And a new season begins-

This week we’re releasing our first episode from the Italy season – "New Country, New Friends".

In this episode a brand new Jet Set Zero cast sets out to explore the countryside of Italy one stunning location at a time. Courtney and Lynne are the first to arrive in Bajardo and enjoy the ancient city before meeting up with Sarah and Perrin in San Remo. From there they get their introduction to their new jobs and life in Italy.

As with every episode let us know what you think, what you like, and what you want to see more of (as well as what you don’t like).  Drop us an email at web[at]jetsetzero.tv with your thoughts – we read every one!

A long time ago in a film school far, far away, I studied to be a fiction filmmaker.  My favorite films were fictional, and the stories I wanted to tell certainly didn’t lend themselves to documentary, or so I thought.  Over time my views changed; I came to see that the difference between the two was more a matter of production than anything else.  Documentaries can and do tell any number of stories, often with more grace and less ego (and always with less money) than their fictional counterparts.  Aside from that, the two are remarkably similar.  Most films are made in the editing room, anyway, regardless of the fiction/documentary label.   But, from a production standpoint, the differences are still astounding.

When I made fiction films, I would put months of work into preparation.  I knew how it would look, how it would sound, who would say what to whom and where long before anything was recorded.  In documentary, it’s almost the exact opposite.  The story develops in front of you, and I’m lucky if I even know where we’re going next, let alone what’s going to happen there.  Sometimes I’ll have only a few minutes notice before having to embark on a trip to an indigenous market, or a soccer game, or a gang fight outside our apartment (“South Quito says hello!”).  To say “You have to be prepared for anything” is an understatement.  You have to be prepared for everything.

The guys’ trip in episode 4 is a good example. At around 8 PM one night we got a call from Sarah and Alice (who we kinda knew, a little) to come to Baños, a town about 4 hours from Quito.  Freddie had just quit his job and the girls were out of town, so the timing was more or less perfect… except for that 4 hour bus ride.  But what could we do?  With less than an hour’s notice I packed a small satchel bag and hopped on a bus with Freddie and Ryan.  By 1 AM we were stealing blankets out of the hotel linen closet and making makeshift beds on the floor of the girls’ room.

There’s a couple things I did to “prepare” for that move, I guess.  First, I had my equipment at the ready: batteries charged, memory cards empty, etc.  Second, I have a well-honed ability to travel light.  Since the camera is in a backpack, I have to fit all my belongings into a smaller side bag.  Neither of these things take a whole ton of work, but you have to stay on top of them 24 hours a day, otherwise either one could have scuttled this trip.

The next day brought more surprises.  Sarah and Alice casually mentioned that we’d be going horseback riding because, y’know, we do that all the time.  I guess it doesn’t matter, because had I known before I probably wouldn’t have done much different.   How can you prepare for that? Filming from horseback was challenging but fun, until it started raining and I had to figure out how to pack up the camera from on top of a wet, angry filly.  Also, my horse was the slowest of the bunch and got lost at one point, so I had to figure out dismounting and guiding, too.  Whatever horse.

Sarah and Alice want you to say 'Yes.'

So what have I learned after being subjected to these (and other) unforeseen events?  There’s no secret to being prepared.  Much like making a fiction film, it’s a matter of keeping your equipment clean and in good working order and getting a good night’s sleep.  Also, just like making a fiction,  carrying a toothbrush with you is never a bad idea, and a knife never goes to waste.  But the real trick, the real moral to this story if there even is one, is that you just have be ready to say “Yes.”   It’s the fastest, easiest, and hopefully cheapest way to get into trouble.  Beyond that, just be ready to go a couple days without showering, because you won’t always get to crash in some British girls’ swanky hotel room.  That kind of stuff only happens in the movies.

This week sees the release of another episode from Quito – “Get Out of Town”.  In this week’s episode the cast decides it’s time for some change. Freddie and Ryan head out of town and end up meeting a pair of girls to share an adventure with while Jenna and Laurene explore the city with new friend/guest cast member Amy Cao.

Oh, and everyone quits their jobs.

NEW EPISODE HERE

Every producer/cameraman/editor lives with three great fears, the first being that his bosses will ask him to add “blogger” to his title.  Even that’s not so bad as long as the producer/cameraman/editor/blogger doesn’t have to face that second, greater fear, and that’s that he’ll have to begin a post with the following sentence.

My heart broke when I realized that the camera had been stolen.

See?  This is already the worst post I’ve ever had to write.  My worst nightmare has always been losing a camera, which represents not only my livelihood but my very raison d’être.  I realize that many travelers have had cameras, wallets, or iPods stolen from them, but keeping our camera safe from would-be thieves is in my freaking job description. It may be the first sentence.  So when I grabbed hold of the camera bag and felt that it was light, the wave of remorse, stupidity, and the sense of failure that swept over me was surpassed only by the feeling that I had let down my friends.

