Making Movies

I have mentioned before that, even without guests, I’m still busy, but I’m pretty sure you secretly wondered what it was that I am so busy doing… How much to do can there be without the hustling and bustling of resort life? Well, of course I wouldn’t call myself stressed at the moment. Especially, since we currently only work half days on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in order to use up some of our holiday time that we are not able to take anywhere else right now. So, this leaves plenty of time for work outs, snorkelling and reading in my hammock on the terrace. It’s fantastic!
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But there are still ​things to do, and my tasks have evolved lately. Apart from the regular social media, newsletter and PR activities, we decided to keep our guests and friends of the resort updated on what is happening on the island with little homemade videos. These days, it’s all about video content anywhere in the digital world and we did have some beautiful and professionally made films about the resort and marine life before. But these short videos are meant to be different: they aim at giving people a little insight of what we do and make them dream about coming back to Pulau Pef. That’s why we use the claim «Dream Now – Travel Later» to brand them. I admit, we didn’t invent this one ourselves, but I think this only shows how great the claim is, and by using it we pay tribute to the inventors.

Making videos is all very nice, but we don’t have a professional film team on the island. So, our facility manager, Marcel, and I took over the task of producing and editing these videos. We both had never done this before but were eager to learn and asked Google how to do it. Marcel is a good photographer and it was clear he was going to do the filming. Which left me with the editing part – well, great! And you know what? It was quite tricky in the beginning and I’m still worlds away from any kind of semi-professional level, but I have come to really like it. It’s a creative job since we’re in charge of the entire process: gather ideas, come up with a storyboard, chose the actors, film it, edit it, set it to music, write the subtitles and distribute and promote it via all our channels.
You can check out the videos on our YouTube channel.

You may think that producing a one- to two-minute video can’t be such a big deal. Well, let me tell you: it takes forever! I know I’m still slow and have to google many things again and again when editing (and always stumble onto video tutorials that take forever to watch with our slow internet - does anybody still publish good old written tips online?). But the fact is, it takes days to finish one of these short films. Starting with the tons of material we filmed and having to choose the right clips. The videos up to one minute are the hardest. They force me to cut down all the beautiful material to the very essence of the message we want to convey. To leave out certain parts that I really like but that are not relevant to the core message.
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This process feels symbolic for life in general at the moment. There are so many things that we would normally be able to do but have to leave out for now as we are not allowed to do them or they are not possible: travel, meet friends and go to the cinema (in that order for me, but I’m starting to repeat myself…). I agree with those who say it’s OK to do this once in a while, free yourself of unnecessary ballast and find out what’s really important and essential to you. Well, the three things I mentioned above ARE essential to me, so I am really ready to take in the ballast again. I am ready for a longer movie! Bring on all the details, the long shots, the dramatic music, the nail-biting suspense, the romantic love story, the complicated storyline – I’ll have it all!

Did I hear you say I should consider giving up my job on the island and go back to working in the movie industry? No, I’m not ready for that yet! Not as long as there are still so many stories to tell from my life on this beautiful little island in Raja Ampat…