony, you'd hit me off.
I'll write the best one ever. OK great.
Yeah, I feel like I want to go on a tiny bit of time to here
before switching on to the. The next point is that very new
generation in today's world is is increasing from digital media
and be with any kind of content on YouTube or Instagram or short
form, long form, horizontal, vertical because I think TikTok
recently started horizontal content as well.
Usually at an average. Of course, this is very
subjective depending upon how many projects you have and how
much success you get with them. But at an average, what kind of
revenue generations do projects like these look at?
Can you end up buying a small car?
Can you end up buying a living off it for a few months in a
very frugal manner or just a ballpark figure so that our
audiences get an idea like what they are getting into if they
want? To well, OK, so that's a great
question. And I feel like in order for
that to be to resonate with as many people as possible, I
really shouldn't dive into what's the right word, like
static figures because somehow it feels unprofessional.
But also I feel like it feels like it would alienate someone
who's on either side of that, someone who might think that's
way too much or, or someone who might probably most people would
think that's not enough. I, I can't believe that he
survives on that. And so let's just say it's
always more than I think I can generate, but it's probably not
been enough to keep me out of what a lot of people who are
working other like hardcore nine to five jobs that they either
love or don't love would think is much beyond the poverty
level. I had my my mom growing up.
My mom was a high school teacher and way back then, this is in
the 80s, I remember her thinking that she needed or to raise our
family. She made about 40K Canadian per
year. And again, we've had a lot of
inflation since then. But for a lot of my life, I
haven't had to support a family. And that's all been by design
because I, I recognized that I was going to go through his
period of not earning very much and having to eat a lot of beans
and rice and living in the school bus, as I described in
your in the, the interview prior, in order to get by.
I've always been able to get by with the support that I've
gotten. I'd say at first from the
community at large, For instance, The Boy Who Flies,
this is a film that I shot in, pardon me, 2011 about traveling
to Malawi to teach children how to build kites from random
pieces of garbage. And then ultimately found a guy
who wanted to learn to paraglide.
And then we have this inspiring story of him becoming his
country's first paraglider pilot.
Great film. Also, it's my first film
monetarily. That was probably the most
successful film I've ever had in terms of prizes, one from film
festivals, in terms of licensing for television, in terms of
people buying hard DVDs and a digital downloads.
That was great. That allowed me not only to go
back to Malawi and even have enough extra money to go back
there and start a paragliding school there and a Community
Center there, but it or I should say piggyback on a Community
Center that existed there. But to allow people to go there
and, and paraglide with people there and, and teach more people
to paraglide there. It allowed me to to live for
probably three years while I worked on my next project, which
became XBC paragliding from Vancouver to Calgary.
The film's called Strong the wind blows.
It's pretty cool. You shake it out.
So I've always been able to get by, but I think that what's
important to say is that I wouldn't have been I wouldn't
have been able to get by. How do I continue to live the
lifestyle that I was living prior to embarking on this
journey? How do I continue to rent the
same nice apartment? How do I continue to feed myself
the same kind of food? How do I continue to have dinner
guests over every week and and be feeding them some fine foods?
How do I, had I done all that stuff, had I not moved into the
school bus and really humbled myself, none of that would have
worked out for me. I wouldn't have been able to put
the time in and I wouldn't be here talking to you right now.
Now a very, I would say a relatively small portion of the
income comes from the audience, which is sad because I, I like
that idea of that. That's the community that
supports me. The community does support me,
but I over time now as I've had more success but also just had
more eyeballs, I've gotten the attention of people who can
benefit from advertising inside of what I do.
Which was always the goal was to create what I dubbed authentic
advertising, which is giving people an opportunity to present
their brands inside of a story that is true.
As opposed to what I used to create in my past life as a
fashion photographer, as a commercial photographer in the
city of Toronto, which was inauthentic advertising.
Which I people are giving me a wad of cash to create a whole
scenario that never would have existed if that wad of cash
hadn't existed. And to create a picture of
someone having a good time or a picture of someone being sexy or
someone being bad ass or whatever, in order to sell a
product. People are looking at that
picture and they're getting on board with that brand because
they're having an emotion. But that emotion is triggered by
something that never ever would have happened had a company not
completely manipulated a scene in order to create it.
Sorry if I'm I'm all over the place here.
