Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others just go and do them. This interview is about Claire and Max, a lovely and funny couple that fell in love and shared the same passion: images and travel. They travel around the world once a month since 2008. I discovered them on the web and I contacted them to do this interview. Something I admire, is people that work hard and at the same time live their passions and have fun…

Claire, Max, thanks for sharing. I’m looking forward to meet you guys soon!

Cameraman: Hi Claire, Max, let’s start by telling about yourselves and how you got started with your trips?

Claire & Max: Hello Martin! I’m Claire 35 years old, and this is Max, 34. We met 3 years ago and fell in love. Then we realized that we shared the same passion of images and travels. I was already taking picture and practicing the photo lab and he was already making short clips of his travels. Nowadays the barrier is thin between the two, so we decided to mix our techniques and experiences.

Cameraman: You’ve been traveling since 2008. One trip per month! How do you do that?

Claire & Max: Yes one trip per month! At the beginning it was more like a game to us, a crazy idea: to discover every month a new destination, a new country and to share this experience, this project. Many people have asked how we were able to travel as often., so I have to reveal that I’m part-time working for a French airline…That’s why it’s so easy for us to travel. Max has a lot of free time too, he’s working for the French post. All our free time is used to film and create our art project.

Cameraman: How do you choose your destinations?

Claire & Max: We are lucky because we can choose our destinations at the last minute. The choice depends in part on the weather, but not only because sometimes, a bad weather is synonymous with awkward and funny situations. Like storms when we were camping in South Africa, snow in Poland, or flooding in Venice.

But we are foodies too and must admit that this influences our choices. Like a sudden urge to pizza, churros with dulce de leche or the desire to enjoy a good beer in Munich. And also, more and more people are following us on Vimeo, and they ask us to come and visit their countries, cities, to meet them and to create a clip. This is how we came back a second time in Rome to meet Shawn and Caterina and it was also the opportunity to test a stop motion clip.

Cameraman: Who does the camera work?

Claire & Max:  At the beginning, Max was the one. I was in charge of the photography. But, 2 years ago, I changed my Nikon for a Canon 7D, and I started to participate to the camera work.

Cameraman: What video equipment do you take to your trips?

Claire & Max:  Max is using the Sony FX1000, I use the Canon 7D with different lenses, specially a wide angle 10-22, and a macro 100mm 2.8L. We sometimes use a waterproof camera, the Sanyo Xacti. Also we are planning to use dolly sliders and a motor head (we just got one) to create motion control timelapses in the future. Max is probably going to buy a Canon 5D Mark II.

Cameraman: What about the editing?

Claire & Max: Max is the one in charge of the editing; he’s using Sony Vegas PRO10. Each clip is about 25 hours of editing work, sometimes more, like the one of Bruxelles, about 80 hours of work because of cartoon’s special effects. We choose the music before the departure, according to the destination or the tone of the clip we want to give. Most of the time we choose happy catchy music, we love to imagine people smiling while watching our videos.

Cameraman: In every video you add a little object trying to stand up! How did you come up with that idea?

Claire & Max: In one of his first clip, in the desert of Algeria Max was in lack of action so he started to throw his water bottle to make funny shoots. When we first met I saw this clip, and I liked the idea, so I suggest him we could do it each time with different objects according to the destination. So now the challenge when we arrive in a country is to find a solid (many of them have experienced a tragic end), and funny small symbol. This is how we became addicts to souvenirs shops!

Cameraman: You just launched a new site together. Tell us about the feedback you get from people following your adventures.

Claire & Max: We really wanted to create this site www.menilmonde.com because even if we can share videos with people on Vimeo (most of them are following us there). We also wanted to share the stories of the clips in a blog, and include pictures of the trip, tips about hotels and restaurants and world recipes. At the beginning clips were focused on us and the cities or countries we visited, but since February we include “guests stars”, people from vimeo or friends. Lately we were approached to sell some of our clips so in the future we could probably sell rushes.

Cameraman: What was your most challenging experience?

Claire & Max: Well it’s a recent one, in April we were in Madagascar, filming in a rainforest at night. First, I have to admit we are not very at ease with insects…So it was during the night and we were trying to film wild lemurs, but we mostly saw chameleons, frogs and a lot of huge spiders…But it was ok cause we were walking on a path, so we were fairly relaxed. Then after 2 hours the guide said that a storm was about to come and we had to take a shortcut into the wild to come back. And we had to walk through branches and grass and spiders webs, only with a headlamp. As you can imagine relaxation was gone, we went over in memory all the huge spiders…And every minute lasted an eternity!

Cameraman: Tell us about your favorites destinations so far?

Claire & Max: Our favorite’s nature destinations are probably Chile, Madagascar and white desert in Egypt (where I felt in love with a camel!) At the opposite we love US cities in particular Chicago for its amazing architecture.

We are crazy about Italy for its gastronomy and its “dolce vita”. Mauritius Island is Heaven on Earth, and we also have wonderful memories in South India. And we have a special crush for Munich (the beer, again!) and its surrounds.

Cameraman: And where is your next destination?

Claire & Max: Most of the time we decide the destination at the last minute. Now we just came back from Corsica and in August, we will probably return in Santiago, Chile for 4 days. But summer is the slowest period because our “pet sitter” is on holidays! No kidding, we will probably have to make a clip about Paris if we don’t find someone!

For this fall, we have some ideas in mind, like Iceland, Dubai, Prague, Costa Rica, Spitzberg, Sri Lanka, San Francisco and more to come very soon.
Not forgetting Argentina (my favorite country, because I danced tango there for many years), where we’ll go back in 2012, this time to film the Lago Argentino in Patagonia.

Cameraman: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to follow your footsteps?

Claire & Max: Enjoy every moment, try to look at things with fresh eyes, find the unusual, do not take yourself seriously and the most important: have fun, always.

Cameraman: Anything else you would like to share with us?

Claire & Max: First, we are pleased to have the opportunity here to thank all the people who follow us. Thank you all for your interest and support, this is a huge motivation! We are fortunate to be able to live our passions, and through our videos we celebrate the joy of living, to discover other cultures, and we are happy to share this.
We also have new projects, for example, this fall we will participate to a video contest organized by the European parliament TV, and we will probably need support! Anyway, we’ll keep you informed through the website. And thank you Martin for inviting us to express ourselves here. See you!

Cameraman: Merci Claire, Max. A bientôt! 

More about Claire and Max here: Menilmonde.com
Watch more videos here: Vimeo.com/menilmonde
You can follow Claire and Max on Twitter: Twitter.com/​menilmonde

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