Guernsey on Speed

"Guernsey on Speed" is a sped-up tour of the entire coastline of Guernsey. In just 3 minutes, audiences can behold, to a stunning level of detail, a vast scope of the island's countless visual treasures.

This video can be watched without the additional information detailed below here: http://becadigi.ning.com/video/guernsey-on-speed-lite

Beginning and ending in the south-west corner of the island, at every moment of the tour three visual elements can be seen: the main window displaying the sped-up tour; a secondary window featuring photos of places passed along the way; and a third panel with a map showing our current location, the names of the places depicted in the photos, and an arrow pointing towards the location of those places.

The idea for Guernsey on Speed occurred to me in the summer of 2007. Shooting happened soon after and the video became an instant Youtube hit, achieving over 18,000 hits, and was given a big write-up in the Guernsey Press (ironically, the story below was about a man fined for speeding!)

The original video featured me sitting idle on a wall bordering Rocquaine Bay. A mysterious driver appears and whisks me away on a breakneck tour of the island's coastline to the sound of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild". Once the tour is over, the driver departs and I walk into the distance.

In early 2009, I decided to make a vow not to take a car journey for the whole of the year. This was intended to highlight the issue of car dependency in modern life and to inspire people to think about and discuss this subject. I became increasingly unable to reconcile my progressive transport views and activism with my Youtube video displaying the longest car journey possible in Guernsey. Guernsey's population has, after all, an obscene dependency on automobiles, considering the island's small size.

So I removed the video and set to work on producing a new version with the car removed and containing more information that would make the video more meaningful to both islanders and non-islanders. Despite the fact that a car was involved in production, I hope this video will highlight both the tiny dimensions and uniqueness of Guernsey and encourage people to walk, bicycle, or take public transport.

Those who remember the original Guernsey on Speed will recall the video's soundtrack: Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" (plus a bass riff from Prince's "Musicology"). However, for this version I felt passionately that no copyrighted material should be used. So I obtained music from the excellent ccmixter, sound effects from The Freesound Project, and photos from Flickr. Thus, my video now employs the talents of artists from across the world, artists who have given their work for anyone to use for free. This embodies a new era of exciting collaboration made possible by the internet.

As a result, Guernsey on Speed is now available under the Creative Commons licensing scheme. As a "Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License" piece, the video can be remixed and shared by anyone, as long as no profits are generated and the maker of the original is given credit. I encourage anyone with the necessary skills to have a go at building upon the original works and to add their own ideas.

The original videos can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=d1bd6df790e5f8848c9e7c56ba37815f00377f9b32c99df6.

I hope you enjoy the new Guernsey on Speed!

Adam

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