I wanted to stop doing that work in Toronto as a thinking it.
That's the thing. It didn't feel good to me 'cause
I realized through it was actually the images from that
skateboarding event that I called the board meeting that
were so powerful that I realized, wait a second, these
images are so powerful that they're getting more people to
come out, more people to come out.
People are taking action based on pictures of things that are
really happening. And I get it.
That sounds to people like, yeah, dude, what's the big deal?
You're just having an adventure and photographing it.
Yeah, dude, you're just having an adventure and you're filming
it. But at the time, I could have
never imagined it. At the time, for me, pictures
were all just about creating a false image to influence a
viewer into making a financial choice to engage with a product
or service. That's how I started and it
didn't feel good. And when I realized that I I was
making pictures and I was art directing really 'cause I would
have these events and that I would be directing 15
photographers. What kind of film to use, what
kind of shots to get this shot? And I'm creating these powerful
images of people skateboarding in white dress shirts and
neckties through a busy city congesting traffic.
I'm creating power greater than I could create shooting for
L'Oreal or shooting for Nike with these fake settings where
I've rented all these lights and these makeup artists and and
stylists. How can I take that power?
It feels so good to create this true authentic power.
And now offer that privilege to a brand because that brand is
willing to say, hey, you know what, we support what you're
doing and here's a lot of cash. Keep at it.
And that's been great because that kind of support, what it's
allowed me to do is it's allowed me to not be so concerned about
whether or not I am able to generate enough film sales or
whether or not my film is perfect festival material and
not have to rely on those sources of income as much.
And just know that there are businesses that are willing to
get behind me regardless because they appreciate the message and
they appreciate that people are seeing this and that they agree
that this is a great way to advertise and reach people in an
authentic way. I love it man, but just to
illustrate this point a little more, can you pick up any
example from any of your projects so that our audiences
can relate or get get an overview of how this actually
works? When you go out in real world
where you have had a inherent goal for the brand and and sold
them the the story that tape, this is how it's going to be
represented and that's why you should support.
Sure. So come up with an idea, I think
to myself, OK, so let's go. Let's say, OK, I'm going to I'm
going to fly a paraglider across Canada, powered paraglider
across Canada. So back in the day, who's going
to see this? Who's going to be moved by it?
Who's going to care about it? OK, probably a lot of probably a
lot of kids are going to care about it because what kid
doesn't want to fly? Let's just be honest, right?
Like in some capacity, not to sound cliche, but like the dream
of flying. I feel like we have this, these
dreams, especially when we're young for some reason.
I don't know what it is, but it happens.
And when I was a kid, long before I I discovered
paragliding, like flying seemed like a really good idea to me.
Agreed. So am I going to fly literally
by the seat of my pants with a little fan attached to my back
across Canada? Who's going to care about that
the most? Kids.
OK, how can I connect with kids inside of doing that?
OK, why don't I do this to support children so that adults
who are responsible for children feel like incorporating me into
something that they're doing so that I, and then ultimately by
virtue of that, that I can actually reach those children?
OK, so now, OK, I'm going to paraglide across Canada, but I'm
not just going to paraglide across Canada powered, pardon
me, powered paraglide. I'm going to do it to support
children. OK?
When am I going to do it? I'm going to do it in the
summer. What are children doing in the
summer? They're going to summer camp.
OK. I'm going to do this to support
children going to summer camp. Does that feel good to me?
Yes, it does feel good to me. I went to summer camp and I went
to summer camp when I was a kid. That wasn't entirely paid for by
my family. It was actually partially paid
for by funding received from either the government or some
sort of outside donors. So let me create something that
gives back to that. That feels good to me.
I can actually get behind that and put extra umph into that
because of the value that I got there.
OK, so now we're going to paraglide across Canada.
We're going to, we're going to be interested in having kids see
this and we're going to work with kids in order to make that
happen. OK, cool.
We're going to land at summer camps.
We're going to give inspiring conversations to children about
achieving their dreams while we're there.
Why don't we organize them into giant shapes on the ground, take
pictures of those shapes to create something that's visual,
that speaks 1000 words with the one picture, which is kids
having a good time at summer camp.
That's what this is all about. Now, finally, who's interested?
