A year ago – 2015 – I don’t know why, but I decided it was worth it to spend an entire night writing, in my bad English, a blog post that could sum up all my works and discoveries, the breakthroughs in my video-making career, all the pain I went through in my recent life and that led me to the edge of quitting. Basically everything remarkable that happend in my life that year put in words (and videos).
Looking backward, it was definitely too long and too sentimental, but one thing still looks amazing to me: those 97 videos I created in 2015. It’s a LOT! And it deserved some space…

Now, this year – 2016 – it’s going to be less videos, less words (mmm… maybe not), BUT… a lot more MEANING!
When I say “meaning” I mean the reasons why I do this job, and what I want to communicate with my works. And also, something very powerful came from all my efforts: collaborators, friends and even clients really made my work getting better. I really felt the influence of the great professionals around me, trying to be more openminded and understand the power of being surrounded by professional and dedicated people.

What I’d like to do, as I’m looking back at this long dirt road I’ve been walking on, and while I’m show-reeling most of my projects, I’d like to THANK ALL OF YOU PEOPLE, who made my projects greater, and surely made myself a better person and professional.

LET’S GO TRAVEL… AND EAT!

It begins from the end…
This year about to pass, 2016, was very much about food. Every travel video I made is showing people eating, chefs cooking, wine pouring and… well you got the idea.
I stopped being invited to blog trips, as now they invite me to.. food trips! (don’t laugh, it’s true!)

All kiddings aside – as if I were kidding.. – let’s start from the end. As I’m writing, Lonely Planet just published my 2 promo videos about their new cookbook “Spain from the source”.

Wait, did I just wrote the two magic words? Yes I did!

LONELY

       PLANET

I remember in 2007, my first big worldwide trip, half the globe away to New Zealand (in this photo there’s a young me overlooking the Tongarigo Crossing route) and… my first Lonely Planet guide. Never, never ever I’d have imagined that 10 years later I would have been working with LP (or even become a videographer).

I think this is the perfect definition of “dream come true” right?.
I feel so proud, and thrilled with this unbelievable result. And being able to do that in Costa Brava – one of my favourite place in the world – was just the icing on the cake.
All goes back to July and August, when I met LP’s Maria McKenzie and Louise Bastock at TBEX Conference in Stockholm, and with the help and hard work of Gemma Suñer and Anna Cuadrat from Costa Brava, we managed to produce these 2 short videos with some local chefs.

Speaking of Costa Brava, last year I told the story of how the “In Pyrenees” video came about, and that it was my first video to get over 200K views and that with this one I won Best digital content at the Premis G! 2015 in Girona.
It seems now obvious that 2016 started with the realease of In Pyrenees’ twin sister video…

IN COSTA BRAVA

I have very special memories of this trip in September 2015, with this amazing little group of people. Thanks to Jaume Marin who welcomed me back to Girona like a friend and not only a professional (and I was lucky enough to see some Game of Thrones set in the city while they were shooting), Mariana Calleja, Andy Higgs, Keith Jenkins and all the guys from the Patronat of Girona, Dunia, Gerard, Albert, Gemma, Olga, Anna.

And also, Girona was home for 3 weeks in August 2016, while I was travelling around with a bunch of funny locals to produce a Gastronomy video and a Festivals video that will see the light of day in 2017.

EMILIA-ROMAGNA | THE TWO VALLEYS

My over-productive life definitely kept going on as the first months of 2016 went by. In fact, travelling the Emilia way across the beautiful Italian region Emilia-Romagna, in partnership with media agency iAmbassador, I managed to come up with 14 short videos about their Motor Valley and Food Valley. Here’s a couple, but you can watch them all going to Emilia-Romagna Tourism Youtube playlists | Motor Valley (7 videos) | Food Valley (7 videos) |
Thanks to Silvia Gagliardi from ER Tourism, Simon Falvo and Jennifer Dombrowski for sharing the adventure with me.

