Go behind the scenes of my Rogue River video shoot for Scouting magazine

Photo by Michael Roytek

About the time they were touching up my makeup, preparing the teleprompter, and adjusting the lighting on the green screen, I had a thought: Making a three-minute video takes a ton of work.

It’s also a ton of fun.

We spent part of last week shooting and editing the video seen above as a special introduction to my Scouting magazine feature, “Going Rogue.”

More on the video in a second. But first, check out the story, which takes you inside Troop 223’s five-day whitewater rafting adventure down the Rogue River in Oregon. The Scouts and Scouters learned how disconnecting from the digital world can rapidly change a person’s outlook.

Find it on Page 28 of the May-June issue—which you should have received by now—or click here to read the story online.

As I tell you in the video, the guys of Troop 223 weren’t the only ones who learned an important lesson on the trip. As someone who’s constantly checking e-mail, I quickly picked up on the allure of River Time, too.

That’s the message we hoped to convey in the video, made with the help of the super-creative folks at the BSA’s Media Studio.

When I came back from the Rogue trip, I had about an hour’s worth of footage I shot with a GoPro HD Helmet HERO camera.

Out of context, though, the video didn’t tell much of a story. So we decided to combine the GoPro stuff with studio shots and some still photographs.

We wrote a script that emphasized the story’s main theme, borrowed some props from REI, and headed to the studio for filming.

The Media Studio team has hundreds of videos under its belt, but this was the first time the script called for a bucket of water to be thrown on someone.

That explains why I’m kneeling. The splash made less of a mess because I was closer to the ground.

But if you watch the video above, it looks like I’m standing. That’s movie magic!

And what about my phone? How did it withstand that wave of water without getting fried?

That bit of movie magic will have to remain a mystery.

OK, I'm not sure I signed up for this part! (Photos by Michael Roytek)

About Bryan Wendell 3282 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.