Who's aligned with summer camp? Who's who else is giving to
summer camp right now in Canada, people may or may not know our
stereotypical coffee chain Tim horton's.
That's their thing. They are the company that aligns
themself with that statement giving two kids going to summer
camp. They have every whatever, every
year, like kids go to camp week or something like that where
some portion of every doughnut, every coffee that you buy goes
to their charity that supports kids going to camp.
So finally now I'm going to design this project to meet
their existing branding so that they can see this project as a
one stop shop to increase what they're already doing.
They just need to throw 5, ten, $20,000 at it.
I'll give them options in order to buy into this additional
branding that they can use on top of what they're already
doing, on top of what they've already got the OK to spend
money on. And that should be our path of
least resistance. Are are you following?
100% I think this is, I have to say, take notes boys and girls,
because you are literally giving out one of the most effective
blueprints and how to make it happen.
And I feel like you've just given out a whole small little
monster cross and then finding sponsorships to to make your
dreams realize. And I don't know about how many
people in the audience are actually going ahead and doing
it, but I definitely am taking notes and making it happen.
This seems like a beautiful way to give back something to the
sponsor and also have something for yourself and make your
dreams a reality while maintaining a fine balance.
Love it. It's worth saying, happy to hear
that. It's worth saying that in the
end, Tim horton's was not interested in this project.
The, the short of it is that they essentially said to me
after much door knocking and presenting to them virtually
that they already have a team of people working on this and
they're content with the amount of fundraising that they do.
And that's working for their business.
They don't need any extra fundraising to occur and they
don't need to incorporate with any external businesses in order
to do what they're doing. Which was very disheartening for
me at the time because I'm thinking to myself, what do you
mean you don't want to raise an additional 100,000 or possibly
million or $5 million by piggybacking on this
record-breaking flight across Canada that kids are gonna love
and that we could get tons of media around if we just would
hook up. But at the end, it just didn't
make business sense to them to do that.
And as painful as that was, trust me, it was painful to
spend months and months basically designing this project
to be exactly what they would want.
This is where expectation and and disappointment come in that
conversation to hear from them, hey, we don't need to raise more
money. Good luck.
Because I did that work. I still have the template and I
could still present that to other businesses which did come
on board. And they, they found their own
reasons, even if I couldn't necessarily see the exact
reason. And I didn't have anywhere near
the support that I need, but I did have enough in order to make
it happen. And it was important for me to
have that vision and to have the idea of Tim horton's, in this
case, supporting, because it allowed me to really flesh out
the whole thing and really create that sales package.
So that's two parts. One, that's how you would get a
brand like Tim horton's in an ideal world.
But this isn't an ideal world. And in the end, your failure is
still a success if you can frame it that way.
That you recognize that without them, without the inspiration of
working for them or working with them, you wouldn't have had all
of this come together and look like this nice, tidy package
that other people will buy. And that you yourself, as an
athlete and a filmmaker, you buy because you can see how
beautiful it is, right? God, and man, I think I'm so
glad I used the word master class for this because of course
you gave the blueprint on how to do things and you also gave the
blueprint at the second part of what to do when things don't go
right. So moving forward, I, I would
want to come to the most important part of like putting
together a project, which I'm, I'm pretty sure a lot of our
audience members are going to be curious about and that is
filming in flight. I, I just, I would love to have
a, have you talk over what kind of camera gears you showed, how,
how, what kind of short selections do you do?
Because to me, when GoPro and all the mounts and the selfie
sticks came across, they were like, they looked like a pretty
big safety hazard for me where they could snag lines and one
collapse could take away your destruction and send you a
scrambling for handling the selfie stick and everything.
Of course it has evolved over a period of time and now camera
shooting in 8K which can fit in your pocket and everything.
How have you navigated this aspect of filming in flight and
what's your usual go to set up and making all the possible
magical shots come together? Sure, it's a big subject because
all right, filming yourself in general would like, never mind
paragliding, but because it applies to paragliding for me,
for Phil, sorry, I'll say filming myself requires a lot of
self-discipline because so often I'm at least ideally I'm doing
something that I'm would be doing if the camera wasn't
there. And so that means that I'm just
excited about what it is that I'm doing.
And at some point if, when you're trying to create hundreds
of hours of footage to be able to edit it down into one hour,
an hour and a half of really great footage, you got to get
the camera out a lot. And so you might plan on walking
up this mountain and and averaging 5 kilometers an hour.
