» project vision «

50 states.
35,000+ cities and towns.
325.7 million+ people.

That's a lot of beauty, culture and adventure to explore.

Cue 'America the Beautiful'. A 365 day journey across the fifty states documenting the people, places and things that make each state beautiful and unique.

It's two women and one grand adventure.

A small (very, very small) taste of the vision...

» who? «

So I'm guessing you noticed the 'two women' part in our project vision. I won't beat around the bush... there are two of us.
We're a mother-daughter duo but, for all intents and purposes, we're just one package.

We'll take one salary and only Jenni (the cool one in the leather) will take the medical coverage. So it's basically like hiring one person financially but having the benefit of a unique team of passionate, driven creatives ready to change the world.

Let me (the cool one in leather again!) tell you a little bit about each of us so you know all about the dynamic duo you'll be working with in the 2019-2020 creative residency program.

Joanie is the mother part of this mother-daughter duo.

She's a singer turned mom turned teacher turned photographer and all around creative. It's just been in the last two years that she's hit the ground running with her creative passions.

Her role in 'America the Beautiful' will be as the photographer who captures the essence of every state through stills.

She's also an incredible people-person and will likely be the one performing interviews with people we meet along the way.

Jenni's the daughter, recent college graduate, passionate storyteller and videographer.

She loves using creative mediums to share the stories of people, places and things, making this project the perfect passion project for her!

Her role will be creating the videos for each state and the final 'America the Beautiful' documentary. She's also trained in SEO techniques and will be the one posting the photos and videos online for the creative community to enjoy.

 » what, where, when, why? «

For 305 days (60 days for planning) we'll be on the road traveling to the 50 states. The purpose is to capture the essence of every state through a series of photos and videos.

For each state we'll create a mini-documentary style travel video to be shared primarily on YouTube and our website. It will showcase the people, places and things we experienced in Maine, California, Iowa... you get the point. That video will be paired with a series of photos and together they will encapsulate that state and what makes it unique and beautiful.

Once we've visited every state we'll create one video and a series of fifty photos (one per state) to show how the differences of every state work together to make 'America the Beautiful'.

Another very small taste of the vision...

» the nitty-gritty details «

How is this preparing us for our future? We just launched our online show, Trippin' with Joanie & Jenni B., and America the Beautiful will be essentially a portion of that. Trippin' (the first video in our 'small taste of the vision') is what we want to do for the rest of our lives. It's a life of creating beautiful art, meeting amazing people and living out the ultimate grand adventure.

How are we sharing this with the creative community? We'll be sharing this journey through social media. The videos will be on YouTube and our website. The photos will be on Facebook and Instagram (and our website). We'll also keep a blog here on the website talking candidly about our experience.

​What tools are we using? We'll be using a TON of different tools and apps. Here's a breakdown of what we have right now and would be using through the journey:

• Cameras
  • ​Canon 70D, 5D and G7X
• Microphones
  • ​Sennheiser shot-gun mic
  • Rode Videomic Pro
  • Tascam DR-10L
• Tripods
  • ​Joby Gorillapod
  • Various Manfrottos
• Computer
  • ​MacBook Air 2013-2015
  • iMac 2014
• Memory
  • ​Sandiscs (currently have 8 all in use)
  • LaCie external harddrive
• Software & Apps
  • ​Adobe Suite
    • ​Premiere
    • After Effects
    • Photoshop & CameraRaw
    • Illustrator
    • Lightroom (desktop and mobile)
  • VSCO for iPhone

Naturally we would love to have more cameras, tripods, microphones, memory cards, and all of that, but I have no doubt that we can work with what we have. We're pretty awesome like that!

» creative process & schedule «

The creative process from start to finish will look something like this:

• Create travel plan for entire U.S. starting from Fort Walton Beach, FL
  • We'll be doing a mixture of roadtripping, flying, train journeys, bus journeys and so on. So for sixty days we will map out exactly how this travel will pan out allowing us a few weeks to be in our home state with our family and for a break from the road (but not a break from editing).
• Reach out to businesses in various cities (based on travel plan) to see if they'd like to be featured. Schedule times for interviews.
• Travel to first destination.
• Interview people scheduled.
• Be a 'tourist' for a day in that city.
• Film everything.
• Talk to everyone.
• Photograph everything.
• Head on to the next city via car, train or bus.
• Repeat.
• Repeat and repeat until we're ready for the next state.
• When one state is finished we'll edit the video and photographs and post the final video.
• We'll be posting on Instagram and Facebook throughout the entire process. YouTube may see some behind-the-scenes videos but will mostly be for the finished product.

That process might not seem like much, but a lot of the process will be dependent on the travel plan we forge, the people we're able to get in contact with, and how we feel with each city. This is a project driven based on story completely. We're going to live as nomads for 365 days in order to paint a picture of America for the entire world to see. That's the process.

The schedule... the schedule will be us traveling every single day for as many days as possible and filming and photographing everything along the way. As I said, we'll be living as nomads for an entire year while doing this project. We'll be going from city to city and state to state and putting up WEEKLY videos on YouTube and DAILY posts on Instagram and Facebook. The blog can expect at least WEEKLY updates.

» the budget «

After a lot of research, this is what we have for a budget as far as our project-specific NEEDS. This does not include new equipment because we don't absolutely need that to make this dream possible. 

• Travel expenses (hotel, flights, etc.) - approx. $150,00
  
  • ​This is based on spending $70,000 for hotel rooms and $80,000 for flights, gas in our car, rental cars, train tickets. Our goal is to live as simply as possible for this year, so we'll search for local hotels, B&B's, etc. who want to be featured in exchange for our stay. We'll do the same for restaurants (see below).
    
• Food - approx. $40,000
  • This is based on eating every meal at a restaurant, which we will not do. We will likely live off of sandwiches and pretzels for a lot of the trip to save money. But for the sake of budgeting we figured (for both) $20 for breakfast, $40 for lunch and $40 for dinner for all 365 days. Then we rounded up from $36,500.
• Hygiene - approx. $10,000
  • This includes hair, brows, makeup and all hygiene products we'd need along the way.