people often ask us what we do all day
when we're just sailing around well
besides actually sailing the boat and
spending quite a bit of time fixing
things we make our living producing
award-winning television programs about
traveling to amazing destinations by
boat we've been filming the Distant
Shores sailing Adventure TV series since
1998 the show has been translated into
28 languages and is seen by millions on
television stations around the
world I wanted to see the world I longed
for the romance of travel now we live on
a sailboat and travel the oceans join us
as we sail to Distant Shores so here's a
peek into how we make our sailing
television video series and what it
costs to
produce sometimes to tell a story we
just need a few shots when we sailed to
the British Channel Islands we
experienced Tides nearly 40 ft high in
order to show just what such big big
Tides meant we waited for good weather
and set up a camera showing the tidal
gate at the marina this single shot took
over 8 hours all our battery packs and
Camera chips plus we had to stay with
the camera for the duration luckily the
shot was worth
it sometimes the time lapse shot helps
understand the subject in this case the
humble conch as we shoot underwater in
the Virgin Islands speeding up the shot
shows how they move around eating algae
the grass on the bottom unfortunately it
was an expensive shoot our $6,000
underwater camera and professional
housing developed a leak that ended up
meaning nearly $2,000 in repair
bills many people ask if we have a film
crew travel with us to get the shots we
need for the television show The answer
is no we film the whole thing ourselves
but in this case Cheryl climbed aboard a
friend's boat to get these great shots
of Distant Shores 2 sailing up the sin
river in France we got some shots of
their classic yacht as
well crossing the French canals that
year was a 10-week shoot making five
half-hour television shows Cheryl lugged
our big camera and tripod all over the
place to get shots showing the historic
lock system I should have got a shot of
her out in the field getting this
shot back in 2005 we had an opportunity
to sail to Syria in the midle least we
spent a few days in Aleppo met some
great locals and got right into the
culture the effort the goal was that I
would walk down the street and people
wouldn't say ah where are you from
Canada England Liverpool Arsenal no but
it doesn't work they still say that then
now they will make sure you are a
tourist now they know I'm a tourist with
all this
complicated complicated like we like yes
yes they should buy that like laoren of
Arabia yes
sometimes you have to seize the day and
I'm glad we took the chance when we
could in the Caribbean we filmed an 11p
part series of videos on anchoring in
this one on deep anchorages I free dive
down to set the camera up on the bottom
in this case 50 ft down then go back to
the surface to catch my breath Cheryl
backs up the boat to pull the anchor and
I watch how it performs with short scope
the camera is running the whole time
until I bring it back up the anchoring
series took a few weeks to film and
another week to edit but it was worth it
to document this for
Sailors sometimes we get to a place
that's just so gorgeous we need to try
unique ways to capture the image in this
case putting our camera up on a
pole H the second time it
works I also take one of our little
GoPros up to grab high angle shots but
sometimes we leave the camera up the
Mast for a while to help compress time
for TV I've installed a permanent
mounting bracket in a few places around
the
boat on average we spend 10 days
shooting to come up with one 24-minute
television show over the 10 days we
shoot more than 6 hours of footage and
that needs to be edited down to the 24
finished minutes a typical 24-minute
show will have over 200 Cuts in the
timeline there is nearly 8 hours need
needed just to complete the final audio
mix for one
show have we made a million dooll
sailing video series well we've been
filming Distant Shores since the year
2000 and it's been our full-time job
since then we've spent over $100,000 on
camera gear and editing systems in that
time we've invested more than a week's
time in the studio scripting editing and
finishing each of the 136 episodes we've
made and plenty more time dealing with
the business of television
preparing scripts for The Language
versions and more in the end if we've
done our job well it looks like we just
sail around enjoying this beautiful
planet hopefully you've enjoyed our
programs over the years it always helps
us when we receive feedback from viewers
back in the day when we were just on
television around the world before
social media we met fans who had been
affected by the show now with social
media and YouTube we can get more
feedback and it helps us know if we're
on the right track we want to help
people get out cruising and exploring
Distant Shores around the world so
please give us a thumbs up or add a
comment below and if you know someone
who'd like to check out Distant Shores
please share this
[Music]
video are you interested in the cruising
lifestyle are you planning to sail away
on a cruising
Adventure or researching cruising areas
and
destinations Distant Shores is a
television series about the cruising
life with lots of tips for Sailors
planning to sail away this is oigo New
York we are entering the Eerie Canal
system and this will take us all the way
from Lake Ontario to the Hudson river
which gets us to New York City Plus
destination information to help you make
your cruising plans yeah I can stand on
the bottom we've been filming Distant
Shores for nearly 15 years and know the
fun and challenges of the cruising
life we've made Distant Shores with you
in mind we include plenty of cruising
tips in this travel series as well as
lifestyle segments and hints for Sailors
heading to Exotic
destinations encouragement for you and
your crew to get out
cruising destinations include the inter
Coastal Waterway the Bahamas Caribbean
the
Mediterranean
Scandinavia transatlantic passage making
the French canals and more