Filming an adventure took passion, basic equipment and my imagination

Go here to see In the Pursuit of Something Real | Vol. 1 Back to Nature

What Inspired Me to Pursue Film

My whole life changed the year I went off grid from society in 2016. Literally, my partner Austin and I lived in a small shack with a wood stove, a bucket toilet, and propane appliances. No internet. No electricity. No plumbing. Surrounded by the scraggly trees of the Oregon Coast, we lived primitively through the coldest time of the year.

Before we moved in and “renovated” the cabin, we lived in a tent for a month, lived on public land around the national parks of the American West and accidentally moved in with a shady couple for two months. Needless to say, it was a wild year!

Living off grid and nomadically in a tent taught me about the resilience of the human spirit and how little we need to enjoy life on this planet. For the nature lovers at least… Our only belongings were what fit in our small sedan and our home was mobile, something we could put in a bag and drive 2,000 miles in the other direction to call home. We learned how to be frugal with our money, cook food exclusively on a one burner cook stove, and entertained ourselves with forests and mountains.

Once we lived off grid, we found ourselves doing all the manual labor to keep our lives stable. Chopping wood for warmth and heating water over the fire to do dishes or take a shower. Lighting candles to see during dark winter nights. Learning the natural ways to manage human waste. Finding out that propane isn’t half bad if it can power a refrigerator for six months.

In the rainiest part of the country, indoor activities had to entertain us, so we took up painting, music, Scrabble and writing. Every moment of every day was intentional and spent in the present moment. With no internet, data for our cell phones (during a time when unlimited data wasn’t a thing), or modern day conveniences we had to actually live life. Take care of ourselves.

Austin and I ended up leaving Oregon and the off grid life after the rain became too much for us. Keeping a patchy shack warm during the nine months of constant rain became depressing and limiting. That life was so gritty, yet so rich with a unique experience that is rare in today’s world.

One of my biggest regrets from that time of my life was not documenting our experience on video and sharing it.

YouTube and content creators were becoming a social trend, but I didn’t know how do make films, vlogs, or anything video-like. Creating vlogs or films didn’t cross my mind while we lived in the off grid cabin. I also didn’t have electricity to charge cameras, computers, or other recording equipment.

Our year against the rain in Oregon was documented through photography and the written word. I had hundreds of pictures accompanied along with my first self published book A Year Against the Rain — Lessons Learned Living Off Grid on the Oregon Coast. To this day, I continue to write narratives and essays about our experiences that first year living alternatively.

Something nagged me though, to try my hand at making videos. And since Austin and I were passionate about alternative lifestyles and being nomadic, I knew it would be an art form to take along with us on our journey of life. I started a YouTube channel at the end of 2017 and named the platform Adventures Across, inspired by our travels in nature and nomadic lifestyle.

For the next eight years, I created over 200 videos about traveling, original music, living in campers, working on organic farms, spirituality, and homesteading in a cabin. The videos live on my YouTube channel, some vlogs, some films, some just “talkie” videos, all practice for the hope to one day make a great quality, cinematic film. Not all of these old videos exist today, for I cleaned my channel up a few years ago. The most important videos to me still live on Adventures Across.

It wasn’t until last year (2024) that I remembered the dream to make films. Like, actual, quality, cinematic films that would be worth watching. I worked on an organic CSA farm in Wisconsin alongside ten other artistic, passionate people. One of my coworkers went to film school and we shared conversations about filmmaking the last month I was there. Talking with her gave me the courage to try something new, even if it was daunting and hard. Eight years ago, I didn’t know I’d be an actual nomad living in a camper full time with a range of places to go. That version of myself would have geeked out knowing she’d have the chance to make some artistic dreams come true. This film would be for her.

The Process

I had no plan when it came to making this film, called In the Pursuit of Something Real | Vol. 1 Back to Nature. All I had was the name of the film and some ideas for different shots.

The film series is planned to be around the themes of adventure, love, and the deeper meaning of life, what’s beyond the everyday-what’s-expected-of-us narrative, taking place in the heart of nature.

The whole reason we began nomad life in 2016 was to pursue something real, something worth living for. Something that made us feel alive and free. Something that fed the spirit. Back to Nature was the first trip we took Stella (our camper) on to actually go out and have fun. Until that point, it hadn’t been possible despite living in her for a year.

In the Pursuit of Something Real Vol 1 is not just something I filmed and stitched together. It was years of hard work to save smidgens of money to buy tech and equipment to make the different elements. It was the years of practice making short films and vlogs that flopped on the internet. It was filming and editing over 200 videos of all sorts that gave me the practice to know the software and sharing platforms.