That’s a rough feeling, even if my friends were more than forgiving.  In Quito, the cast accepted the situation and took great pains to work around it, going so far as to delay trips until we could film them.  Back in the States, the news was met only with a frantic race to find a replacement camera.  Jed, a guy who does so much for the show that we can’t even find an appropriate title for him, reminded me that I was up against some of the best thieves in the world, and that statement almost made me feel relieved.  Almost.  The guilt from that missing camera hung over me for the remainder of my time in Ecuador, and still does.  Our show is produced on a low budget, and that camera (or its replacement) was no small expense, so mathematically-speaking it would have been better for the show if I had been kidnapped and killed.  That’s how it felt, anyway.

Not that I sat around feeling sorry for myself.  Well, not after that first day.  I was determined to set things right by recovering the stolen 7D in some half-imagined plot that involved finding and ideally stabbing the guy who stole it.  In reality, I never had a chance.  That camera was probably on its way to Mexico City within hours of it leaving my side.  Even so, there is no reasoning with a cameraman who has lost his camera, so I put on my fedora* and set out to reclaim what had been taken from me.

Better times.

The most helpful person in my search was an American anthropology student and family friend named Anna whose research has brought her in close contact with Quito’s sex workers.  (She keeps a great blog here.)  Anna was privy to all sorts of secret markets and underworld dealers that I wasn’t, and she generously donated her time and expertise to my plight even though she knew just how unlikely it was.  Over lunch she relayed stories of Quito’s legendary crime scene, which ranged from thieves who only stole car radios if the door was unlocked to burglars who took everything including the apartment door.  She also mentioned a weekly market for stolen goods a few hours from Quito outside of a town called Latacunga.  I questioned her about it obsessively.  “Do you think it’s worth it for me to go there?” I asked.  She gave it some thought, and finally spoke  a sympathetic “No.”

I left for Latacunga before sunrise the next day, not because I doubted Anna’s wisdom but because I had nowhere else to look.  I found the expansive market located in one of the town’s out-of-the-way plazas, and was unsurprised to find myself the only foreigner present. As I toured the tables of repackaged iPods, second-hand camcorders, and the obligatory blanket of knock-off sunglasses, the unlikelihood of my fool’s errand sank in.  There was nothing here that even approached the value of my missing camera, and I was just some stupid, self-deluded kid in a dumb hat.  I tried to salvage the trip by tracking down a mysterious “camera lady” who wasn’t in the market this week, but was equally disappointed with the result.  Dejectedly, I ate a cheap lunch and boarded a bus back for home.

Writing “I had to accept that the camera was gone for good” is the last fear I hope to confront today.   I wish I could write of some silver lining to these events, like “I got to spend more time with the kids,” but the fact is that this whole ordeal fucking sucked.  Or maybe there is a silver lining, a reminder that attachment to inanimate objects causes suffering.  I probably could have learned that from a  stolen iPod, though.  In any case it all happened, and I learned something from it.  Don’t underestimate these guys.  They’ll even take your damn door.

//

*Yes, literally, but only because fedoras are cheap and practical in Ecuador, and not because I’m some detective story-obsessed nerd**.

**You be the judge.

1.  The safety of my friends.
2.  The security of the equipment.
3.  Not getting ripped off by taxi drivers.
4.  My safety.

Over the course of working for JS0 I’ve developed a few strategies and techniques to help make sure that everything remains cool.  I can’t share them all with you, sadly, because then they won’t be as useful, but these are the things I’m thinking about on a daily basis.  Anytime we plan a trip to a new town (or go somewhere unplanned),  walk into a dark, bustling club, or attract the glances of on-lookers as we film in the streets, I’ve got an eye out for possible problems.  As travelers in a foreign land we already stand out, but with the camera in hand our visibility and the ensuing risk can quickly multiply.

Some solutions are simple.  Putting the camera away and looking angry works 80% of the time.  Other times we have to leave the situation entirely.  It’s shitty, but it’s a fact of life.  Or it is in Ecuador, anyway.

I’m trying to think of instances in Vietnam when I feared for the safety of my friends or my gear, and I’m coming up short.  That’s not to say that Saigon is some crime-free paradise; while there I saw cell phones stolen out of tourists’ hands by guys on motorbikes and a couple shady situations that I had to steer clear of.  But after living in Saigon’s backpacker district for a month and taking proper precautions, I felt safe walking around unaccompanied with the camera.  Vietnam may have some petty theft, but muggings and robberies are almost unheard of.

