When a Vacation Becomes a Creative Project

Since Isa and I started traveling together, we discovered a shared holiday ritual: making epic aftermovies. Most of these films are just for friends and family, but here are a few I wanted to share with you.

A bit of background: we’re both professional creatives. Isa is the Lead Video Editor at Yune in Amsterdam. She’s a talented storyteller, editor, and director (you can check her portfolio here). And I love thinking about composition, filming and diving into post-production. We complement each other naturally in this creative process. And during our trips, our personal and professional lives naturally blur a little.

I think it started during our second trip together, when we went to Scotland, and since then, we’ve made an aftermovie every year. With each one, we’ve improved. Whether it’s in filming, editing, or color grading, it’s become a creative project we both grow from.

I’m usually running around with a camera in hand, and while Isa directs me or captures sound samples from the environment. Together we loosely plan our shots, partly to avoid ending up with hours of random footage Isa has to dig through later.

So enough blabbering, let’s dive into some of our aftermovies.

Japan (2017)

We explored Japan in the fall of 2017, visiting Tokyo, Fujiyoshida, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, Hiroshima, Hattoji, Magome, Nagano, and Takaragawa. This was our first real attempt at making a cinematic aftermovie, and it set the tone for what we’ve done since. Everything was shot with a Panasonic GH5 and a GoPro Hero 4 Black.

Iceland (2020)

The best time to visit Iceland? October 2020, mid-pandemic. With only two daily flights into the country and barely any tourists, it felt like we had the island to ourselves. What’s special about this one is that Isa focused on sound design, while I went heavy on saturated color grading; we wanted to break from the usual moody Iceland vibes you see online.

USA (2023)

We road-tripped along the East Coast, stopping in New York, Washington, Boston, Portland, Bar Harbor, Waterbury, and Provincetown. It was a great mix of cities and nature. This was also the first trip with our new Fujifilm XH-2, a beast of a hybrid camera that seriously upped our game.

Scandinavia (2024)

Summer in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. This time, we went (almost) fully analog. The Super-8 Chinon Dart 5x camera made us film with intention: every shot was thought through before pulling the trigger. That meant editing happened while filming. What you see in the final cut is almost everything we shot, with some digital drone footage layered in.

What’s next? Well, this year we’re taking a breather. But who knows, maybe next year, when we’ll do a big adventure, we’ll take all the gear with us again.