Often dubbed as the ‘Garden Spot of America’, Lancaster County PA is a well-known tourist attraction, possibly due to its landscape’s unique flora and fauna, its culture and the fact that it houses one of the world’s largest Amish community that has been around since the 18th Century.
With such beauty and splendour of its parks and recreation, the county boasts one of many of its attractions, the Susquehannock State Park, that extends almost 230 acres overlooking a river by the same name. There are six game parks in the area for hunting, fishing and activities all of which are registered protected areas. Find out more about this place here.
The natural savanna and grassland spread over the Lancaster county nature conservancy, holds true to its tourist population, that flocks the county a few times every year to partake in various activities like the ‘maize maze’ on the 100,000 acres of preserved green land.
The rich culture has been influenced by a mix of Dutch and French Huguenots. There are also influences from the Welsh, Ulster Scots and English alike, not to mention the historic native American tribes that first occupied the areas. Till today the Amish ride around in horse driven buggies.
Tourism wasn’t always rampant in Lancaster county. It was only after the Civil War and in the 1950s, when a New York Times did an article about travelling and published an excerpt about the place, that people started to gain interest in it. This then brought about the first Broadway musical Plain and Fancy that helped ignite the curiosity of Amish tourism and has been flourishing every year ever since.
This one move led to Hollywood opening its doors to the area and created their first movie
in the 1980s, which was nominated for several awards and even won a few. And all this was made possible by something as simple as someone recording a video of that first Broadway musical and showing it to the rest of the world.
With all this magnificence blessed upon its people, who would seize at any opportunity to capture this on film any chance they can get?
After this, video production in Lancaster County grew tenfold. Tourists were taken on an adventure to see all of the 28 different anchored bridges in Lancaster, another element that is symbolic to its rich history. As a result of the popularity created by spreading the videos of this place all over the word, I was curious to see how popular it has really become.
If you go onto YouTube and do a search for the phrase ‘Lancaster video tours’ you will get a generous 1,930,000 hits. It is definitely a lot more interesting watching these, than reading about the place in an article or in a travel magazine somewhere. It would not do justice, trying to capture all of its grandeur in its sights and sounds and the historical landscapes, farmlands and Amish community, by writing about it.
Perhaps, that’s why after Hollywood left its print, several production companies also began to emerge like mushrooms overnight – it was inevitable. These production companies now offer hand-crafted bespoke videos – ones that can communicate a message across in far less time than putting together individual graphics and text and lengthy waiting periods for publishing, printing and distribution. Using a script, possibly a storyboard and the final production, nowadays it has become second-nature to film something and upload it. And when done professionally its impact is ten-fold.
Remarkably enough, this juxtaposition of an age-old community placed within the realms of modern technology, has made what seemed impossible – possible.
And if you are looking to join these exciting ventures and becoming a producer yourself, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Be an Educator – that’s what film is for, to teach and to show what only words cannot.
- Do Your Research Thoroughly – there’s nothing worse than wrong information
- Be Organized – as with everything in life
- Stay Current in all the Various Techniques – do online courses or visit training sessions
- Be Creative and Original – think from different perspectives and experiment with different elements
- Check Your Facts (and Your Spelling) – bad grammar in a video subtitles for instance, are a big no-no!
- Always Stay True to Your Profession – self-explanatory
