The Money Angle - Without Bound

I'm happy to report that Without Bound has recently passed the 40,000 view mark on YouTube and continues to receive generous social sharing and supportive comments from the online community.

One of the big surprises for me has been the interest from the online personal finance community. I hadn't considered that audience but in hindsight it makes perfect sense as they share many common interests with mobile dwellers. My top three common interests would be frugality, budgeting and debt elimination.

Imagine the delight of finding a review of Without Bound by one of Business Insider's "15 Money Experts Everyone Should Follow On Twitter", none other than J. Money of BudgetsAreSexy.com. Here is a link to the review: http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/2014/12/without-bound-documentary/

Check it out and let me know what you think!

-Michael

The Making of Without Bound

I've received a handful of questions about how we made Without Bound and I think the answer deserves a blog post. Here we go!

I'll start with the budget. We travelled 4500 miles, burning approximately 150 gallons of fuel at an average cost of $3.50 per gallon. During the 14 day trip, most nights we either slept in the car in parking lots or tent camped on public land.  We also stayed at developed campsites with shower facilities six nights costing an average of $15 per night. Here are the numbers:

Fuel $525

Campsite Fees $90

Total Budget = $615

Fueling up in southern California. 2012

Next: the cameras. We used two Canon T2i DSLR's while sharing three lenses, a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II, a Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Telephoto Zoom and a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. I've owned my T2i since 2010 and it's still going strong. I'm amazed by how well such a plastic device has held up to heavy use. The T2i was discontinued in 2012 so the current equivalent is the Canon T5i.

For lighting, we used what the environment gave us, and paid dearly for it.  There were lots of situations that really needed lighting but I only owned hot lights and knew that access to power would be either extremely limited or nonexistent. As a result, we ended up with a lot of noisy, underexposed shots that had to be boosted significantly in post.

Audio was recorded with a Tascam DR-40 field recorder. I love this recorder but we did have a few problems. On the first day in Bob's camp, I accidentally over-torqued the headphone jack, broke the solder and was left unable to monitor in-ear. For the remainder of the trip we relied solely on the meters which was very unsettling. We were also using a DIY windscreen for the DR-40 which worked well for the most part. In a handful of shots with heavy wind gusts we got some rumble but didn't realize it because we weren't monitoring in-ear. 

All post-production was completed using Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition on a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro.

That was a very brief overview but I am happy to answer any other questions. Please feel free to ask in the comments or send me an email to michael@michaeltubbs.com

Thanks!

Without Bound - It's about time.

In May of 2011 during a fishing trip on the Colorado River in central Texas, one of my friends, Dan Longtin, was talking about building his own teardrop camper. I had never seen a teardrop design but I was intrigued by the idea of a small, lightweight camper that would be relatively inexpensive to build so I decided to do a little research when I got home. In the process of searching for DIY camper designs and plans, I stumbled across cheaprvliving.com, a website operated by Bob Wells, author of How to Live In a Car, Van, or RV: And Get Out of Debt, Travel, and Find True Freedom. I was instantly fascinated. 

Call me naïve but I had never heard the terms van dweller, stealth camper or boondocker. My first thought was, "Why would anyone choose to live, full-time, in a vehicle?" I held the view, probably shared by most Americans, that home ownership was both a noble and worthy aspiration, providing stability, safety, comfort and even a sense of identity. I wondered how anyone could feel secure, comfortable or fulfilled living out of a van or a camper. 

Over the following months I continued to read numerous articles on Bob's website and found lots other interesting sources of information on the web. The more I learned, the more my attitude shifted from "Why" to "Why not?" I also thought that the topic of mobile dwelling would make an interesting subject for a documentary. I shared my thoughts with my good friend Aaron Harlan, who happened to have his own personal experience (I'll let him tell that story if he wishes) with living out of a vehicle. Aaron shared my enthusiasm for the project so I began plotting and planning.

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Aaron sleeping at a truck stop in New Mexico on our way to Shaver Lake, CA.

Late July of 2012, a two-week window of opportunity opened for early August where both Aaron and I had no other commitments. I reached out to Bob Wells, Josh and Meisha Manwaring of vagabloggers.com and made an open request for participants through the Yahoo Vandwellers Group. Bob, Josh and Meisha immediately accepted the request as well as a couple of van dwellers from the Seattle, WA area. I planned our route and on August 5, 2012 we hit the road for Bob's camp in the Sierra National Forest near Shaver Lake, CA with just a handful of people willing to let us document their unconventional lives. We trusted that other opportunities would arise while we were on the road and they did.

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Me following Bob Wells. Sun Oven in the foreground. Sierra National Forest August 2012

While we were in Bob's camp, he reached out to a number of other people on our behalf which led to the opportunity to interview Randy Vining, Laurie Theodorou, Steven Ballee' and Chris Carrington. They were all located in Arizona and New Mexico so we decided to cancel the Seattle leg of the trip. With the doors that Bob opened, we knew we could meet with more people if we stayed in the Southwest.

During our travels, we met other mobile dwellers who didn't wish to speak on camera for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, they were all kind, thoughtful and insightful. With tons of practical, how-to information already available on the web, we focused on the personal philosophies of the individuals. Each person we interviewed offered something special to the conversation and I hope that all who watch are able to appreciate their contributions.

I came up with the title "Without Bound" months before the trip was planned. In mathematics, without bound is used to describe something that either increases or decreases infinitely. I encourage you to think about how that applies to your life. What is increasing? What is decreasing? Is the balance of the trade-off tilted in your favor? Are you happy? Is there a better way?

Without Bound - Perspectives on Mobile Living (Documentary)

This project started the summer of 2012 when Aaron Harlan and I traveled through New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah to meet and interview a fascinating group of people who choose to live in vehicles rather than traditional dwellings. As a personal interest project, it has been repeatedly postponed for other priorities like work, illness and family issues to the extent that I often wondered if it would ever be completed.

I am pleased to announce that the finished video will be available Friday, November 21st at 6:00pm CST on YouTube. You can check out the trailer below.

You can learn more about the people here:

Bob Wells - cheaprvliving.com

Randy Vining - mobilecodgers.blogspot.com

Josh and Meisha Manwaring - vagabloggers.com

Steve Ballee' - www.arizonaexplorations.com

Profile Pictures - Truth In Advertising

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The finished product. This is much closer to what I look like in person.

It seems like it was only a few years ago (the key word is "seems") someone would ask my age, I would tell them and they would say "no way, I thought you were twenty-something." Now when people find out my age they get a confused, awkward expression. Apparently they think I am in my fifties (or more).

Anyway, I was looking at my LinkedIn profile image and realized that it was a poor representation of what I look like today. I'm a big advocate for truth in advertising so you know what that means. Time for a living room photo session!

The Set-Up

Lighting

Two compact fluorescent fixtures in soft boxes, one above the camera and one below, were used to light me. These were both part of a cheap three light kit I have been using for video projects for about three years. How cheap? The whole kit was $150. A third fluorescent soft box was illuminating the painting in the background.

Camera

I used my rusty-but-ever-trusty Canon T2i with a Canon 50mm f1.8.

Settings

• Shutter 1/125
• Aperture f2.8
• ISO 100
• Manual White Balance

Post

It needed just a touch of Photoshop. I fixed a few (ok, many) blemishes, removed a yellow glow from the window curtains and cropped the image because I've heard it's hip to be square.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!