With just a little over 5 weeks before I leave a southern hemisphere winter for a northern summer the issue of packing has come to the fore.

Essentially the Hannabillica is a walking expedition to document and to retrace as the name suggests the route Hannibal took with his army on foot from Spain to Italy. That’s on foot, as in walking…carrying everything you need besides food and water which will be procured en route.

The main issue is keeping the weight of everything down. Something I’m finding somewhat difficult without sacrificing some of the integrities of the trip itself.
My major concern was the quality of the footage to be shot for the doco itself. There are so many options out there now for the independent film maker the mind boggles. But for a walking expedition such as this the weight of the camera equipment became one of the major factors in camera choice. The camera I chose for the job is not only reasonably light but shoots full high definition at various frame rates. I will give an itemized description of camera equipment as well as all other equipment in the next entry.

The weight of my pack as it stands at the moment is 14.1kg, that’s dry weight too, no food, water or cooking fuel. Heavy I know but not too bad for a mobile, walking one man camera crew. I’m finding it hard to get the weight below 14 kilo’s without spending a whole lot more on lighter equipment and sacrificing some gear like lenses (of which I have four) The backpack itself weighs in at a little under 3kg so it’s light for a 100% waterproof 80 litre pack. All up, the camera equipment weighs 5.5kg not including the mini notebook computer which clocks in at 1kg. light for a computer but still it’s another kilo on my back. But it’s a kilo I can’t afford not to carry as I have to transfer all my footage to a portable drive on the go as well as keeping you all up to speed via the blog.

So there you have it, packing for the cinematically insane, still Hannibal would have had it tougher, with packing for a hundred thousand men, twelve hundred horse and thirty seven elephant.

Carpe Diem amici, Carpe Diem.