A short video documentary/report of the horseback expedition I spontaneously initiated exactly two years ago in Kyrgyzstan crossing a very remote area. A self planned solo-survival journey accompanied by my girlfriend at the time in the mysterious wild woodlands and mountain range beyond Arslanbob. It was an idea having it’s start watching a documentary about Genghis Khan’s journey while I was still in the west of China.

My purpose was delivering the ambiance and atmosphere of those moments. It is all self-captured
footage, memo’s and sounds. No music except for the outro. This precious chronicle of mine feels like an unreal dream. So it has been created in the style of game cinematics.

TOOLS
Editing, assembly and other adjustments to create the style were achieved in Premiere. In addition I used Audition for sound editing.

PLOT
The first year of my world trip started in 2017 as I landed in Arslanbob. Kyrgzystan. The
jewel of Central-Asia. Entering by the Irkeshtam border pass after traveling the silkroad all the way from Lanzhou, China.
[…to be continued]

DETAILS OF TRIP
– 300-400km (20km a day)
– 27 days in the remote wilderness
– Self organized survival equipment and supplies
– Two horses bought from locals living in Arslanbob
– Detailed map of Kyrgzystan for navigation
– Single battery smartphone for emergency GPS
– No signal for more than 3-7 days

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Filming the footage I had not planned this production to be made in this way. Certain cinematic feeling was certainly driving the moments I chose to film, but I was very limited of using electrical equipment during this remote trip. I used my Sony Alpha 6000.

Making this documentary I had to collect all footage and decide what story has to be told and what feeling it should give. I had to work with what I had and I could get creative not being able to make new footage. I purposely created a style for the video to give the feeling of an old found-footage tape. Therefore I made adjustments on the image quality, framerate, aspect ratio and other properties of the video. Errors were kept in the audio and their presence was enhanced, there were some effects added in this process. Some elements for the style were also attained from in-game cinematic elements used in adventure games.

GALLERY
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kGrsoZvduj6k8fQC8