SHOTS TO GET

Do speaking part at Timpie Springs

For intro 1A have me on beach or somewhere in LA, ASMR style loading poloroid film into camera with either overlays or multiscreen cuts of beach activity. People playing on beach, birds flying, surfers, palm trees swaying; set a calming peaceful beach scene. Then have shot of me taking random picture on beach, but make it look really scenic. Palm trees, sunset, the works. Have somewhat close up of me holding camera as photo comes out, then start shaking the photo. Try one shot with shaking it, and one without. Transition to shots of Brett’s feet on beach, shot of trees and forest (do like shots below), then cut to me looking in camera from wherever I am for 2A, saying the end of 1B, then pan back to table with all four poloroids being arranged on table top, and place the title.

SHOTS TO GET:

UNWRAPPING POLOROID FILM AND PUTTING IT INTO CAMERA
TONS OF BEACH FOOTAGE TO INJECT AND OVERLAY DURING OPENING ASMR SEQUENCE
COFFEE SHOP ATMOSPHERE AND COFFEE SHOP B-ROLL TO SET SCENE
SHOTS AT IN-N-OUT OF PLANES FLYING OVERHEAD (GET SOME SHOTS THAT CAN BE USED TO CREATE MASKED SHOTS LATER)

MAKE SURE TO PAUSE BETWEEN EACH PARAGRAPH TO OVERLAY AUDIO FOR NEXT PART. TAKE A SIP OF COFFEE OR DO SOMETHING AFTER EACH PARAGRAPH TO CREATE VIDEO SPACE FOR OVERLAYING AUDIO

1A
How would you explain what it feels like to experience nostalgia? How would you explain to someone what it feels like to be homesick? You ever notice how the only real way to understand a feeling is to actually experience it yourself? You ever notice how it’s the same way with places?
[HAVE SPLIT SCREEN OF TWO HORIZONTAL VIDEOS OF ME IN CONWAY FOREST WITH TALL TREES, AND BRETT’S FEET ON BEACH]
1B
I mean, you can show someone a picture of that mountain, or that beautiful beach… but to actually be there and feel the sand sliding out under your feet when the water goes out…. to breathe in and smell the pine trees in the forest air…

Have you ever missed being somewhere so much that you actually feel homesick for it?
[OVERLAY AUDIO FOR 1C WHILE STARING INTO THE CAMERA AFTER TALKING IN 1B]

1C

Have you ever been homesick for a place you’ve never been?

CE3K

Maybe overlay my face watching the movie with the actual movie in a double exposure shot as I say “There’s actually a movie that illustrates this perfectly.”
But use this exact shot, but have me looking into the camera to say “the exact same thing happened to me.”

2A
There’s a movie that illustrates this.. perfectly.
It’s an old movie called Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And even though it’s about aliens, what I’m talking about has nothing to do with aliens at all, and just… hear me out for a minute.

[HAVE SHOT OF ME PUTTING CLOSE ENCOUNTERS VHS INTO VCR, TV STATIC TO TRANSITION TO MOVIE CLIPS]
TIMESTAMPS FOR CE3K:
00:32:04 - 00:32:32
0036:36 - 00:37:29
46:56 - 47:05
1:00:18 - 1:01:27
1:06:48-1:06:57
1:14:56 - 1:15:24
1:15:34 - 1:15:38
1:20:43 - 1:21:24

Basically, the main characters, Roy and Jillian, keep seeing this image of this place in their head. Neither of them knows what it is, or where it is, but they just can’t seem to get it out of their head. It first happens to Roy when he’s in the bathroom shaving. He has the pile of shaving cream in his hand, and it just somehow looks familiar to him. It happens to him later that night when he sees a little boy playing in the mud. Jillian starts making paintings and drawings of it over and over again, like she just can’t get it out of her system no matter how many times she draws it. Probably the most famous scene, Roy is having dinner with his family, and he spaces out for a few minutes and starts piling his plate full of mashed potatoes. Then he actually takes his fork and starts sculpting his mashed potatoes into whatever this thing is he can’t stop seeing everywhere he goes. He ends up tearing apart his entire living room to build this life size model of whatever this thing is that’s consuming him, and it just so happens that the nightly news is on the TV in the background. And he just happens to look over at just the right moment… and there it is. FINALLY… there it is. It’s a real place called Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.
[CUT TO ME]
And now that they know what it is and where it is, they know - they have to go. They drive across the country all the way to Wyoming, and when they finally get there, and when they finally climb that hill and see it there in front of them for the first time, to actually finally be standing there… it overwhelms them.
[CUT TO DRIVING AND ARRIVING SHOTS OF ROY AND JILLIAN
1:15:35 - 1:15:40
1:21:16 - 1:21:20]
But they end up finding out.. they’re not the only ones. There’s plenty of other people who all showed up at Devil’s Tower who felt the same thing Roy and Jillian did, and none of them really know why they’re there. And you know what…?

