Wedding Films in the Early 2000s and the South American Ayahuasca Industry

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of covering the Portland Terrain Race. Preston Derrick and I were brought on for a photo and video coverage. The race was a fun playhouse-of-a-client that was tailored for Preston and me. We were given total creative freedom to roam, shoot whatever, whenever, in a gorgeous setting. We were both competitive athletes in prior, less interesting chapters of our youth, so when we were dropped in the grown-up sandbox that is terrain races, we flourished for 48 straight hours of essentially no rules and killer oversight (shout out to Lacey and Anthony). We commissioned over 3600 photos and a highlight film, enjoying every second of the experience.

One of the things that came from the shoot was a discussion with a former videographer we bumped into at the beer stand. He and I immediately started relishing the semantic deltas of wedding videography in the early 2000s and now. We talked gimbals, mirrorless, same-day edits, and budgets until, in my eternal quest for anything resembling sage wisdom, he told me a story about a trip to South America, where he lost an entire documentary.

He told us he brought a small crew and about $14k worth of camera equipment into the jungle to film a doc covering American tourism and the ayahuasca industry. While filming, his crew guided American women through the jungle and documented what they go through to experience a “legitimate” ayahuasca trip, shaman and all. While he told us how some shamans were frauds and how prevalent the kidnappings were, how he knows a shaman who’s legit and not going to steal all you own, I started to contextualize the story I was hearing about a place I had never been covering a story I’d never heard; he told me when he tried to leave, his gear was stolen from him by the Peruvian airport staff. I’d heard about this before, but it got very real when he said he never got back into videography. Losing camera stuff that’s one thing. That’s why we have insurance. He lost an entire documentary.

I was trying to comprehend the gravity of being told my footage and equipment could likely “turn up” for another USD 20k when I realized how lucky the whole conversation was. I was somewhere outdoors, working with a camera with cool people, drinking free beer on the job. I tried to put my finger on what got me there and could only attribute it to being very nice and putting myself in the coolest room possible. In this case, a beer tent at a grown-up mud fight 5k. I feel grateful often, but meeting people with much more life experience than me spins the thankful wheels.

And, hey. I have an ayahuasca shaman guy, so I’ve got that going.

We had a LOT of fun making this video but it gave us serious FOMO. Enjoy.