Tom’s Bike TripThe answer, I’m afraid, is “not quite yet”!
I owe you a better explanation, though. Previous videos I’ve made have been quite simple — go adventuring, collect the footage, edit, edit some more, and upload to Vimeo. That’s how the Lapland, Mongolia and recent micro-adventure videos worked.
Janapar is a bit different.
Late on Saturday afternoon, James and I walked gingerly onstage in the Royal Geographical Society’s Ondaatje Theatre. Around 200 people sat in the audience — a handful of family, friends, fellow adventurers and cyclists, and a large proportion of the delegates from the RGS’ “Explore” annual seminar.
I thanked those in attendance for coming. I made a little joke. People laughed. This itself was reassuring: I utterly hate public speaking. James introduced himself as the producer-director, introduced the film, and we made our escape before outstaying our welcome. Then the film began.
A word or two about this whole film thing, while it’s still a hot topic. (Warning — this post may contain ranting.)
It was never my idea to video my bike trips. Andy gets full credit (blame?) for that. I was seriously unconvinced that it was worth the bother and stubbornly ignored his attempts to get me enthused. I was far more interested in photography and writing. Besides, I’d never used a video camera before.
(This was early 2007 — four-and-a-half years ago now, which is enough time to leave sixth form and get a Masters’ degree, or to see your newborn child well into primary school, or to spend 216 working weeks at a desk.)
Writing and filming the bloody thing was the easy bit. After months of fruitless pondering and a last-minute flurry of readers’ ideas from Turn to Tom’s Bike Trip: What Not To Do If You Want To Cycle Round The World, it was only last night I finally decided on a title: Janapar.
Most people’s reaction so far has been along the lines of “Hmmm… interesting…” (whilst stroking their chin thoughtfully)
“…so what does it mean?”
…well, that’s the thing — I don’t think we’re quite there yet. So I’m extending the deadline as far as physically possible — this Friday. More than 60 70 80 90 100 comments have been posted in the discussion so far, an overwhelming amount of input and thought, for which I can’t thank you enough — it’s been a brilliant discussion.
Below is my current shortlist — which do you prefer?
[polldaddy poll=5514762]
(What’s Janapar? A common Armenian word meaning road/route/way/journey, oft found loitering in native songs/poems/compositions)
The title will appear in this shot (ignore the low quality for now), directly after the opening scene:
Got something better? Please post it here or on the original discussion. Thanks once again for all the input so far — it’s been immeasurably useful.