Park Life

As if it’s not fun and rewarding enough to design and print notebooks, we also have a lot of fun photographing them and making the films that accompany each release. Sometimes it involves some “location work”, and in the best cases that means getting to spend some quality time in the great outdoors. The film for Fire Spotter required a night camping in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin. Night Sky was two full all-nighters wide awake staring at stars in Great Basin National Park in Nevada. For the current Shenandoah Edition, we spent three days and two nights at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

If it sounds like a lot of fun, it is! But filming on location is also a lot of hard work. We’re up and on location before sunrise, and head home after sunset. We must load and unload all our heavy gear and sometimes lug it all along through miles of trails. We’re always on the lookout for mountain lions, scorpions, and bears. And, ugh, the driving.

Luckily, this time, the drive was part of the appeal, and as usual, we shot way, WAY more footage than we used in the final film, so here’s a bonus clip. Shenandoah’s Skyline Drive is one of the most scenic roads in America, and while this short Hyperlapse from our dashboard really doesn’t do it justice (the view to the side is pretty majestic and it helps to stop and soak it in once in a while), it’ll give you the idea why it’s worth a visit.