The exact same thing… happened to me.
[AFTER CLOSE ENCOUNTERS CLIPS ARE DONE, CUT TO AN OVERHEAD SHOT OF ME PULLING DEVILS TOWER POLOROID OUT OF ARRANGEMENT, ME WRITING DEVILS TOWER IN SHARPIE, THEN HAVING THE PICTURE DEVELOP INTO FIRST FRAME OF VIDEO. HAVE VIDEO START PLAYING IN POLOROID, THEN CUT TO NEXT CLIP FULL SCREEN]

DEVIL’S TOWER

[FILM THIS BLURB IN PIECES, PAUSING BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS LOOKING AT CAMERA, SO AUDIO FROM NEXT PART CAN OVERLAP WITH ME LOOKING INTO CAMERA TO BREAK IT UP SO IT’S NOT JUST A TALKING HEAD THE WHOLE TIME. IN POST, ZOOM IN AND OUT FOR EACH SEGMENT TO KEEP THE SHOTS DYNAMIC]
It was back in 2018.
I was just sitting at home one day, and I got the sudden urge to travel. And I don’t mean travel like that “I’m stressed at work and need a vacation” type feeling, it was way beyond that. It’s like something deep down told me.. it was like being drafted in the military, it’s like something told me “you need to pack your bags, and get ready to go”. I didn’t even know where I wanted to go, and the more I tried to think of where I wanted to go, the more time I spent online looking up ideas for places… but something deep down just told me “you’ll know it when you see it”. And I just happened to be on Instagram one day and some random person I followed happened to post a pic standing in front of Devil’s Tower, and that was it. It just hit me, I just felt like THAT’S the place. THAT’S where I need to go. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but THAT’S where I need to be.
And of course when I told my parents and my friends that I was taking an impromptu trip to Devil’s Tower, they go… “why?!”
[SHRUG]
I dunno! For some reason I just want to go there. Weird as it sounds, something is just… telling me to go…
But what’s really weird is that I didn’t fly into Wyoming to get there. I flew into Denver and drove the 9ish hours through Wyoming to get there. But for the last 30-45 minutes I didn’t look at my GPS once. I didn’t need it. It’s like I just somehow knew where I was going. I could FEEL that I was close. It’s like I could FEEL that it was nearby. It’s like every curve in the road you’re just looking around the corner expecting to see it, you’re peeking over every hill because you’re waiting to see it pop into view, because you just KNOW.. you’re in its presence… And then all of a sudden on the horizon… there it is. Even to this day I remember the hair on my arms literally stood up. I actually had to pull over on the side of the road because I literally could not take my eyes off it. Even when I stayed in Hulett, the closest town to the tower, like 15-20 minutes away, you just… you feel its presence. It’s like when you’re expecting company and you keep looking out the window to see if a car is pulling in the driveway, because you just sense they’re close. You just somehow know your guests are about to arrive. It’s like that. You just feel it nearby the whole time you’re there.

And there I am standing in front of the tower and it just hits me- what am I even doing here? I mean a little over a month ago I’m just sitting at home minding my own business and then out of nowhere I get this need to be somewhere. And I don’t even know where that somewhere is, and then all of a sudden BOOM I need to go to Devil’s Tower. And next thing I know here I am, and even though I have no earthly idea why I’m here… actually being here… it just feels… right.

ALASKA

So what exactly IS farsickness?
Have you ever been to a place that moved you? Somewhere that just hits home so hard with you that when you leave and go back home, you feel like something inside you is missing. Like a part of you… is missing. All you can think about is how bad you want to go back to that place, just to be back there. And then when you finally do go back, everything just feels so right again. Your soul feels centered… and grounded… like you’re finally back where you belong. When you’re apart from that place, that feeling of restlessness and longing for that place… that is how I would explain being homesick. Maybe you get homesick for the beach, or homesick for the mountains…

And that’s exactly what it felt like for me. I was homesick for Salt Lake City, I was homesick for Devil’s Tower. I was homesick for Alaska. I could close my eyes and think about those places, and it’s like I was back there. I could see the buildings and houses, I could see the mountains as I was driving down the highway, I could smell the air. It’s like when you’re in a dream and you’re falling, and you really do feel like you’re falling. Like how certain smells or certain songs can bring back memories so clearly that it’s like you’re there again, with details of things you’d completely forgotten about all coming back in such vivid clarity... All the memories came rushing in, and they were all so perfectly detailed, so crystal clear, it’s like my physical body was here sitting in this chair, but my senses, sight, smell, hearing.. they were in that other place…. but here’s the thing.