The day I drove a Ferrari… and yes! I put a GoPro on it. Max speed around 200 Km/h! [Left pic by Simon Falvo]

FOLLOWING EUROPEAN CULTURAL ROUTES

2016 was also the year of my first job with the European Union, specifically with the European Institute of Cultural Routes.
One of my best memories, first time in Serbia and Slovenia, great time in Austria too, especially for the wonderful group of people I shared this with. You know… those trips that end with tears during goodbye and hugs full of love.

In partnership with iAmbassador, we drove along the Transromanica route and the Roman Emperors & Danube Wine route. I want to thank for this Nicholas Montemaggi and Kathleen Lapie for all the funny emails we exchanged trying to make this video work. 😉
And of course all the people who travelled with me. You can go deep into this project here. Hopefully there will be more routes in this 2017…

So after a cultural video let’s go back to food!

EURO FOOD TRIP

This is the ultimate project about Food with capital “F”!
Not only we ate and drank trying to make our bellies explode, but we travelled across two European regions to do so! In fact, this is kind of a unique project. The first united blog trip shared by two destinations: Costa Brava and Emilia-Romagna.
I travelledwith an amazing group of friends, felt honoured that the video was premiered at the World Travel Market 2016 in London and nominee for best “Tourist Destinantion” video at Trophées de la Vidéo Touristique et Culturelle de Cannes in January 2017. I’m trying to keep up with winning an award every year.. 🙂 Doing my best!
Many thanks to Nicholas Montemaggi from iAmbassador, Jaume Marin from Costa Brava and Silvia Gagliardi from Emilia Romagna Tourism.

THE BIG APPLE | …oh no! Eating again?!

Last but not least (in this travel video section), in June 2016 I spent 7 days filming in…. druuuum roooollllll….

NEW YORK CITY!

Yes, another dream come true, thanks to Walks of New York. My respect goes to everybody there at Walks, for the great support and believing in me all the time, but my deepest gratitude goes to Roisin O’sullivan and Loredana Cardinale.
In NY I had the best tour guide and “adopted local” ever, thank you Simona Palmisano! You really made me feel at home and love this crazy city… and you are a brilliant tour guide…
And of course, Gianluca Gazzoli who I met there and helped me with one of the videos. I owe you one! 😉

We filmed 7 tours and you can find all these promo videos on their website – www.walksofnewyork.com. Here’s some:

FOLLOWING THE NOTES | LIVE MUSIC

Last year I made my fist step into the music business, following internation artist Jack Savoretti during his Italian tour, Italian legendary artist Paolo Conte in his European Tour and editing a promo for another Italian even more legendary singer-songwriter Francesco Guccini, and I made it pretty clear: I never asked that, it just happened.

And of course I felt the luckiest guy in the world!

But in 2016… it happen again.
I am thrilled to finally show some of the shooting that was made during the 2015 Euro tour with Paolo Conte (go to Concerto Music YT channel to watch clips from Rome and London gigs) and this 2016 promo video for Conte’s latest instrumental work “Amazing Games”.

I consider this medley the essence of my experience with “Il Maestro“, a mix of the best artistic moments of the tour.
Special thanks to Rita Allevato, Milo Fantini and Luigi Fantini for all the support and for wanting me in this project.

GUCCINI SERRAT BARCELONA | WITNESSING THE UNEXPECTED

It was a brief trip over a weekend in February to witness something amazing. Two music icons meeting in Barcelona as they were recording a song together. For the Italian singer-songwriter Francesco Guccini was the first studio recording after a loooong time – something like 5 years! -, and he was doing it meeting with the folk Catalan poet and singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat for a brilliant duet of “La tieta“. Still the video is undone (not my fault..) but I have some great backstage pictures I can share (so I can still believe I was actually there!).
All my greatful thanks go to Teresa Guccini who organised this and asked me to be there with them.

