Matty Nyhuis’ film ‘The Trip’ covers their 7-month odyssey, traveling around the world from their home in Australia through 16 countries.

The Trip from Matt Nyhuis on Vimeo.

Judge for the Travel category Homer Liwag had this to say about the film:

My winning selection, The Trip, resonated with my sense of adventure, curiosity and faith in humanity. I felt the wind, the cold and the joy of just existing in these wonderful places. The smiles were genuine. The laughter was contagious. This film took risks in how it told its story – whether it was with a selfie stick, a drone, a change in aspect ratio or hand-drawn animation. There were many entries in this competition with flawless drone shots, epic landscapes and perfect technique. But The Trip spoke to me with it’s imperfections, non-traditional structure and warm heart. I watched it over and over again.

Matty Nyhuis

Give us a bit of detail about yourself – background, profession, how you got into filmmaking and your current role 

I started filming at a young age, I was and still am pretty big into skateboarding so all my early videos are just purely skating. I then finished school and didn’t want to study film so I took a year off selling myself to all the big film companies around Brisbane being a water boy to the talent, cleaning up the sets or just hawk-eying the director’s every move. Ever since then I’ve been making my way to being a freelance filmmaker for over 4 years now and geez it’s so much fun.

Tell us about your film – how did it come about?

My wife and I just wanted to get away and capture some of the earth’s greatness with no storyboards or plans. So we saved up a bit of money then ran away for 7 months. We traveled to over 16 countries and to this day do not know how we did it. Like we said in our film “don’t wait for things to be perfect until you truly live… just go” everything will work out.

How did you find out about FilmConvert?

My friend, who I really admire, always had this insanely moody film look in his films, Then he revealed Filmconvert to me. Life changed.

Why did you decide to use FilmConvert for this particular project?

FilmConvert has a way to bring the film to life even before its made. When I edit I always do a basic grade on the footage to get the vibe going, before I do any major cutting.

What was the particular look or style you were going for with your video?

I wanted the viewer to feel what we felt on that day, mix that with my grungy and grainy style and you get this film. A moody and heartwarming journey of how free we all are.

So depending on the project I’d firstly choose my camera profile and work my way down, choose which film colour works best then colour correction, levels etc.

What other effects or tweaking did you use?

I added a light fade over all the footage, transitions, overlays, animations were done by Joel Matheson. A bit of stuff was done in After Effects.