I had never once… been to any of these places…

Not once.
[J CUT & ZOOM]
Not once.

It’s like I was having memories that hadn’t happened yet.

For me when I went to Alaska I just felt… at home. I didn’t feel like a visitor. A lot of people when they first come to Alaska, how they picture it being in their head, and then how it actually is in real life are two different things. A lot of people when they visit Alaska they have a hard time adjusting to the climate, the long days and nights, and they just have a hard time adjusting to the way of life here. I honestly never experienced any of that. From the minute I stepped off the plane, even when I came in the winter to film my other video, and it was -16 degrees… I was fine. When the sun didn’t come up till 11am and by 4:30pm it was dark again… I was fine. Like I said, I didn’t feel like a visitor, and even now, when I hear people talk about Alaska, or I see something about Alaska on TV, it feels like they’re talking about my hometown. It’s like there’s a sense of belonging I feel with Alaska. And even now when I go back to Alaska to visit, it feels like more than just visiting. It feels almost like… like I’m walking back into a past life to pick up where I left off.

CANOGA PARK

When I had my first experience with the feeling of Farsickness, I didn’t really know what it was, or exactly what I was feeling. It felt like a homesickness, but it was for a place I know I had never been. It’s like my mind knew I had never been there, but my soul, like deep down just felt already connected to that place. I went online looking to see if other people had felt this, and maybe get a better idea of exactly what it was, and someone online said the Germans have a word for it called Fernweh. So I called my German friend, and we were talking on the phone for awhile, and she told me that Fernweh is the word the Germans use to describe a longing for somewhere far away. Doesn’t necessarily matter where, it’s just a longing to be somewhere. Kind of like wanderlust. But I told her what I was feeling was different. It wasn’t necessarily a desire to be somewhere I’d never been, it was a feeling like I had already been. Like a feeling of homesickness, like I wanted to be back there, even though in my mind I know I’ve never actually been. The way I described it was like when you go back to the house you grew up in as an adult, after however many years it’s been. You still recognize the house, but things are different. Maybe the new people added a garage, or cut down the tree in the front yard. Maybe the neighborhood is all built up now, and even though it looks different, it still feels familiar, because it was a part of your life, it was a part of you. So then she told me maybe what I was feeling was a past life memory. Now I’m not 100% sold on the idea of past lives, but she told me the story about this boy named James Leininger.

[TELL STORY OF JAMES LEININGER]

Now I’ve never experienced a past life memory myself, and I don’t know anyone first hand who has either, but I don’t think that’s what this is, this Farsickness, I don’t think it’s a past life memory, but it got me to thinking.

Think of your very first memory. The earliest thing you can remember in your life. If you could put all your memories in life on a timeline, what would be the very first thing you can remember happening? What would happen if you could go back to that place now however many years later. What would it look like? What would it be like being back there? What would you experience, what would you feel? I wanted to know…

[OVERLAY AUDIO OF ME TALKING WITH SHOTS OF HOUSE AND THE PENSIVE SHOT OF ME LOOKING AT HOUSE]
So I actually spent the first few years of my life living here in one of the suburbs of LA, and this is actually the house where we lived. It took some work to actually find it, but there it is. And my very first memory I have, my absolute earliest memory I have in life, took place in that house right there.