JACK IS BACK

I could not be happier enough to work with this guy – Jack Savoretti! And he knows I’m his n.1 fan!
When you get to work with such a great musician and artist everything is easier, but the pressure is high cause Jack’s been growing a lot and I always feel I need to keep up with his pace. Looking back to these videos, and comparing them with the ones made in 2015, I can see we went better and better and definitely I’m looking forward to a tremendous 2017.
Thanks to Milo Fantini of Concerto Management, Niko Michault of Push Management, thanks to Jack Savoretti Italian Fan Club and all Jack’s fans who always support my work, thanks to the band (Pedro, John, Jesper, Henry, Shannon) and people from the crew, and thanks to the man, Jack, for giving me such great memories and hopefully with my videos they’ll become everyone’s memories (like that night in Verona in June and that Portofino gig in September).

We made 2 live videos, 1 mini-doc and 3 promos this year. Here are my bests.

BACK TO PORTOFINO (mini-doc)

This is a very unique video we did, and was used to launch the Portofino gig in September 2016. Jack was going home for a very special night…

NONFICTION FILMMAKING

It all started at the end of 2015, but it’s in 2016 that became big news.
I am now making documentaries, what on these days is more often called nonfiction films. And my work aired on Italian national cable tv… SKY Atlantic and Sky Cinema channels. I mean, as I’m writing I still don’t believe this. It was a lot of hard work with Rome-based production agency 42° Parallelo.

With co-director Alessandro D’Elia we edited and partially filmed these 3 major docu-films for SKY TV and 3 related web-series published on national news website La Repubblica TV. Written by Diana Ligorio, Mauro Parissone. Executive producer: Laura Guglielmetti.

Here are the trailers I edited for SKY TV and La Repubblica TV. Hoepfully these films will be aired on normal DTS TV during 2017.

L’ULTIMO STADIO | TRAILER

The story about 2014 Italian Cup football final in Rome between Fiorentina and Napoli. Violent fans taking control over the city and the game itself, fights with police, and the gun shot that hit and eventually killed the young Ciro Esposito. All shot by the Roman police and told by the radio communications.

COME É PROFONDO IL MARE | TRAILER

The story of a sunken shipwrek, with more than 800 dead migrants drowned in the Mediterranean sea, and the epic attempt from the Italian navy to rescue this wreckage to retrieve these bodies and give them the deserved burial.
We spent 4 weeks filming the whole navy activity in the middle of Sicilian channel, 80 miles from Libya.

PAPA FRANCESCO: COME DIO COMANDA | TRAILER

A different film about Pope Francis – “the selfie pope” – that mixes his travels all over the world with some of his most personal speeches. What comes clear from this docu-film, made with online/youtube/smartphone videos, is Bergoglio’s deepest thinking and fears and joys.

[from La Repubblica TV]

Here is some backstage from “Come è profondo il mare” production with the Italian Navy outside Libya in April 2016. Definitely one of the most incredible experience I’ve done in my life.

CONCLUSIONS & BEST WISHES

So here we are! Standing in front of this 2017, I’m really enjoying looking backwards now, althought it wasn’t easy at all!!
I can see now what I couldn’t then, when I was too busy living my life. The actual meaning of what I was doing. The “why”.
The path I was walking through, cause we all have a path and a long – maybe neverending.. – reasearch, called LIFE. That’s how I see it at least.

2016 closed with an emotional, unexpected encounter. I met in Rome the photographer who inspired me so much in 2010 that I decided to change my life, and learn how to be a travel reporter (in fact I wanted to be a National Geographic photographer… eh eh easy right?).
So back in 2010 I was leaving in Turin, working as a junior project manager in a new media agency, 9 to 5 office life. After going to this exhibit in Milan, I remember how I felt insired of travelling, and telling stories and telling the world around me because it was simply beautiful. These photographs had the power to really go under my skin, and I wanted to be able to do the same.
So, I quit my job, moved to Rome and studied “travel culture and reportage” for 6 months. It took me 3 years after that to start a video career, but here I am now, trying to make it more interesting year after year.

Oh what? Who was the photographer? Maybe you’ve heard of him… Steve… Steve Mc Curry! 😉

I’m looking forward to seeing whatever is coming next. For now, happy new year and I wish all of you an exciting 2017!

Emiliano