{"id":377,"date":"2015-05-07T11:45:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T18:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/?p=377"},"modified":"2015-05-07T12:02:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T19:02:42","slug":"adelaide-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/adelaide-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Si Se Puede: Adelaide Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All respect to Ch<i>\u00e9<\/i>, this was our motto as we began our travels in Australia for The Palette Project.\u00a0 We would shoot the stories we came to tell, but we would be open to whatever new adventures came our way, and when it came to new stories, we would not be disappointed. They\u2026 were\u2026 <i>everywhere<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>I often tell beginning storytellers \u00a0if they end a project with the same story they started with\u2026 they\u2019re doing it wrong. My goal was to leave the southern hemisphere with loads of footage that was never<!--more--> on our shot sheet. That said, this would require several leaps of faith. It\u2019s one thing to prepare for a documentary about a visually impaired videographer exploring the world. Touching down in Adelaide is when it all becomes very real. Imagine if you will, a ledger with questions on one side and answers on the other. Even with almost six months of preparation,all the handwriting was still on the left hand side. Answers were in short supple.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What would it be like to apply the same orientation and mobility skills that work in the familiar confines of San Francisco to theAustralian outback?<\/li>\n<li>Would the hiking techniques that work on trails I\u2019ve hiked dozens of times work in unfamiliar and harsh terrain?<\/li>\n<li>Could I put my directorial money where my promotional mouth was, and successfully return to the United States with the footage I would need to edit a film\u2026 when for the first time in my professional life, it would, for the most part, not be my eye pressed against the eyepiece of my own camera?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are the questions that were front and center as my shooting partner and I touched down in Adelaide, staking my career on the outcome of the next three weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Spoiler alert &#8211; it worked. Not without some hard won lessons along every step of the way, but I have to follow my own advice. If I ended up with the same story I started with, I really should go to storyteller jail.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, Adelaide is an incredible embarkation\u00a0point for this kind of project. Not just for a visually impaired traveler and filmmaker, but for anyone wanting to get a first taste of this diverse country\/continent\/island. I had been skeptical of my own handiwork &#8211; avoiding the larger cities of Melbourne and Sydney for the smaller entry point to the Red Centre &#8211; but we could not have been more pleased with the experience. I should add that Adelaide itself is hardly a tiny village. There are 1.2 million people in the metropolitan area. This is a sizable city any way you slice it. However, the city just doesn\u2019t feel that large. It fools\u00a0you in its manageability. My shooting partner commented more than once that if we hadn&#8217;t been lugging hundreds of pounds of gear, renting a car would have been a negotiable expense.<\/p>\n<p>The city itself is very easy to learn, and for a visually impaired traveler, very easy to navigate. Most of the city is on a grid. What\u2019s interesting about Adelaide is that the city is filled\u00a0by an outstanding array of parks and beachfront. No matter where you are, you are very likely to be within a few minutes walk of one or the other.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_381\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-381\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/adelaide-aerial-copy.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-381\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/adelaide-aerial-copy.jpg?resize=300%2C225\" alt=\"Adelaide\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/adelaide-aerial-copy.jpg?resize=300%2C225 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/adelaide-aerial-copy.jpg?w=960 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-381\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aerial view of Adelaide<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_385\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-385\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/veale_ws-copy.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-385\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/veale_ws-copy.jpg?resize=300%2C169\" alt=\"One of the many city gardens in Adelaide\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/veale_ws-copy.jpg?resize=300%2C169 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/veale_ws-copy.jpg?resize=1024%2C576 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/veale_ws-copy.jpg?w=1280 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-385\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of the seemingly countless gardens that make walking in Adelaide a pleasure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Further, the effort that has been made in order to make this city accessible goes well beyond what I had expected. Much like San Francisco, and unlike many cities of similar size in the United States, great pains have been taken to outfit the city with everything from audible crossing signals citywide, Braille descriptions of roads and streets, and mass transit that was was often free of charge\u2026 for everyone.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/127182492\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\"frameborder=\"0\" title=\"Accessible Adelaide\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What this base level of accessibly did was make it possible for us to do the jobs we set put to do &#8211; tell interesting stories, and find the stories we didn\u2019t even know were there, and the surprises kept coming.<\/p>\n<p>We had been in Adelaide for less than an hour when that first surprise revealed itself. As anyone in the film and production world knows, you don\u2019t plan on shooting anything during your first few hours, or even your first day, in a new location. The gear needs ro be unpacked, it needs to be prepared, it needs to be organized and tested. However, when you\u2019re doing a documentary about traveling the along while facing the prospect of total blindness along the way and you happen upon a previously unknown (to us) and hitherto unsuspected (again, to us)\u00a0 guide dog training center and interactive exhibit on the way to your hotel\u2026 the plans go out the window. Our fist shoot was not on the schedule, but we were about to make sure it would be now.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_386\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-386\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/dogs_ext-copy.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-386\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/dogs_ext-copy.jpg?resize=300%2C169\" alt=\"Gudie dog training cents in Adelaide\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/dogs_ext-copy.jpg?resize=300%2C169 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/dogs_ext-copy.jpg?resize=1024%2C576 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/dogs_ext-copy.jpg?w=1280 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-386\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Six months of research, but finding this Guide Dog Training Center within a few blocks of our hotel in Adelaide was still a surprise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Next Thursday: we put on our reporter hats and get the job done. On deadline and on time, the video is on the way! Plus, if you&#8217;re not eating in Adelaide, you&#8217;re missing\u00a0half the fun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All respect to Ch\u00e9, this was our motto as we began our travels in Australia for The Palette Project.\u00a0 We would shoot the stories we came to tell, but we would be open to whatever new adventures came our way, and when it came to new stories, we would not be disappointed. They\u2026 were\u2026 everywhere. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,11],"tags":[22,3,12,13,9,30],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accessibility","category-the-palette-project","tag-adelaide","tag-australia","tag-documentary","tag-filmmaking","tag-travel","tag-video-production"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Rim5-65","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}