But the truth is if you want to be able to present that to
people later, you have to plan on moving at maybe more like 2
kilometers an hour because of all the time it takes to run
ahead. Get a tripod out, you get the
camera running, make sure the batteries are good, get the
audio going. And so that takes a lot of
self-discipline for me to slow myself down to create this
stuff. And especially takes that
self-discipline when I'm not feeling great 'cause when I'm
not feeling great, I don't have that skip in my step.
Like maybe it's raining, maybe I just had a bad flight, maybe I'm
really tired, maybe I'm super dehydrated.
That's happened. And I all I can do is think
about getting to the next potential lake or, or stream.
But I have to realize that those moments where I'm really not
doing well, those are vital in film making because we or I tend
to get the camera out when I'm doing great.
And I just love the world and I love myself and I love my
project and I want to share it, but without the sad, awkward,
difficult, painful moments in between that becomes very
redundant in a, in an edited piece.
And so that's the first thing is just to recognize like, hey, it
should be really easy in theory, but in practice it's just
actually really hard. And it requires a kind of
self-discipline that I barely have and often don't.
So now moving on to paragliding. It can be dangerous to be
preoccupied with cameras. It can be dangerous to have
things strapped to us that can impact our our lines or our
reserve system or or whatever. So a lot of that thought needs
to be put into that. And I feel like safety is top
notch, not top notch is of the highest order.
And it's important to find things that partly for the
reasons of that, if things are hard, we won't do them like I
was talking about on the ground. But also if things are require
too much time or thought, they're not really safe when
you're dangling from 30 string above a mouth, you need to have
them be really easy and you need to be able to do them
blindfolded. So as far as filming while
paragliding, coming up with creative ideas that maybe you
haven't seen before or maybe you have, but that are really easy
to achieve. Like you can do them in 10
seconds, 15 seconds set. In terms of setting them up,
often I don't launch with my cameras out.
I have to release them once I'm paragliding.
That's really important is to have things that you can do
quickly so that you don't, it doesn't require a ton of
self-discipline to get them out and then likely bring them back
in before you land. But also that don't require a
ton of time because you don't usually have that much to.
I usually don't have that much time where I feel like I can fly
without having my hands and my toggles and be completely in the
game as far as, OK, where's my bomb out?
Where's my next thermal right? Now that that makes a lot of
sense, I think. Have you been just using action
comes for this or have you ever switched to what is it single
lens DSLR or something like that?
Or what kind of hardware do you usually use to tell your stories
as the technology has evolved? OK, yeah, sure, I could talk
about that. So on my last film that I've
released so far, Fly Monarch, I have a, it's the Sony RX 104th
edition. I used, I've been, I've actually
been using that one for almost 10 years.
I, I keep buying the same one because I, I break them, I wear
them out, they shoot 4K. They are like mini DSLR.
They have a lot of manual options.
It's not the best that you're ever going to see, but it's way
better than a phone or at least phones at the time or GoPro or
what have you. So that in combination with the
tripod is how I do I'd say 75% of my terrestrial stuff.
The rest would be using Gopros on selfie sticks, gimbals and
stuff like that. And then in the sky, it's pretty
much entirely GoPro footage with the exception of as you'll see
in Fly Menarcha and a little bit in The Endless Chain.
But really in Fly Menarcha, where I had the privilege of
having my now wife accompany me as a filmmaker on her own
autonomously in a van, she would hike up and capture a lot of
very helpful drone footage of me.
So I don't want it forget to say that, but as far as me, that was
separate from what I was doing, right?
So what I'm doing is Gopros. I rely on three shots that I
really like that I can set up pretty quick.
The easiest is a 360 Cam that I jam.
So like the GoPro 360, whatever it's called, I just jam that
into the flip plate. That's the quickest one.
I have another one on a arm like it has, it articulates by two
hinges, so it's got 3 sections and then on that there's a
gimbal and then another GoPro that's shooting me.
But I can also turn the gimbal around to shoot forward or to
the side. Both of those I can activate by
hand in terms of starting and stopping them.
And then finally the most complex one for me to get out is
a let's just call it a follow Cam.
I think that would be the accept the term for that, which I keep
in my harness in the side pocket.
