📖 The Remote Expedition & Production Story
Moving Heaven & Earth
Reaching totality required moving Heaven and Earth—borrowing a loaner minivan from a friend whose mother had recently passed away. We drove for hours down deserted highways and desolate backroads without seeing a single soul. With no cell signal or radio reception, low water, and barely enough fuel to leave, we camped off-grid for a week—wondering if wildfires 100 miles away had triggered evacuation orders we had no way of hearing.
Kindness & The Hilltop Gathering
Two days before totality, running dangerously low on water, we met a generous couple from Germany staying at a ranch down by the river who shared their extra water. The day before, vehicles finally began trickling up the dusty backroads. On the morning of August 21, a dozen spectators joined us on the exact hilltop ridge where we had scouted and taken test shots a week prior.
The 4K 360 Gamble
With the then available 2K 360 cameras looking pixelated in VR, we maxed out a credit card days before totality when Samsung launched their new 4K 360 camera. While other film crews shot in flat Midwest cornfields with $100k multi-camera rigs, our elevated Ochoco hilltop overlook yielded an unmatched 360° horizon vantage point.
The Racing Lunar Shadow
Our high-desert hilltop overlook allowed us to watch the shadow of the Moon race across the countryside at 1,500 mph, suddenly blotting out the sun and turning the entire 360° horizon into a sunset. Spectators' dogs freaked out and barked frantically into the eerie desert twilight as stars appeared in the middle of the day.
Scintillating Ethereal Light
Raw field audio was replaced with an evocative score that fit totality so perfectly it brought us to tears. Recreating what it was really like—a black sun crowned by scintillating tentacles of ethereal light—took hundreds of hours of often frame-by-frame color grading to balance the 360° horizon sunset.
Heart-Stopping Battery Panic
The moment totality ended, panic struck—the camera’s battery had died. Years of planning, credit card debt, and crowdfunding effort felt lost in the desert. Three days later, reviewing raw footage back home, relief turned to tears: the battery had given out 8 minutes AFTER totality ended, capturing every second of the event flawlessly. Then the real work began...
“Remembering to look up... there seems to be a big hole in the sky surrounded by scintillating tentacles of ethereal light. We wanted to capture that moment the best we could for ourselves, but also for others who couldn't make the trip with us—including those who didn't make it this far in time and space.”
— 🕶️ Director's Journal (UpLiftVR Studios)