Mike & Alanna
Alanna and Mike Clear married at the end of 2008, after meeting on a blind date 3 years earlier. Mike’s pragmatic and Alanna’s loud. If Mike were doing this trip alone, it would be Teutonic in its efficiency – without Mike, Alanna would probably move in with that nice couple she met outside Anchorage. Together they are both mouth and trousers.
On the Top of The World Highway
Alanna: 29 years old. She has worked in advertising for the last 6 years – as a graduate trainee at AMV BBDO in London, before moving on to advertising strategy at Red Bee Media for the BBC. MA in Modern Languages (French and Italian – sadly, not Spanish…), St Peter’s College, Oxford University.
Likes: lying on a rug in the shade, with husband and People magazine. Dislikes: the touch and smell of newspapers.
Mike: 30 years old. Worked in advertising for 9 years, starting as a graduate trainee at Saatchi & Saatchi, London, before becoming a TV producer for commercials at Mother London. MA in psychology and philosophy from Edinburgh University.
Likes: doing stuff. Dislikes: being disturbed (usually by the wife) when doing stuff.
Funding: We are not receiving any external funding for this project. Our friends and family kindly contributed towards this trip as part of our wedding list last year, and Ural have helped us with the hardware and mechanical support. We are extremely grateful to all who have helped us realise our dream.
Crew: With no funding there is no crew. We can’t afford to be followed by a cameraman, and a couple of vans of kit. But we are managing to film a staggering amount without the standard support. We are shooting all interviews and establishing shots on HD (1080 x 720p) with a Sony PMW EXI. We are filming spontaneous material (i.e. the youtube content) on a flip HD camera – which is proving invaluable. And we a collecting action shots of the road using a GoPro camera & mount – which comes in a waterproof mount and can be attached to any part of the bike (or helmet).
Team on the ground: The site has been constructed with love and skill by Tom Dearden (www.tomdearden.com) (who has also fielded our daft technical questions from the road). And we have been sending our footage back to Anthony Austin, who is beginning the mighty task of editing the project. Anthony runs the post facility Bosh @ Motherlondon. Our researcher back at base is Mark, Alanna’s dad.
We are somehow demonstrating that perhaps John Lennon was right, all you need is love…
(although he didn’t mention the Amex bill)
