The Plug Me In project: creative storytelling on a whole other level

Since March 15 of this year, Wiebe Wakker is traveling from the Netherlands to Australia by electric car. During the journey, he completely relies on the energy that is being offered to him on his website plugmeinproject.com. During his trip, everyone can follow him via his website. Wiebe enthusiastically told his story so far to Creative Connection:

Wiebe at the Tunnel of Love in Ukraine

My website offers people the opportunity to ‘plug me in’ with a meal, place to sleep or energy for the car. One of the benefits of this democratic set up is that people choose the path that I have to take. I travel from ‘plug to plug’. In doing so, I don’t travel directly to the land down under but zigzag my way around the world. When I started, my followers sent me to Italy via Germany and Switzerland. From Italy I was sent north to Scandinavia to eventually reach the North Cape. After arriving at the North Cape, I went back south via Russia, the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine. Right now I am driving through the Middle-East and Asia. I just left Iran.

My goal is to meet new people, discover new places and to create understanding about how sustainability can be applied in the everyday life. When I’ve completed the trip I will make a documentary about my findings on sustainability.

Wiebe is enjoying the view in Preikestolen

Norway has been my favourite (scenic) country so far. The many fjords, mountains and lakes are stunning and are beautifully scenic, where you can shoot great pictures. The well-known town of Preikestolen had been on my wish list for many years and I wanted to take a picture of me standing alone on the edge of their famous cliff. In order to stay ahead of all the tourists, I set my alarm at 4 in the morning and started driving. From the parking lot to the top of the cliff is a 2.5-hour hike. You don’t see the cliff until you have reached the very end of your journey and when I reached it there was absolutely no-one there! The views I got were stunning. I set up my gear and took the photo I always wanted for background picture on my phone. I managed to do this by uploading the image, taken with my DSLR gear, directly to my iPhone and edited the raw-file with Lightroom for mobile. The app allows me to get the picture in the same quality as I would get it on the desktop version and I can instantly share it via Facebook or Instagram. This workflow allows me to edit on-the-go and keep my followers updated about my whereabouts and adventures through great quality content.

I want to show my journey not only in photographs, but also through video and animations and offer a complete creative storytelling experience. I filmed my trip to the top of Preikestolen to show how beautiful the walk is. Once I returned to my host, I imported the footage into Premiere Pro, selected the right clips with the storyline in my head, sent them with one click to After Effects and added animated texts to it. With the template I made earlier, it’s very easy to quickly add the right information to a movie, save it, add audio and render the video in Premiere. The day after the trip I had already uploaded the movie to my Facebook page for everyone to enjoy.

St. Basil Cathedral

I don’t consider myself as a professional photographer nor as a filmmaker. I am a creative storyteller and try to use as many tools as possible to tell the story I want. Creative Cloud enables me to expand my creativity with the basic knowledge I have of all the CC tools. A few years ago I started with Photoshop to edit my pictures and later I got interested in video. Because I already had the knowledge about Photoshop it was easy to find my way through the video apps. When I want to get a result and I don’t know how to achieve it, I can easily find how to do it with one of Adobe’s many tutorials on their website. I think it’s important as a Young Creative to always develop your skills and explore new opportunities. In the real and in the digital world.

Want to help out Wiebe? Offer him to plug in at your place: plugmeinproject.com
Check out Wiebe’s beautiful travel pictures on Instagram.