Not so in Quito.  The backpacker district, La Mariscal, can be one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in town, especially if you’re carrying a camera.  Staying in a group is always advisable. The neighborhood is littered with dudes sketchily loitering around for reasons that become all too apparent if you’re by yourself.  Luckily, this wasn’t much of a problem.  Laurene, Freddie and I only lived in the area for a few days before finding our apartment in another neighborhood, and we played it safe in those early days.

I thought that our move might improve the situation.  Santa Clara, our new hood, was relatively clean, busy, and filled with students from the nearby university.  So on our first day in the new place, I filmed Freddie and Laurene as they went to get keys copied at a key-copying-phone-charging-AA-battery-selling-magazine stand on our block.  We had only been on the street for a few minutes when a guy bumped into my bag from behind.  At the time it seemed harmless since I was kinda blocking the sidewalk.  But moments later, as I reached to grab a fresh battery from my camera bag, I realized that something was amiss.  My bag had been sprayed by mustard.

Mustard. Yeah, I don't get it either.

This is the first step in an asinine scheme that the thieves of Quito regularly attempt (and I hope never successfully pull off).  First an unseen hand sprays the bag with mustard.  Next, a well-dressed man approaches, alerts the tourist that he’s been sprayed, and offers to help clean the bag.  The grateful tourist hands the condiment-soaked bag to the Suit, and another guy (probably the mustard-sprayer) runs by and grabs it out of the Suit’s hands, disappearing around the corner.  The well-dressed man is apologetic, the tourist is apoplectic, and the thieves are GONNA GET DRUNK TONIGHT.  Luckily for me, the well-dressed man never materialized, not that it matters much because I would never hand my bag over to someone after it mysteriously rained mustard and he conveniently had some tissues.  To me, that’s this plot’s biggest flaw, and I sincerely hope that no one has ever been stupid enough to fall for it.  But I digress.

I was still apoplectic without the con being completed, as now it seemed that I couldn’t film on my own block.  That’s a shitty-enough feeling even if filming a travel series isn’t your job.  On top of that, the asshole had managed to get mustard down the back of my pants which I had to wear unwashed for a week afterward, giving the appearance that I only own one pair of pants which, while true, isn’t something that I really need advertised.  The situation grew gloomier that night when we were given a security talk by our neighbors, Mehda and Erika (you can watch part of it in Episode 2… the part where they tell us about finding a dead guy).  Their warnings dominated all future shoots.  There’s a reason why the opening shot of Ryan’s night skateboarding scene is taken from our roof, and that’s that I wouldn’t bring the camera outside the apartment at night until I had scoped out the entire street, and even then I couldn’t leave the front of the building.  I had done research prior to coming to Ecuador, but this day spelled it out:  Staying safe in Quito, especially with the camera, was gonna be a hell of a challenge.

Over the next couple months, I would have to out-maneuver followers, sew a few new pockets, and get sprayed by mustard again.  I was annoyed but on guard, and I thought I had it figured out.  Sadly, I was wrong.  Check back when Episode 3 goes up to read about the time I failed.

This week’s release brings us the next chapter in the story of Jet Set Zero: Quito. 

After Freddie and Laurene’s adventurous meeting – finding a place to live, and then climbing a mountain – they moved on to a critical next step: meeting the rest of the team. This week’s episode sees the premiere of Quito’s next two characters:  Jenna and Ryan. 

With the whole team intact they can move on to more challenges: the challenges of jobs and security.  Two aspects of life in Quito that may prove to be even more challenging than their previous mountain adventure.

NEW EPISODE HERE

Have you ever wanted to make a change?  Take on an adventure? Tell your story to the world? Change your life? 

Well, here’s your chance.

Jet Set Zero is looking for 1 or 2 more cast members for season 8.  This season starts in August and we’ll be closing applications as soon as we find the right person for the job.  The sooner you get in your information, the better.

Click the image above or right here to read more about how to apply and what happens next.

Good luck.  We’re waiting to hear from you.

