The Journey Begins! from The Busking Project on Vimeo.
With the help (thank you!) of hundreds of hosts, guides, fixers, networkers, translators, transcribers, technical consultants, filmmakers, editors, volunteers, chefs and impromptu therapists, we filmed an average of a busker a day for 287 days, captured 27,000 videos, 45,000 photos, gained press in 11 countries, posted hundreds of shorts on Vimeo and YouTube, overcame exhaustion, stress and a lack of training, and grew a network of thousands of buskers worldwide.
We found the same thing everywhere we went: talented artists facing negative public opinion, inclement weather, legal restrictions, the privatisation of public spaces and the difficulties of the daily grind. It also seemed to us that things were getting worse for buskers, with an increase in the number of warnings, fines, confiscations and arrests of artists.
This Happens Every Day from The Busking Project on Vimeo.
Emotionally things were … a little rough. We weren’t just travelling together. We were travelling, filming, eating, sleeping, working and everything else together. It was such an intense trip that we never had time to do touristy stuff, and the cities began to blend together, differentiated most by how much traffic we had to sit in between shoots.
Put simply, it was the most traumatic thing any of us had ever done.
It was also very worthwhile. Bouts of anger, resentment, remorse and exhaustion were punctured by an intensely vibrant population of buskers with incredible talent. And, it seemed that not many other people were taking a real interest in their lives. The footage we took was glorious. And the story was very human. Video time!