For the past 10 years, I have mostly worked off the grid and in my van for each of my major film projects. No matter how many times I resolve to be more normal and work out of an office or home, I always end up in a remote location. Modern life is full of beautiful distractions; I’m always seeking a balance between my time in nature and in society. The intense amount of time that is needed to sit in front of a computer and edit makes me want to be in places where I can easily take a break, relax, and enjoy meditative activities in nature like hiking, surfing or fishing. These breaks allow my body to unwind and my mind to rest. Right now, I’m working on a documentary titled “Island Earth,” a film about the GMO conflict in Hawaii. The film explores the untapped potential of local and diversified agriculture. After eighteen months of flying to Hawaii to film with farmers, politicians, lawyers, and doctors, I am now camped out in Death Valley, ready to edit.
The days are short and the nights are cold so I try to get my work done while it’s dark. My days start at 4am. I wake up inside my van, it’s freezing so I stay in my sleeping bag and put some thin gloves on. I get my laptop and hard drive and set them up. I plug my power supply into the inverter that’s plugged into the cigarette socket and start editing. Around five hours later at 9am, it starts to warm up and I get out my foldable 45 watt solar panel and lay it on the windshield. I pop the hood and connect the positive and negative to my car battery. It will trickle charge whatever power my laptop drained in the early morning hours. I then go back to work for another hour or two. When my eyes start to hurt, or I feel I’m loosing my focus, I go out and lay in the sun outside my van. There is no one around. It is so quiet that I start to hear the sound of nothing.
Around 11am I drive down the dirt road a couple miles to the hot spring and soak for a while. It feels nice to be able to feel my toes again. For some reason, my wool socks and sleeping bag aren’t keeping them warm. At noon I eat an apple and take my road bike for a ride down the empty asphalt road extending to the horizon. I go as far as I can then stop to lay in the sun and drink some water. I turn around and ride back. As the miles roll by, characters and themes from my film pop into my thoughts from my subconscious. I get little epiphanies and stop and write them down in my phone; if they are long winded I break out my recorder app and talk for a while. After 10 to 40 miles, depending on the day, I get back to my van.
I eat an avocado with hot sauce and start chopping potatoes, onions and squash and throw them in a large metal bowl. I soak some lentils and white rice in a pot and drive into the tiny town and park at the library to check emails and social media with the free Wi-Fi. I light up my propane stove and pop the air vent of my van. After an hour of cooking, I have a big meal while listening to podcasts and researching real estate properties. After eating, I go back to the hot springs for a soak and drive out on the dirt road. One night, I was sitting alone in the hot spring, with only the sound of the wind and chirping crickets, when a fireball rose into the sky to the west. As it gained altitude, it left a small orange trail. Then,suddenly, it exploded into a blue-green circle and headed north, leaving a circular green and white cloud radiating in its wake. Turns out it was an intercontinental ballistic missile the military was testing. After snapping a few photos on my Sony A7s II, I parked in my secluded spot below a bare mesa and got my laptop out for four to six more hours of editing, like I do every evening.
*All photos by Cyrus Sutton
