Skoolie documentary!

[SoleInvictus]

Hey everyone! I'm brand new here so please let me know if this is posted in the wrong forum. I poked around first and this seemed like the best forum.

I'd like to do a skoolie documentary. I've always found unconventional homes and RVs to be really fascinating: tiny homes, container homes, converted lighthouses, et cetera. While talking with my girlfriend the other day, we were discussing different ideas for living and I joked about living in a school bus for awhile. Then I wondered what it would actually be like and looked it up online. I definitely found a lot more than I expected. Sites like hankboughtabus.com and goodnewsbus.com made it seem a lot more appealing than I had thought; it definitely wasn't "living in a van down by the river". I asked her if she'd be up for converting and living in a bus and she went along with it. Score!

The proposed format for the documentary is pretty simple. We want to document our conversion of a bus and interview some folks who have done so themselves, especially those who actually live in one either part or full time.. We live in Idaho so we were hoping to meet people in the Pacific Northwest but we can also interview you via Skype. The internet is awesome! After we have our ducks in a row, we're going to start a Kickstarter campaign and see what happens. Doubly awesome!

This idea is brand new so we're still extremely flexible as to what we're doing and how we do it. Suggestions, questions, or input of any sort are definitely welcome. If anyone would be up for being interviewed for a documentary, please let me know!

[bapos]

I think its a wonderful idea. As a person with a degree in radio TV and I am doing my own conversion I think I can bring some topics to the table that most go through and would be insightful to those who watch or think about doing this.

I think the topic of building one is pretty straight forward. I think a lot of focus on ideas of design and different type and uses of the bus would be strong subjects.

The focus of insurance should be a big topic as well. I think you will find there are a lot of people who are in the middle of their conversion that can not get insured as a motor home as they are partial or conversions and some companies won't touch them till they are done or they have to lie to get it legally insured.

Please keep us updated on your projects

[jmar896]

Good idea. My wife wanted to do something simalar since she has worked with filming movies before, but without raising funds through crowdfunding. With crowdfunding to offset travel cost, its a GREAT idea.

[pictureLOVE]

We're way up in the Great White North - not quite next door to Idaho. ;) We are doing an old fashioned blog about our transition to a f/t skoolie family, lots of people make vlogs and tutorials, etc., and this forum alone is a wealth of inspiration for what ought to be covered in a documentary. And I agree that insurance warrants a spotlight - there is no end to the frustration. Good luck finding someone close by to take the journey with - so far, it's a hell of a ride

[SoleInvictus]

Awesome! I'm really happy to have your support, this seems like a great community here. I'm getting in contact with a few full time inhabitants and am doing the research necessary to figure this all out. I'll be honest, we have zero documentary experience: I'm a biologist heading to grad school and my girlfriend has gone back to college to study health informatics. A documentary seems like a challenge but we're not in a hurry and we want to be sure to do this right. We live in Boise which houses one of the major universities in Idaho, so we're going to talk with some of the faculty there and get some advice as to how to pull the documentary portion off. I can swing the conversion myself but film making...that's new! Maybe we can snag some willing students to help us out.

We've started compiling a list of topics we'd like to cover, which will eventually lead us to things we'd like to interview people about. We'll definitely add insurance to the list.

PictureLOVE - We found your blog! We're definitely keeping you on our list of people/blogs to follow. Good luck!