This covers my first trip to Europe proper. I flew into Paris, traveled to Munich for a quick course over the EU and debt crisis, and ended up in Barcelona for Primavera. With a few short side trips along the way.
The Trip
For my first week abroad, I was in Paris. One night I took a chance and flew out to Manchester for the sole purpose of seeing The Fall live. It ended up being one of the more incredible shows I had attended in my life.
The Fall are a punk band from Manchester who came from the same scene as Buzzcocks. Unlike their contemporaries, The Fall have been putting out albums nearly every year since the late 70s thanks to the ridiculous work ethic of Mark E Smith. Mark E. Smith appears to be a man who could keel over at anytime and I didn't want to miss my chance to see this guy. Having only the most basic exposure to the band though a 2-disc "greatest hits" cd I bought a decade ago, I had no idea what to expect.
At first I was throughly worried that I had wasted my time as the crowd consisted mainly of 50 year olds with beer bellies accentuated by cardigans. Previous experience has taught me that the longer a band has been around, the lamer the audience becomes at their shows. The masses at that point opting to evoke nostalgia rather than participating in an event.
Once the band started up, I couldn't have felt more wrong. THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS WENT HARD. Balding, out of shape former punks were going harder than At The Drive In fans in El Paso and it was approaching grindcore levels of apeshit.
Mark E Smith powered through the set with his signature drawl and the band decimated. I have only seen a handful of shows that left me this wrecked afterwards. I was drained and satisfied in only an amazing experience can leave you.
Italy
I had a limited amount of time in Italy as I was only taking trains through Venice, Milan, and Turin over the course of two days on my way to Barcelona. I left Munich on an overnight train to Verona. I had a bunk mate who seemed nice enough and gave me a helpful translation when we were leaving the station.
One of the car officers didn't speak enough English to communicate efficiently, so he gave some advice to my bunkmate to translate for me.
"Lock the door at night. Sometimes gypsies come on to the train. Sometimes they have knives."
Words to live by.
Also on that train I met a young man with the most fantastic mutton chops I had ever seen. My interaction with him prompted me to write this note in my phone:
Moments
0:00 - Animation intro
0:33 - Mona Lisa Selfie
1:16 - Montserrat timelapse
1:30 - Selfie montage into mic drop
2:00 - fuck arcade fire walkoff
2:33- 3:34 - ~Goatnecks all over~
The Video
Since I always want to try something new with each video, this time around I decided to shoot entirely in photographs. Since gaining a taste of time-lapse methods with Chill Country, I wanted to expand my abilities in this field.
All in all I shot around 5,000 photos during the trip. Most ideas I had panned out so ended up with too much footage. These sequences eventually went into the next video (Europe, 2014).
This was also my first attempt at animation as well. I had brainstormed animated transitions for my last Iceland video, but those never came to fruition. While my usual turnaround for a video is anywhere from a few days to a week, this one took nearly a month. Hours after class were spent plotting, drawing, cutting, and snapping pics of sequences. Never again. Unless it's for money.