Interview with Fellow Travel Video Bloggers – Ant & Elise of Positive World Travel

Today’s Fellow Travel Video Bloggers are Ant & Elise from Positive World Travel. I first heard about these two Aussies through YouTube and they have become great friends on the interwebs. The two of them are some of the most gracious bloggers I’ve come across and I can’t wait to meet them in real life some day. Also featured last week on Travel Yourself’s Favorite Film Friday these two just launched their brand new website and are about to take the world by storm.

Who: Anthony Milotic & Elise Reeks

What: Positive World Travel Twitter: @positivetravel

Facebook: Positive World Travel Youtube: Positive World Travel

You Should Watch: Sand Dunes In Mui Ne

 

1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your website and what got you motivated to start traveling? How did you meet and how did you both get the travel bug?

Elise and I met 5 years ago at a restaurant we were both working at, where I was the Head Chef and Elise was working as a waitress while she was still at university. To be honest, our relationship didn’t start off very well-the first day we met I accidentally burnt Elise on the arm with hot scalding water! But it does have a happy ending and from that burn onwards we became lifelong friends and now we’re engaged to be married!

Before this trip, we both worked hard and saved for 3 years. These years of saving were to be for a house, but in the end, instead of a mortgage we decided to quit our jobs and use that money to travel!

Travelling has always been something we are both passionate about and even before we met we had done various overseas trips. Travelling together this time round is such a great adventure for us! We get to experience life on the road, share it with one another as well as understanding the twists and turns of travelling long term as a couple! It gives us the opportunity to learn as much as we can about the world and how others live their lives. As I am a Chef and Elise is a Primary School Teacher we both strongly believe that travelling allows us to not only explore these passions further but to discover new ones too.

We created Positive World Travel to inspire others to take the leap and travel the world. We see Positive World Travel as being a platform for other travellers to share their adventures as well as a place we reveal all about ours. We upload films of our travels, post photographs and write open and honestly about our time on the road-whether that be advice, thoughts or information about a destination.

2. Why did you decide to incorporate video into your website and blog?

We believe that video will be the future of travel blogging. People want their information as fast as possible, and the best way to inspire people is through video. Sure, a picture tells a thousands words, but a moving picture tells a million. I believe that video can really take people on an adventure, to a destination or experience a culture right on their computer screens.

(Editors note: I agree!!! I think blogging is huge right now and video is the next big thing!)

3. Aside from yourself, do you have any favourite people that make travel videos? Anyone that has inspired you or whom you just enjoy good content from?

We really like Ryan, Alex and Henry from 51films.com and the positive approach they are taking towards filmmaking. More recently we have been watching Kick the grind. We enjoy his videos and think he will be one to watch in 2011.

Editors note: I agree again Mike from Kick the Grind is definitely going places!)

4. What has been your favourite travel video that you have made to date?

We have loads of videos yet to be released, but from the ones that are currently uploaded, Canyoning in Dalat Vietnam was pretty amazing to film and produce. We had so much fun that day and it was a challenge not to get the camera wet!

5. Did you have any previous filmmaking experience?

We have had no previous filmmaking experience and have learnt more on the road as we go. A couple of months ago I upgraded all our equipment and it has been a steep learning curve with mastering new techniques. I am currently in the process of doing a short online film course.

6. Do you have any tips for other people who want to start making travel videos? Or lessons that you have learned along the way?

I guess some of these tips and things we have learnt along the way, we are still trying to put into practice. One of the most difficult things we have found is talking on camera and sounding as personal and entertaining as possible-something we are still working on. I would also suggest planning your videos before setting out. What are you going to film? What story are you trying to tell? Plan around a theme not a destination as a whole. Asking people for advice in the Travel Blogging community is also a great way to get tips and advice. I find that anyone you ask is always more than happy to help you out as much as they can.

7. What equipment do you use? Camera? Editing program? Type of computer?

This is kind of a hard question aswe have changed all our equipment over the course of our travels. Initially we started with a Panasonic Lumix point and shoot camera which shoots great wide angle HD (used in the above video), then we moved to a Canon Vixia HF S11, which we found didn’t really fit our needs and now we have settled on a Canon 60D DLSR. It is a challenge shooting with a DSLR, as there a few work arounds with recording dual audio and syncing in post-production but the results are definitely worth it.

As for what editing program we use, originally it was iMovie but we will be  moving over to Final Cut Pro. I am still learning the ropes and all the functions but have found the website Lynda.com, to be a huge help.

We use a 2010 MacBook, which has been extremely reliable over the past year. We also travel with a 1TB Hard Drive and an external battery from hyermac, which I think is essential when traveling to places like Nepal with power shortages constantly.

8. Vimeo or YouTube? Other?

We mainly upload to Youtube as there is no greater market for our videos. You have the most reach, but the problem is, that it is difficult to build a wide range of subscribers on YouTube and get seen amongst all the clutter. We do also upload to Vimeo and we always upload to tripfilms, as they are great source of targeted traffic to our films and a great site run by a great bunch of people. We have experimented with other video sites, but haven’t seen a great response in views on these sites.

9. How do you go about promoting your videos? Do you have suggestions for other people to promote theirs?

Promoting our videos is kind of hard. We generally do the usual forms of promoting through, Facebook, Twitter and Stumbleupon. Yet we haven’t seen sufficient spikes in views from doing that. We are still are learning the best ways of promotion, and we have found that other travel bloggers helping each other in promotion to be the best tool.

10. How long do you suggest a video should be 2min? 10min? A good length to keep people watching but not bore them?

We want to keep people interested and engaged, yet at the same time tell a story and keep them watching for as long as possible. Internet marketers would tell you that your video should be as short as possible. I was even reading just the other day that online videos should be 40 seconds in length to keep up the limited attention span of people surfing the net, but for us there is no hard and fast rule. We just tell the story and we think that the video should be as long as it needs to be to tell your story.

11. How much advanced planning do you put into your videos?

Again, the way we film has changed dramatically over the past year. At first when we started out, we didn’t plan at all. We used to just ‘run and gun’ it and whatever comes up in the day we would film. Now we have decided that we would like to take a more planned approach when we film our Travel Show. These shows will be a little way off as we are still uploading older shows but we still do the ‘run and gun’ approach while we are filming our ‘Travel Diaries’.

12. What is your Youtube/Vimeo name so we can subscribe to you there?

We would love for you to subscribe to us! But, don’t just subscribe-connect with us and send a message so we know who you are and we can subscribe to you too! We are also more than happy to share what we have learnt on YouTube as well.

YouTube Travel Show: positiveworlldtravel

YouTube Video Diaries: positiveworldvlogs

13. You guys have a lot of videos! Do you ever get tired of filming all the time?

At first it was tiring because we felt like we had to film all the time so we didn’t miss a thing. Now that we are taking a more planned approach to our Travel Shows, it is a lot easier to put the camera down. Filming our Travel Diaries though is easy, as they are just short little anecdotes of what we are up to that can be edited so easily.

14. Do you think branding is important in your videos?

Yes, we generally brand our videos with our intro and always finish our videos with a call to action. You want to let people know who you are and where they can find more of your content.

Thank you so much for interviewing us! This series is a great idea and would have been a valuable resource for us before we started doing videos on our trip. I really think it will help other Travel Video Bloggers out there.

Thanks so much for doing the interview! We will definitely have to collaborate and meet in our travels soon!

~Cailin

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