Carnival Of Venice

Travel Short Film (Italy / 2016)

Colours, masks, tradition, fun - everything the heart desires

The Carnival of Venice is one of the most traditional celebrations in Italy and is famous throughout the country and, indeed, the world – I would have been a fool not to pack my camera and set out to record it.

I filmed the Carnival of Venice in February 2016 with my first camera, which I had bought a couple of months before. I still had to learn a lot (and I really mean a lot) about compositions, camera movements, interaction with subjects, and general technical aspects of recording videos. The Carnival presented itself to me as a fun and educative opportunity to experiment and gather experience with my camera, while also creating a small video covering the event.

I am the first one to admit that no talent is required to produce a generic video like the one I filmed at the Carnival. The colours, masks, and the people, as well as the celebration itself, are so extraordinary that anyone could just take a camera, point it in any direction and still manage to capture beautiful images. I take no particular pride in this video because I think it lacks both creative and technical quality. Nonetheless, I am happy that I decided to take the time to film it, as it was a wonderful experience and offered me a great opportunity to improve myself.

Even though, as I said, I personally don’t like this video, it was well-received by the internet audience. The German Facebook page of Panasonic Lumix used it to showcase the image quality of the Lumix GH4 camera, and National Geographic Travel reached out to me to showcase my footage on their Facebook page (where, ironically, it was viewed over 450 thousand times).