And then once I feel very comfortable and I'm at some
point in the flight that feels like it really needs to be
documented that way, I'll release that and that'll fly
behind me. Usually on the left side, it's
biased towards the left wing tip is where I'm comfortable with
it. And I'll pay that out after I've
launched and then I'll I actually have a thing that I can
bring it back in when I'm landing because sometimes you
don't want something like that out there when you're landing.
Partly because it'll break, but mostly because I'm terrified of
having it get caught on a branch or something like that and then
causing a deflation. That one runs on AI.
Think it uses Bluetooth, either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, I'm not
sure, but it's just like the standard GoPro remote that you
can. I have that on my cockpit and so
those are the three shots for me plus whatever my wife was able
to capture on our last film with the drone and then also audio.
So the same little it's called the Zoom H1.
I don't know if they make them anymore.
Maybe it's H1N, but anything I was is better than what you can
get on your camera. It's just a little recorder.
I'll have a lapel mic with a little dead cat, they call it
Hairball, that goes over the mic to cut down on wind.
And I'll just clip that to either my buff or my inside of
my jacket or something like that.
And the sound is a little bit muffled, but I feel like that's
a part of the authenticity of the shot.
And so when I'm setting up my shots, let's just say I, I get
three out of three cameras running for a shot, I'll say,
OK, flying over Mount Nemo and then I'll just give a three clap
and then that'll sync up all of my cameras and my audio.
And then I'll be able to edit that later on.
And I'll just talk about something.
And ironically, usually I don't use any of the talking because
it's just garbage, but it's there in case I do need it.
And sometimes I do use it. And when it is good, it's really
good. And that, pretty much that's the
secret sauce. I love it, man.
I think sometimes the emotions that come out during the flight
are one of the most authentic ones.
So I think as you said, when it's good, it's really good.
This is the way to go. But Benjamin, what is the thing
that makes you pull back the Chase gum?
What kind of mechanism do you use for that?
Because I've been using Change Chase Camp myself, but once I
release it, I just basically have to wait until it goes to
landing. Can you tell me something about
that? Are you?
Yeah, OK, for The Endless Chain, which is the following film, I
developed a A2 part system. The most important part of it
was I created a pulley system where now I instead of just
having the string, the fishing line run from the paraglider
down to the chase Cam, I have it run up to essentially what is
just like a key ring or a little carabiner, like a baby carabiner
on the paraglider. But I recommend using like a key
loop so that nothing can clip into it.
And then that runs back down to my own carabiner from my
paraglider and I can release the camera and then I can pull that
pulley and I pull it up let's just say 5678 meters.
And then I attach a little pre made loop on that, that fishing
string that all of a sudden I see the loop and I attach that.
Now all of a sudden my camera is way higher than it was when I
released it and it's way higher than it would be able to be when
I launch because it's it's too short.
And then there's a third line and the OR I guess a second line
and the second line goes from the camera also back to that
same carabiner, but it goes straight.
So when I am done flying or when I'm about to land and I want it
back in, I'll release that little loop on the pulley system
so that now the camera falls back down to where it's too low
to get a good shot. I'm done shooting and but it but
it's long enough to make it all the way back to my harness.
It's longer than my paragliding lines.
And then I'll pull in the little string that goes from directly
from the the follow Cam to my harness and then I'll put it
back in the. Box.
So basically it's it's some kind of a triangle which which goes
between your lower surface and around the centers and around
the sea risers. That's right.
That, yeah, that that's, yes, it's a triangle.
The top part has a pulley so I can adjust the height of how
it's with where it's flies. Damn, that's smart man.
You should try and sell that system because I'm pretty sure
there are a lot of people out there looking for that kind of
solutions. Got it.
I think as we approach the end of this part of the episode, one
challenge or one new aspect from what I see that has come up with
content creation is that short form has picked up so much in
today's world that we all know attention spans are reducing.
Social media is to blame up to some extent and everything
around it, but a lot of people are just settling in for short
form content and long form isn't really becoming that viable
anymore. So do you have any advice for
the budding film makers or content creators?
Of course chasing heart and doing what makes sense to you is
how it should be. But if you were to start now
with all of these dreams in today's world and in today's
age, how would like how can somebody try and mimic your rate
of success with the current industry trends and make sense
with? I don't know, I feel like in
some ways I feel like a bit of a dinosaur because when I look
around me and I, I see the way people interact with media,
especially young people, I don't feel like I would have done very
well as a human being growing up today.