[TELL MEMORY OF EARTHQUAKE]
What’s weird though, is that not only is that my earliest memory in life, but that is the only memory I have here. Out of the whole time we lived here… I cannot remember a single thing. Not one single detail or anything at all about living in LA, except… that memory of the earthquake. And sitting here in the car now outside the house, being back in the place where the first years of my childhood started… I actually feel absolutely nothing. Literally.. nothing. No connection to anything here at all.
[CLOSE WITH SHOT OF ME WALKING ACROSS THE STREET AWAY FROM THE HOUSE WITH THE HOUSE IN THE BACKGROUND]

PORT TOWNSEND

The closest thing I can think of to describe Farsickness would be like when you leave the house to go run errands or whatever, and you think to yourself… “did I forget to lock the door”? That nagging feeling that just stays in the back of your mind the whole time you’re out, the whole time you’re headed back home to see if you actually did forget to lock the door. Then that relief you get when you turn the knob and feel that the door is locked, and that sense of closure you get, the question is answered, that nagging feeling is satisfied now. Except with farsickness, that feeling of closure never comes. It’s like you still get that feeling that I need to go there, there’s a reason. Something is calling me to go there, something cosmic is waiting for me there, but once you go, you almost feel lost and found at the same time. You ever play a video game, and you get to that point where you’re stuck? You know there’s some person you need to talk to, or some item you need to get to unlock the next part of the game to keep going, but it’s like… I’ve looked everywhere and I’ve talked to everyone. And even after you save the game and turn it off, you keep thinking about it. You’ll be driving, or you’ll be at work, and you’re still thinking about it. It’s like you can’t let it go until you solve the mystery and get that closure. No matter how many times I come to Salt Lake City, no matter how many times I sit and stare up at Devil’s Tower, as soon as I start to get in the car and drive away, as soon as I start making my way to the airport and watch the ground slip out from under us as we take off… I start getting that feeling of something unresolved, that feeling of unfinished business. It’s like I’m right there, I’m so close. But when I start to leave, and as I look in the rear view mirror and watch it disappear behind me… it’s like a speaker playing music and as you move further and further away the music just gets quieter and quieter until there’s no more music… there’s no closure. It’s like sometimes you have to literally fight the urge to turn around and go back.
[USE SHOTS OF DEVIL’S TOWER IN REAR VIEW MIRROR]

So this got me to thinking… maybe this feeling of that connection to certain places has something to do with past lives. Maybe the places I feel the farsickness are just lingering connections to places that were significant in past lives I might have had. But maybe it’s not the place but the people. Maybe the people that I left behind are still there at these places, and when I go back, it’s them that I’m feeling. I mean, if you think about it, it makes sense, but… it kind of got me to thinking- so many people put so much importance on past lives. Maybe if you feel so strongly about a place it’s because it’s part of your past life. It’s a past life memory coming through, past life this, past life that… what if… right idea, but backwards. What if it’s not a past life…. what if it’s a future life?

SALT LAKE CITY

[LOOK INTO CAMERA WITH THAT I TOLD YOU SO LOOK]
[CUT TO SHOT OF ME SHAKING MY HEAD LIKE “NOT ME”]
I welcome it. I embrace it. I want to know why it’s here and why I’m feeling it, and what it’s trying to tell me. Anyone that knows me… ANYONE that knows me knows… I can’t walk away from stuff like that. I’m like Dr. House - I have to solve the puzzle. You know when you’re watching a movie and you see that actor, and you’re like “GOD where have I seen him”? I literally will not be able to stop until I figure out where I know him from. So you can imagine, the first time I experienced farsickness, I had to know what it was. And I couldn’t stop until I did, and it wasn’t just one place that made me feel it. It was several. In fact, all the places in this video have been places where I’ve experienced it full force. Honestly it’s what lead me to start my Youtube channel. I mean I do my own shooting, my own planning, and editing.. it’s a LOT of work, and honestly if it weren’t for the farsickness I don’t even know that I’d be traveling as much as I do, let alone making videos. I mean, it’s why I’m sitting here right now talking to you. And honestly, all the videos on my channel, they’re all places I felt that Farsickness. I know it probably sounds crazy, but it’s like these places choose me. I mean take the Salton Sea for example. I don’t even remember how I even found out about that place. I just remember seeing pictures of it or something, and next thing I know I’m watching video after video, reading all about it, I become obsessed, like I just can’t get enough. It’s like I’m watching a movie I haven’t seen in forever and it’s all coming back to me. And then once I finally do go, once I’m there, I feel like… this is where I need to be. Right now, this is where I need to be. And honestly, the vast majority of people watching this may never understand or experience what I’m talking about. I’ve actually only met a very small handful of people that have ever really felt this farsickness and understand what I’m talking about, and those of you who have, you get it… it’s real. And for those of you who haven’t, one day some of you will. And trust me… there’s nothing in this world like it. And if you have experienced it… leave a comment and reach out. I would love to hear about it…

That’s it for me for now. Thanks for watching.

Farsickness