Eric Lin is a travel & tourism oriented videographer based in New Zealand who has been producing video content for the past 4 years. Eric is our head of content, producing a wide range of media for both local and international companies.

Now for some questions for them,

Q. How did you guys meet each other and come up with the idea of starting up a business together?

We both shared the same love for nature and the outdoors and we began frequently going on adventures to explore the beauty of what New Zealand has to offer in early 2015. Essentially, we started documenting our local adventures through the likes of GoPro’s which is where our love for photography and videography grew alongside our love for the great outdoors. 

In 2015 we sat down together and decided to create a movement called Tripper Society to showcase and take people out on adventures. We were very close to starting a tour company at the time actually, but eventually decided to take our video skillset as a primary focus of the business. Fast forward to this year, we have worked with multiple brands in the travel tourism industry and beyond, and have since rebranded ourselves as a more of a professional business entity under sister company T15 MEDIA, continuing to deliver a broad range of creative videos to our clientele.

Q. You two have a very unique skill set. Are you self-taught, or did is there a course you can do?

100% self taught. We both initially started through using Gopro and their free editing software  when starting out to create real simple video outputs. Later on we subsequently changed over to Adobe Premiere Pro, but as a creative business we’re using a wide range of the Creative Cloud applications very much on a daily basis. Almost everything we’ve learnt has been self taught via Youtube or simply just going out there hands on through trial and error. We’re both huge believers of the 20-80 rule. 20% of something should be the concept or big ideas thinking followed by other 80% catering for hands on trialing and implementing. 

Q. What has been the most amazing location you have traveled to for work?

This is a real hard one.

Eric - Probably the time went to Northern Thailand with G Adventures and hiked 8 hours to live in a real village with no electricity for 3 days. That was beautiful both landscape wise and culturally.

Rob - believe it or not but New Zealand just has some spots that I can’t compare to any other I’ve travelled to. Great Barrier Island is a favourite, or up in a Helicopter through the Southern Alps is just insanely beautiful.

Q. List all the places your work has taken you 

The coral reefs of Samoa. The beautiful tropical beaches of Queensland. Living in a local village in the mountains near Chiang Mai Thailand. The huge cloud-shrouded mountains of Taiwan. The Archipelagos, wildlife and forests of the Philippines. The lively streets and people of Argentina. Doorless Helicopter Rides in Hawaii. The mountains and hikes in Victoria, Australia. And of course, all over beautiful New Zealand- working with the RTO’s of Waikato, Rotorua and tourism companies in the South Island. Great Barrier Island, and a good chunk of Europe. 

Q. Any interesting work stories?

The first time I ever rode a scooter was in Chiang Mai, Thailand. My friend and I wanted to go to the tallest point in Thailand to capture some footage. Somehow decided I’ll be sweet riding a scooter 2 hours out of town and up a remote mountain; and we made it there alright, apart from the scooter struggling to get up the hill towards the end. Coming back down was where the story gets interesting. Within 5 minutes of riding down we ran out of gas (the gas meter was broken), so we had to ride the scooter down the entire mountain like a push bike for 40 minutes and eventually found a gas station before we needed to go uphill again. It was a self service gas station and none of us could read Thai so we nearly doused the whole scooter in Petrol attempting to fill it up. After the entire ordeal we were driving back and we started getting drenched with buckets of water randomly by locals standing on the street as we got closer to town. We very soon realised that we had hit the time of Songkran; Thai new year- where the whole city of Chiang Mai becomes the battleground of the biggest water fight in the world. Naturally, we got a water gun each and joined in the chaos for the following days.

Q. Any tips for those who are budding photographers/videographers?

Be ready to work hard. Always learn new things and strive to be unique in your craft. Don’t follow the hype, don’t be like everyone else. Don’t grade in teal and orange and please don’t use mindless zoom transitions. Find meaning in the work you do, think about the message you want to portray through your art. Tell stories through your craft that feed the soul. Above all, networking is the most important. Take time to meet people, learn from people, and collaborate with people that have similar goals to you, rather than compete. Trust me, it gets you further!

Q. What does a typical work day look like for you two?

The thing is, there is not no typical work day. If we’re out shooting we could be anywhere from mountains to lakes to beaches to forests, capturing what we’re assigned to do. If we’re in for the day editing, again we could be mobile down at the local; Mission Bay sipping coffee or on the plan to the next shooting location.You just never know. So obviously at this stage a office probably is such a great idea. 

Q. Who inspires you creatively?

We’ve been extremely grateful to have met and even done some shooting with some of our biggest inspirations in the travel video game. I think when you meet someone talented in person, it definitely inspires you even more. Some of the world-class creators met are the likes of Sam Kolder, Nainoa Langer, Matias and Sage from Beautiful Destinations, Amir Zakeri and Cobian from Hawaii. What also inspires me are our creator friends group. We have a mate based in Kingsland we often co-work at when we are in Auckland City.

Thank you, Rob and Eric, for taking the time to answer these questions, keep doing what you love!

You can follow them on Instagram:

Eric Sands - https://www.instagram.com/ericedits_/

Robert Nairn - https://www.instagram.com/robert_nairn/

Here is the video Rob created for Oh Rent Me

 Here is another video Rob and Eric created with Oh Rent Me and CureKids NZ: