It was always my intention from the start to record my Camino journey in some way, shape or form. Not just for my own memories but so I can either inspire others to do the same, help people plan their own Camino, or to simply share the Camino journey with those who otherwise might never get the opportunity to do so themselves (why should they miss out hey?).
That initial thought led me to buy the GoPro and various other things to support this goal such as batteries, chargers, remotes, mounts, memory cards and cables. But still I had no idea how exactly this was all going to come together.
Constantly recording 800km, potentially 31-34+ days of walking, at a decent quality such as FULL HD 1080p will require a lot of storage space, a lot of battery power, and a system to disseminate and share the videos which only utilises my phone (I’m not taking a laptop or tablet).
So to reduce some of that necessary storage space I chose to utilise the GoPro TimeWarp mode which, instead of recording constantly, records video at certain intervals. The settings I’ve settled on records at 15x the speed and therefore every 5min of recording creates about 20sec of video and takes up a 15th of the comparative storage space.
I’ve now had the opportunity to trial this type of recording, along with the archiving, battery changing, and battery charging process on three occasions. Once on the Cowan and Cockle Creek Grand Circuit (23km), once on the Perimeter Trail to Smiths Creek (30km), and once a little over a week ago on The Bloody Long Walk (35km). Each time has run smoother than the last and I think I’ve pretty much nailed that whole recording/archiving/sustainment process.
The final piece of the puzzle though was “How do I get this footage to you, my interested viewers/subscribers?”. Well I know it seems like I’m just collecting social media platforms at the moment (see all the links at the bottom of this post) but I’ve just added another one to my swag, Youtube. That’s right, there is now a Walking with Strangers Youtube channel.
I had three cracks at creating The Bloody Long Walk video ranging from soundless low quality to FULL HD with background music and fanciness (the link above). Hopefully this will at least give you an idea of what the TimeWarp recordings will look like. Imagine that for 800km – you’ll be able to walk the Camino-Frances with me, albeit virtually.
Of course these videos were edited on my laptop and in the last two I played with adding music and inserting stills at the various “km” milestones etc which I probably won’t have the capacity to do with my phone alone. So what I can and can’t achieve while actually doing the walk remains to be seen. I have seen other people do little short “live streaming” videos from their mobile phones but I think I need 1000 subscribers before Youtube will give me that option and, given I don’t have a single subscriber seven weeks out from departure, I can’t see that being a realistic option.
So at the very least, I will be archiving and returning to Australia with 800km of TimeWarp footage and can upload at that point. At best, I may be able to upload some video footage to Youtube and photos to Instagram as I collapse on my bunk at the end of each day. Not to mention blog entries, FB entries and Tweets. Jeebus, I hope I have time to sleep!
So why not subscribe to my Youtube channel and when I upload the other two hikes I’ve already done in the next few days, you’ll be the first to know and can check ’em out.
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Fundraising for Mental Health Awareness: https://www.teamblackdog.org.au/fundraisers/walkingwithstrangers/
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