Route Recalculation

photographed by our cinematographer Corinne de San Jose

(PORTLAND, OREGON) Jennifer is the name of the beloved little lady patiently anchored to the dashboard of our rented car as we traveled 1,500 miles to go around the absolutely beautiful countryside of Oregon in nine days. The GPS my cousin borrowed from a friend for us became so indispensable and in fact absolutely necessary that we gave her a name. Before this trip to Oregon, I have never been to North America, and the idea of going around towns so small that the building where Arkeo’s former office was had more people living in it, was a little daunting.

I’m in Oregon to shoot  a documentary and find people who don’t want to be found and locate obscure places. When I was able to track down one address, all I had to do was type it into Jennifer, and voila! I feel a little guilty because it’s so easy. In fact, if we made a wrong turn (usually when we were too engrossed listening to our cinematographer’s playlist and thus missing Jenny’s instructions) Jennifer would be prompt with a solution: “route recalculation,” she’d say. And then she starts talking about the new exit we have to take. There’s no blaming, no cursing, no stopping to ask the rare highway walker.

We’ve come such a long way from the days of film and even hi-8.  I have never fully understood the power of technology until Jenny just took over the navigation and changed the way people travelled. And it wasn’t only the faster and more efficient travelling. I brought with me a P2 camera and Goliath (my Mac Book Pro) and I was able to dump everything I shot using Goliath and saving it in an external hard drive. When the hard drive I brought all the way from Manila started acting up (yes Joe, you gave me a faulty drive!), I just got a 250 gig hard drive from Walmart, and it’s the size of my palm. Because we could only predict our itinerary for tomorrow  the day before, we could not book motels in advance. Producer Mario Cornejo would go to Google Earth or Google Maps and look for motels near our next itinerary; he would then proceed to book after reading postive reviews online. We also check accuweather to determine what to wear for the day.

I am constantly amazed by the gadgetry of high technology. And as much as I know that in the end, it’s all about what ends up in the frame, regardless if it is in 720p or 1080i, the process leading up to the actual shoot has become so much more convenient that I can actually concentrate on what I’m going to shoot.