And that's not to sound resigned.
I I appreciate I am a dinosaur and dinosaurs don't that they're
about to go with this thing to. I feel like there's a lot for me
to learn to be able to properly answer that question.
But I feel at the same time that short form is because it works
because people need a distraction, but they're really
busy so they don't. They want to lose themselves for
5 minutes because they have 5 minutes and they don't want to
think about what's going on in their life and what they need to
do. Clean up their room, pay their
bills, apologize to this person or go and do this.
Change the oil on their car, whatever it is that they don't
want to think about. That's in their head, but
normally for 5 minutes. And so that serves a purpose.
And I feel like there's always been a solution for that,
whether it was the radio, the television, and people using
those things for short periods of time.
I appreciate because of the way that this has happened, our
attention spans, even as adults have dwindled significantly.
But I think that the key to so many of the things and being
that I've done, being as successful as they were, is that
somehow finding a way to really make people care, really make
people care about it. And I actually can't even really
take credit for realizing how important that was going back to
skateboarding across Canada. I, as well as three other young
gentlemen put this together and I can't even take credit for how
it started because I got on board at the last minute as the
documentary maker and essentially became the 4th
skateboarder. We did this for the Canadian
Breast Cancer Society and we raised a ton of money for breast
cancer and a lot of awareness for breast cancer occurring in
more and more frequently in younger women who wouldn't have
thought that they would be susceptible.
And so there we are doing this thing.
We've got this theme, these pink ribbons, Canadian Breast Cancer
Society. And I remember on a message
board from Toronto, I had published some content and some
guy said it was a nice comment from a friend of mine.
He said of course Ben would be the one to skateboard across
Canada and somehow find a way to make people care about it.
That's what he said. And I realized like, hey, he's
right. But also he's looking at this
and thinking if I did this, nobody would care.
I cause truth be told, he could have also done it.
He had the time, he had the skill he had, would have had the
desire to do all of this stuff, but he didn't have a way to make
anyone care about why he was doing it.
And here it just fell into my lap.
And then it became obvious to me after the fact we were doing it
for young women. We were 425 year old
skateboarders skateboarding across Canada to support the
health of young women's breasts. There is no more tongue in cheek
project that I could have imagined being a part of.
But it really made people care. It really made people think.
It really made people talk. That I feel is the important
part of every project. If we take a look at this last
one, the story of the monarch butterfly, there's no way to
tell that short form. Maybe there is by someone else,
but for me, that's a huge undertaking that they have to
fly across the United States to Mexico or and back again.
And so in order for me to tell that story, the only way to tell
that is long form. And I think that someone who
sees the trailer for that film will recognize that, whoa, this
is huge. This isn't just someone going
and flying above the clouds. And wow, that's pretty.
And that has its place. And it will only take a few
minutes to showcase that I do have content like that.
But these real stories that really make you think and that
really take you to a new place, like your podcasts, you can't
get there in less than an hour. And I feel like it's important
just to take a look at what we're doing and to see, ask
yourself, why is someone going to care?
And if we can't answer that, then we need to keep thinking
about that. But as soon as we figure it
figure that out, that's when we can start to engage in telling a
story that's going to ask someone for an hour of their
life. Wow, man, it's like poetry and
motion when you put it across so beautifully because it's all
true and it all makes a lot of sense.
It's just a choice of realizing it and becoming aware of that,
which is seemingly so easy. But again, we as even as adults
are reducing having our attention spans go haywire.
Something as simple as that is, is often overlooked.
But I think on that note, Benjamin, we pretty much have
covered everything that we could wish for when it comes to flying
and filming. And on behalf of all my audience
and the ones who are going to listen to the end to this in
future, I massive heartfelt thanks for sharing all this
valuable gold for free. Of course, man.
And as I said in the beginning of the show, one or two podcasts
are not enough to cover all of your adventures.
So we on Parallel Atlas would love to bring you back for a
storytelling episode for all the other adventures you have
chosen. But we we're probably going to
have to save that one for later. But for now, it's been an honor
man, thanks a ton. Thank you so much for having me,
this has just been so great.