These were shot in February, when principal photography had wrapped and I was able to turn my attention to some of those details that make life in Vietnam so unique.  I was always intrigued by the utilitarian aspect of Vietnamese society, by its people’s ability to make do with whatever works and not demand all the bells and whistles that mark any undertaking in the States.  The train crossing is a great example.  In America, where it’s often said that we value machines and automation at the expense of people, a human-operated train crossing would be unthinkable, or at the very least hopelessly outdated.  In Vietnam, where the biggest technological concern is air pollution from motorbikes (and lately the censorship of Facebook), it’s common-place.  So common, in fact, that there were stations just like this one only 25 yards in either direction.  Cynics might say that this is the communist influence on the country, a simple way of creating soul-sucking jobs that keep everyone busy.  Maybe there’s some truth to that, but the reason I found this station so interesting was because the workers’ spirits seemed to be as high as anyone’s.  I was able to observe them a couple times before this shoot (this crossing was near my apartment), and every time I saw these young women emerge from their small guard house and lower these barriers, they did it with enthusiasm.  Perhaps it’s that difference – that a Vietnamese person could do the same task every day and be happy – that explains why these train crossings exist.  No economic system can explain that kind of inner peace (though they’ve all certainly tried).  No, it seems to me that that the Vietnamese are able to be happy with their work thanks to the influence of Buddhism.  There’s more to that than I can pretend to know, but the more I learned about Buddhism while in Vietnam, the more I saw it reflected in daily life.  Maybe America doesn’t need hand-operated train crossings, but perhaps there’s something to be said for inner peace.

I don’t have as much to say about the coffee short.  While it also exemplifies the utilitarianism of Vietnam (gloves? what for?), the truth is that I just love Vietnamese ice coffee, or cà phê sữa đá.  I went to this coffee cart every single morning, mostly for the delicious, sweet elixir, but also to get made fun of in Vietnamese by the nice woman making the drinks.  See that glass that of coffee she just made?  I drank that.  And it was damn good.

For starters, you should know that everyone who works for JS0 is a complete masochist.  Most companies that produce shows like ours do so with a crew of at least 3 people in the field.  They also have an editor, assistant editor, and a couple technicians back in the States to put it all together, and then a whole slew of people whose jobs are to encode, embed, advertise, track, quantify, and sell it.  Here at Jet Set Zero, we thought it would be funny if we did all of that but with only 4 people.  Total.  It turns out that we were kinda right; We’re in the midst of producing our seventh season, and each person involved works around the clock to bring episodes to air.  And we love it.

Making it look easy.

My current 24-hour shift started in late April, when I flew down to Quito.  I hoped to get acclimated to the altitude, improve my limited Spanish, and get a general feel for the city in the week before the cast arrived.  I had been warned that climbing stairs and drinking beer would be challenging at this height, but I was happy to find that it was just the stairs.  On my second day in town I climbed to El Panacillo, the highest point in Quito, and definitely felt a bit winded up top.  I immediately went back down and found the lowest bar I could find, which was actually just a pool table with some crates around it and a kid selling cigarettes.  Unfortunately, those crates were still 9,350 feet in the air, so it wasn’t a huge relief.

The altitude definitely made things difficult early on.  The camera we shot on (the Canon 7D) is surprisingly heavy and I’m not-surprisingly weak, so lots of times I found myself struggling to keep up with the non-camera-carrying cast.   During Freddie’s uphill trek around Guapulo (the part when he says the view looks like a postcard) I ended up about 100 yards behind him.  That wasn’t so bad, though, compared with what was to come.

I’ve climbed a mountain once in my life.  I was 10 years old, so it probably wasn’t a very tough climb.  Mt. Punay, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as forgiving.  When I applied for this job with Jet Set Zero, I highlighted the fact that I’ve regularly had the crap kicked out of me while making films, but climbing this mountain was easily the most grueling, challenging, arduous shoot I’ve ever worked on*.  It’s next to impossible to get a good tracking shot while walking backwards up a muddy, rocky mountain.  In fact, the only tracking shot that appears in the episode cuts out just before I almost fell over.  I learned that when you climb a mountain, your job is to climb the mountain.  Anything else – like, say, producing a web-series – comes second.

After 3 hours of putting the show second, we made it to the top and took a long, long rest.  Then, of course, we watched the sunset.  I hope that the footage conveys a tenth of the beauty that we saw up on that mountain.  As I stood awe-struck at the sight of the setting sun, I realized that this scene, this magnificent moment, plays out every single day, and has since before any of us existed.  As I write this, that sun is still setting over those clouds.  If we don’t screw things up too badly, that stunning view will still be there after we’re gone.  If you ever get a chance, you should see it with your own eyes.  But pack light.

From Quito,
Evan

*Except for the time I was shot by a taser.

This Friday is special, not only do we have a new episode – we have a whole new season. 

Season 6 is our first season in South America, almost an entirely new team (plus our veteran Laurene), and is shot in an entirely new way.  Both Jed (our US editor) and Evan (field producer, editor) have spent an incredible amount of time and work on a whole new way for us to shoot and develop episodes.  You saw a hint of it in the teaser, but this is the first full length episode with our new setup.

This is the direction the show will be moving and we’re quite proud of the amazing work by our Quito cast – Laurene, Freddie, Jenna and Ryan as well as the endless hours put in by both Jed and Evan.

So sit back, and enjoy.  You’ll want to watch this one in HD and full screen, trust me.

NEW EPISODE HERE