We produced this fun travel piece while exploring the ancient Acropolis of Lindos on the Greek Island of Rhodes – one of the best things to visit if you are staying in Lindos. Perched on a steep cliff at 116m height overlooking the Aegean Sea and framed by mighty fortress walls, the acropolis has stunning views of the surrounding harbours and coastline, including Lindos town, St Paul’s Bay and ‘Navarone’ cliffs (where they shot the cliff sequences in the film The Guns of Navarone).
On the summit of the Lindos Acropolis are the ruins of the goddess Athena Lindia, temples from the 4th century BC as well as the Propylaea, the great Hellenistic Stoa and the Byzantine chapel of Saint John, so it was real mixture of styles from different periods. We had fun framing the sandy, ancient columns against a clear blue sky, producing a wonderful natural ‘orange and teal’ colour contrast.
A video like this can be great way to showcase a tourist attraction that is only reachable on foot, because potential visitors can decide in advance if it is for them – this is a really effective way of getting those who are excited ready to book, and those who are unable to visit or don’t fancy it can still enjoy the experience virtually.
We filmed during August, so the temperatures were nearly 40 degrees Celsius and we therefore wanted to start early and catch the coolest part of the day. We set off on foot with our manual gimbal which is balanced by a counterweight. You can get to the acropolis by following the signs in the town to the steps, which we show as our roving camera snakes through the streets.
We kept the style of video predominantly wide, immersive angles filmed on the gimbal; the camera is constantly moving and exploring (you will notice there are almost no static shots in the film), with occasional close ups for details often filmed with a parallax movement. Occasionally we link together several different shots with some visual trickery (created for each shot from scratch with Adobe After Effects for those nerdy enough to be interested).
At the summit of the acropolis there was a stunning view from almost every angle, and the biggest challenge was editing it down to what is seen in the final film, but we always think it’s better to keep it short and sweet, and leave your audience wanting more.
