Why It's Taking Fun For Louis 2 Years to Finish His Documentary

Louis is one of the original daily travel vloggers on YouTube. He is curating beautiful and inspiring content from a global travel community that shares the same passion for adventure & social change. He recently completed his first circumnavigation and is wrapping up the documentary from that trip.

– LOUIS COLE –

– THAT CREATIVE LIFE PODCAST –

- SARA DIETSCHY -

- GEAR USED -

💼 Business Inquiries

[Princegriff]

Seriously?? “Oh it’ll probably about two years since we finished filming. Dude... in Two months, it will be 3 YEARS. 3 years for 90 minutes of video. There is no reason it should take this long. Ken Burns has actual places he needed to go and historical facts that required much more research, people that need to be scheduled and interviewed. Ken Burns has a real project that was planned out. Louis looks like he lives by the seat of his pants without much planning. It’s obvious to any filmmaker that Louis didn’t go into this project fully understanding the scope of work required. The most likely case is that Louis got excited about an idea to circumnavigate the globe with a mediocre message, overspent the money donated and collected for the Documentary on himself, his personal travels, and other random videos like the racing of electric scooters. It was a pointless video but nonetheless took time and a bit of money to make. Louis is not dedicated to getting the film out, he dumped all his raw footage onto one editor and expects it to get done for pennies. Hence, why it’s taking so damned long. In the end, it will most likely come down to him saying (and most likely laughing while saying it) “we’re sorry guys, we just couldn’t get this project off the ground lol, I appreciate all the donations and support but this was just a project that couldn’t be finished.”
For almost $150, 000 USD I could’ve made this documentary in a year. The $150, 000 raised by Kickstarter specifically went to pre production, production, and post production. The flight wasn’t part of that allocation, that money came from other sources. He says he paid in $160, 000 of his own money so now we’re talking over $300, 000 plus the merch being pre sold. So all in all, a total of almost $350, 000 went into this documentary, for which no contributor has seen. Louis is quoted as saying “Post Production takes time, we reckon it'll take us 3-4 months after the completion of the trip to get the movie done. So expect to see it in Q1 2018.”
However, when you get a little greedy and need money for personal things, and think no one will notice, the money for the documentary gets spent on other things and you can no longer afford a crew of people to make sure the documentary gets out on time. You can use the money for other things like filming an electric scooter race in costumes; all of which cost time and money. Maybe not much, but wouldn’t it be nice to know he’s not just fucking around on some beach or traveling to an exotic location, that costs more than the average person could afford? Where does the money come from? Not all from YouTube, must also be coming from the donation campaigns he’s set up. Sorry to be so cynical, but the sending bits and pieces to the editor and not actually addressing the problems is questionable. If he were truly serious about getting the damned thing made he would make a video apologizing and explaining to his donors why it’s taking so long, not just sitting there laughing about it and making excuses, not owning any of the fault and passing it all on his editor. His editor should quit and find a more engaging job.
If you donated like me, guess what, we got SCAMMED. We paid for his little trip around the globe, so he could have some Fun for Louis, seeing exotic places, eating the foods and experiencing the culture, while those of us unable to travel hoped for a window to the world through him. Nope, he just wanted to have a good ol time at someone else’s expense and seems to have been having a grand time ever since.

No Louis, documentary filmmaking won’t be a big part of your life. No production company would have anything to do with you for another film given that this film has ran incredibly over budget and isn’t done 3 years later. You have to actually produce something good and show platforms you can actually do it for work, not just treat it like a hobby as is apparently what you’ve been trying to do.

[WinnieFinesse]

*3 years hahaha - There has been an update in october .... it will be out in a few months... I think he confuses months for years though so nobody acutally knows hahaha

[SlothChunk]

Both Avengers movies were filmed, produced, and distributed in less time than this doc. Ken Burns' works are covering entire wars or periods of time so it stands to reason his docuseries' would take time. I feel eventually they'll just have to release the unfinished product to avoid a major lawsuit from the contributors that donated hundreds of thousands of dollars years ago. I dont really buy this whole 'editor is sending bits and pieces' nonsense. Too much time leads to lost interest and with the whole flight vlog already on youtube, what's the point of the doc?

[CaptainSquillso]

3:56 "not just editing" and then proceeds to describe just editing

[RajatRangdal]

I love this guy! Hoping this doc will be amazing 🔥 all the best louis

[Davinci]

Louis if you want more donations I’m more than happy to contribute some more. The vlogs in themselves were worth the contributions already made so do shout out if we can add further contributions