Hit The Road: Cambodia Is Released

Not content with just one road trip film – Ric Gazarian releases his second film titled Hit The Road: Cambodia.

Writer, photographer, documentary marker and Bangkok Travel Massive chapter leader, Ric Garzarian shared with us news about his latest adventure-travel documentary – Hit The Road Cambodia.

Let’s recap – what is Hit The Road: Cambodia and who did you collaborate with?

Hit The Road: Cambodia (HTRC) is an adventure-travel, full-length documentary. HTRC follows two friends as they compete in a rally against other teams, as they drive 1600 km over 11 days across Cambodia in a tuktuk. Not only was I the producer of the film but also one of the characters. My friend Keith King who I met in Phuket several years ago is also featured.

We partnered with Large Minority, one of the many wonderful organisations that organise international rallies. A huge thank you to Travel Massive, who have continued to help us promote HTRC, with the first preview being shown at a Travel Massive event in Manila.

There are many ways to explore a country. We chose the tuk tuk.

What are the biggest challenges with making a travel documentary?

Money or perhaps more accurately the lack of it.

I was really fortunate to be able to team up with two very talented film makers from Manana Films. In 2004, I was a volunteer teaching English in Yerevan. And two of my former students, brothers Gor and Moosh Baghdasaryan, ended up becoming professional film makers. So teaming up with them was a humongous savings in terms of the budget.

Besides finances, the other major challenge is marketing and distribution. The barrier to create a professional film has been lowered so much over the last two decades. That means the competition for shelf space is tremendous, and without a big budget, you need to be very creative and also a great networker.

We distribute our films over iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, or Vimeo and other platforms.

This project took hundreds of man hours.

What motivated you to create a travel documentary?

In 2010, I drove in a rally from Budapest to Yerevan, 17 days and 7000 km.

After the rally, I met with my former students in Yerevan. I shared with them my stories, and then one thing led to another and here we are! They had just made their first full length documentary and we thought this rally would make an excellent story. It had the right mix of adventure and an exotic destination.

We discovered a rally on rickshaws in India and in 2012 we packed our bags to film this crazy adventure. Our first film, Hit The Road: India, was released in 2013. This film met with a lot of success; licensed by KLM and Virgin Australia, screened at 10 film festivals, and the #4 documentary on iTunes UK.

What projects are you working on next?

There are many incredible rallies around the world, so there are many options for our next project including:

• There is the Ice Run on Lake Baikal in Siberia which is on old Soviet motorcycles.
• There is the Philippines Sailing Challenge on sailboats.
• There is a great rally in Sri Lanka on rickshaws.

These are just a few examples and we would love to make a third film for the series. But right now, we are undecided and we are focused on marketing Hit The Road: Cambodia.

– Ric

Watch Hit The Road: Cambodia on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, or Vimeo.