I now understand after going through the ups and downs of life (and the creative process) that this is an emotional investment and the rewards are earned with experience. It’s not possible to create a great film on the first try. Or the 100th. And especially not without some emotional turmoil making it all worth it in the end.

Before the Trip

Before we left last September, I gathered all the filming gear we owned. The Canon M50 I bought in 2019 that’s been my creative partner ever since. Austin’s GoPro9 and GoPro6, both of which he saved scraps of paychecks to make payments on. My mom gave me her old Canon T2i which I later found out takes pretty good film. I just used it for photographing the parks we visited on this trip.

I had a couple field mics I bought over the years to record nature noises and (hopefully someday) my original songs. Last but not least, I had my iPhone 12pro which I used for 70% of the film content. The secret? I found an app that allowed me to use manual settings on the phone so I could set it up for cinematic filming.

My mother-in-law had Austin and I go with her paint shopping while she remodeled her kitchen a month before we left. As I perused the swatches, the names caught my eye. Somehow I didn’t know paint companies named their colors such fun things. Sizzling Sunset? Shadow Mountain? Secluded Forest? Back to Nature???

It seemed like a sign to come across the perfect themed titles for our trip. I collected as many as I thought would be relevant on our adventure. They’d be the chapter markers of the film, each one a different place we’d visit. My plan was to hold the swatch up to the camera and slowly move it off frame to reveal what was behind it.

On the Trip

We went on our trip and enjoyed our time. Experiences off the grid always open up my heart. Each day we went somewhere different and I filmed the notable moments, the moments that meant the most to me. Rarely did I set up specific shots, besides for the one vision I had to include — a film montage of all the places we parked Stella. Some of the shots in the beginning of the film I planned, like the shots of us “cleaning the window” at our friend’s house. The rest of the filming on the trip was intuitive, choosing the moments wisely. The point was to have fun, so I let go of a strict plan.

Never do I want something to take me out of the present moment in a stressful way. That’s why I approached this project from the lens of *fun*. Because we’d been working so much, having fun was the most important thing to us. There was no need to bring seriousness into this project that was supposed to inspire a good time. Whatever film I captured would be enough.

After we arrived to Arizona where we’re parked now, the film… sat. Sat on a hard drive until summertime. Running through creative projects and self publishing all these years has me realizing that big projects like this need time away, time to marinate without our energy festering over them. I’m convinced this is why In the Pursuit of Something Real sat for months before I remembered the dream to make the film once again.

It started with putting all the clips in order from start to finish. To me, getting it on a timeline for editing was the first step. It’s too overwhelming to think about the entirety of the project. I bought Final Cut Pro in 2018 when I started making YouTube videos and luckily I’ve been able to use it since! I love that, buying something one time and it being forever available. My main idea of the Stella montage was the first segment to be edited into the film. The way I filmed that scene was to center the Adventures Across sun logo on Stella in the center of the viewfinder and to step away about the same distance every stop.

The Script

Once I got a basic view of what was in my timeline, I brainstormed theme ideas for the film. Before we left, I didn’t have a plan other than to focus on love and the adventure element. While we traveled, I kept a diary of every day we were on the road. What we did during the day along with my thoughts and emotions filled the pages.

I started there with the script. Wrote the whole diary out in my notes app. Reading through, I saw what was important to me on the trip and how it affected me emotionally. The film would be narrated from my diary.

Recording the audio was a bit tricky. I had mics to record on but no place to record. Sometimes recording in Stella sounds like I’m talking against a wall. Flat. Finding good acoustics was a challenge. At the local library, I used one of the privacy boxes they called “Thing 1” and “Thing 2.” Inside was a counter top desk, chair, and carpeted walls. Of course, when I got all set up my best mic ran out of batteries, so I tried another one. By the end of recording the thirty minute script, I went home to discover that audio didn’t sound right. So I started all over again. Found out recording in the truck is the quietest place.

This is something I’d like to invest in and learn better for the next film, because I ended up recording with my phone headphones inside Stella anyway. Finding a quiet place in public away from all noises has been a challenge. I don’t have access to quiet, private rooms at the moment!

Music

With a story coming together, I figured out the vibe of the film. To make something of quality I wanted to include good music. Music that meant something to me with the vibes and lyrics. Music that was relevant to what the story was about.

In the past, I used an online paid database of real music artists who put their songs up for copyright free licensing. This is an agreement between musician and film maker that “Hey, it’s okay you use my songs to potentially make money with your films, but I need some kind of cut too.” When I’m making films, I will pay for a subscription for this service because it’s so important in making something quality. There’s nothing worse than cheesy music that anyone can tell is the free stuff on YouTube studio.

