Hi this is Cyrus Sutton and I'm here for AdoramaTV. Today we're going to be
looking at off the grid
video production.
It seems like these days you see more and more people shooting in places that
are far removed from the city.
I'm here to share with you some of the tips and tricks I've learned in making
films without access to power.
I tend to keep my production kit pretty small and nimble so that I'm able to be
versatile in where I shoot.
When you're out of civilization and you're shooting, you're not even close to
your van or you're not even close to your crew and, you know, oftentimes you're
getting shots from a backpack or you're going out you don't want to be
able to have to carry around a tripod to get a steady shot.
You know, GoPro's are obviously great solutions.
DSLRs are definitely your friend. Having image stabilized lens that you can
handhold or the sony a7s to with its built-in image stabilizer in the sensor
or a mini tripod that can really telescope and fit inside your backpack
to help you get you know those locked up shots or timelapses if you need
-
something else to consider his memory cards when your off the grid or you're
traveling
oftentimes offloading footage isn't something you always want to be doing
maybe the times in which you'll be able to do that are going to be fewer and far
between
-
say I need 120 gigabytes of car space
I maybe bring three or four or five times that amount of card space
I don't really need to backup my files at the end of every day
I can back it up maybe at the end of a week or at the end of four five day
swell or trip or hike or something like that. Having car space gives you a lot of
latitude.
My van is kind of my mobile editing studio. I can hook up great hard drives,
full-size monitors.
It has 200 watts of solar panels on the roof and 200 amp hours of batteries
below. It has a voltage regulator to keep your batteries from overcharging and
keep them stable and it also has a 1500 watt inverter. The inverter converts
direct current into alternating current
so it gives you an interface in which you can plug in the power strip
If I want to charge batteries on cameras or if I want to, you know, run my laptop or
my hard drives to back up,
I don't need to be connected to anything else.
You can buy foldable solar panels that you can take on the road with you which
can trickle charge into car batteries that you can buy at the location that
you're at. You can always bring with you a light, you know, say, 400 watt inverter that can go
out of those batteries.
That's a really simple solution, something that we did in Russia.
My solar system is something I've only done recently.
For ten years I simply existed with a laptop, a DSLR and my car battery with a
trickle charging solar panel.
You don't need to have an expensive solar array.
If you have a non plug-in hard drive and a laptop.
If you guys have any tips you want to share, please do so on Adorama Learning Center.
Feel free to share and like this video so that other people can enjoy it
and thanks for tuning in.