I just realised it’s been 3 months or so since I last wrote on my blog. Time has flown by this year already. I’ve had a busy start with work, family life, and of course running too. Now would be a good time to update my blog by posting a short trail running film I created. I worked on this toward the end of last year and called it ‘Four seasons of trail and mountain running‘
I started out wanting to make a moody short film about all the ‘character building’ weather I had endured last year. However, it seems I got side tracked and changed the theme as I went along with the editing process.
I realised that every season of the year on the trails and mountains contained surprises, enriching experiences, difficult moments, joyous times shared with friends, and more. So I changed the theme of the video to be a summary of the year, highlighting all of these moments.
The result is a 10 minute compacted down series of highlights I had during 2023 on the trails and mountains of Wales.
Watch the Four seasons of trail running video below. (Be sure to set the quality higher + full screen for the best experience).
I also hope that this short film demonstrates that Wales has some pretty spectacular places (and weather!) I remember acquaintances remarking to me that it ‘always rains in Wales’ when we were first considering moving here. That’s a load of rubbish. It rains about as much as it does everywhere else in the UK in my experience. We get loads of sun in the Summer. I have solar monitoring charts and graphs from our house panels to back that statement up.
Looking back on the adventures I’ve had in Wales since 2021, I can say that I thoroughly enjoy the four seasons of trail running, and locations we get here.
This is absolutely stunning, Sean!
It really makes me want to go trail running in Wales, despite the weather! Although clearly you did have sunny days, too.
I love how you picked just the right music to capture the mood in the video – this is so well done, you should send it to the Wales Tourism Board!
What camera do you use? Is it a GoPro kind of thing or just your regular phone camera?
Thank you Catrina.
I watched it again this morning and noticed that I seemed to set the tone with the music selection too. It must have been a subconcious decision, but worked!
I use a combination of cameras:
iPhone 14 Pro (in cinematic mode) for the static or static, panning shots in landscape.
DJI Osmo 2 small handheld camera for use while running (sort of my view as I run along) – this has a motorised gimbal which stabilises the footage (similar in a way to gopro, but with mechanical stabilisation via the gimbal)
DJI Action 2 – a tiny cube-like camera that can magnetically attach to a headstrap – gives a good first person style view too, and a little more portable than the Osmo 2. This one does stabilisation in software as it records, so you still manage to get fluid/stable motion in the video.
DJI Mavic Air 2 quadcopter, though I sadly crashed and lost that a few months back!