Slowly a playlist came together and each chapter of the film had its own song. Creating some kind of emotion and storyline.

Stop Motion

Once I finished the rough draft of the film, I wanted to add more pizazz to it. A vision I had to include was stop motion of some sort, so I pulled out our atlas and made a character move across the map. The atlas is one of the “easter eggs” of the film, for if you look closer you’ll notice a note written on the cover.

The atlas was a gift from one of my old friends that sent us off on our quest across the West in 2016. He gave it to us as a gift before departing and we’ve drawn in our travels ever since. Also in the atlas is a receipt from Great Sand Dunes National Park in 2016, the first national park Austin and I went to together that we visited for the second time this trip.

Another easter egg is the little cicada traveling across the map. The book I published in 2024 called Befriending Shadows has a drawing of a cicada on the front, signifying the end of a chapter of life and beginning a new one, hence the turquoise color of a newly transformed cicada. The film school friend from the farm made me the avocado pit cicada that ended up traveling across the map, to celebrate self publishing my fifth book and moving into a new chapter of life.

The stop motion scenes seemed perfect to incorporate these two important elements into the film. I downloaded an app on my phone to help me with this, and didn’t use any special equipment.

The easiest way to film a stop motion in my camper is to set the scene on the kitchen sink’s cutting board, turn the light on, and prop my phone under some dishes in the kitchen cabinet. I stood on the cooler so I could watch the phone and meticulously snapped every frame the cicada had to travel through.

I filmed the whole trip, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, and parts of Arizona to show closer frames of the trip. All and all, this part of the film took me over two hours to complete, some of the frames shaky from the rattling of the air conditioner above me. We do what we gotta do.

Animation

This wasn’t enough, somehow, and I decided to learn animation. Nothing extreme, just some basic colorful transitions to bring us into new scenes of the film. More of that, pizazz. A few years ago I bought an iPad to help me make book covers for my self published books. Procreate was only $10 at the time (one time payment, again…) and has been such a help in my artistic endeavors. Not only can I make simple yet great book covers, but I can make digital art too.

There’s an animation assist feature that was easy to pick up and use. I started out with a sun. A simple sun, like Arizona’s state flag. Amazed at how cool it looked and surprised I could actually create something like this, I kept going.

Next came the swirl. I used Sparky’s food dish as a template to draw and animate it. Then the hourglass, inspired by Austin’s tattoo featured at the end. The sands of time became a theme of the film after seeing how many times we ended up in sand on the trip. The last animation I conjured up was the cicada carrying a green sheet over the screen.

Frame by frame, I took an image and found ways to move it across the page, or alternate colors to make it look like it was moving. This could become another hobby, for I found myself lost in a meditative state swirling in the colors.

So psychedelic of me…

Finishing Touches

Once I added all the elements into the film, I went back to do fine edits. Things to make it more crisp and come together. I brought my laptop over to my friend’s house and tested the sound on her TV. Added some color fixes to the scenes so they looked more enhanced, enchanted. I love bright, warm colors, sort of a vintage vibe that pairs well with the model of the camper I have.

By the end of editing, I just wanted to be done. There’s only so much I can do to finish a film with the skills and visions I have, and no amount of perfectionism can make it better. I’ve watched it start to finish about a hundred times now, so there’s not much more I can do. It is perfect the way it is!

Hopefully, I’ll be able to publicly show the film to my friends and acquaintances locally and boy does that make me nervous! You’d think I’d be used to releasing large projects to the world after practicing for almost a decade, but I still get the jitters. The friends that saw pieces of it so far loved it, and I can only assume our other friends will enjoy it too.

Making my first film was an adventure that took me years to get to and I’m so proud of myself. Proud that I finished something scary and daunting, but also for honoring my heart and following my dreams all this time. To be on a path like this, a nomadic one, is filled with uncertainty and the sense of “Am I actually a nomad or am I not?”

I never know what the future will bring. Though I plan on staying in this area for a few years at least, I know myself well enough to foresee a time in the future where we pick up our roots again and move somewhere new, in the pursuit of something real.

Following volume one, I have plans to add to the series. This summer, we spent our time lounging in the mountains of Northern Arizona until randomly deciding to climb a mountain. That volume will be called To Climb a Mountain. And… sometime, I don’t know when yet, Austin and I will be returning to the off grid cabin on the Oregon Coast and staying awhile… maybe bring Stella with us and explore the wisdom the rugged Pacific Ocean has to teach us.

In the Pursuit of Something Real premieres on September 21, 2025 at 7 pm CDT. You can find the premiere on YouTube and set a reminder to watch it when it’s ready.

Thanks so much for reading!

Ashley