In June of 1999, Kathi and I took a Globus tour of Italy - their "Italian Mosaic." Before leaving for
trip, I borrowed a Steadicam Jr. from a good friend in Los Angeles who is a film editor. I wanted to use it with my home video camera to shoot better quality home movies while on this "once in a lifetime" trip. The Steadicam Jr stabilizes camera and completely eliminates any shaking.The 21-day (with two extensions) trip was absolutely wonderful! The group of about 25 people on tour all meshed nicely and food, sights, art, were fantastic. I shot hours of video, some of it while actually walking down streets of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Naples. The Steadicam Jr produced smooth shots that seemed to “float.” And in Venice, I proposed to Kathi at sunset in a gondola on Grand Canal. We purhased our wedding rings in gold market of Florence.
Returning to US, I viewed video I had shot with Steadicam and quickly realized that it would be perfect for watching while walking on our treadmill. A few tests confirmed my idea - “virtual walks” could give you impression that you were actually “walking” streets of these beautiful European cities and could make time spent on treadmill pass quickly.
Having recently retired from a career in teaching Television Production, and having just celebrated our marriage, I proposed another idea to my new wife: We would form a tv production company which would purchase professional equipment and film "Treadmill Virtual Walks" of European cities. We would then sell these virtual walks on Internet.
Kathi immediately agreed and we got busy with details. We formed a corporation, researched equipment, purchased it, along with rights to music suitable for accompanying these walks.
In addition to “virtual walks” which we would shoot with Steadicam equipment, we also decided to take a tripod and shoot more traditional travel video footage. We planned on editing this footage into our “Armchair Travel Videos” which, accompanied by classical music, we would also sell on Internet. Our objective was to come back from a 2 week shoot in a European city with two totally different types of footage, which could then be edited into two totally different types of travel videos.
We set off to Venice on our first professional “shoot” in April of 2001. We stayed in Marconi Hotel overlooking Rialto Bridge and Grand Canal. We had excellent weather and worked hard. Awake and on street by 7 AM each morning, we shot treadmill walks while streets were empty and then returned to our hotel for breakfast. After breakfast, we returned to streets for more shooting. We shot most days until well into night. Venice is absolutely incredible! If you’ve never been to Venice, you must go. You’ll never regret it.
