Claudio von Planta: The Badass Motorcycling Director of Photography for the Long Way Series

drugged and they have babies and apparently someone left her at one of these orphanages and we stopped by to do a little Unicef ​​story where we visited this orphanage and um and then you and you know he fell in love with this girl and apparently he already discussed it before in general with his wife um the whole idea of ​​adopting children just having your own. but actually you could also adopt children because there are so many children around the world in difficult situations and apparently it wasn't completely unexpected for him, but for us at that time we didn't even know exactly what he was organizing.

He didn't really talk about it, but he just started the process of organizing and adopting while we were still there and now that this girl suddenly grew up, you know, she appeared in our last story in a

long

way up. beautiful, really beautiful, it was beautiful, that story electrified me, yeah, I just thought I meant you and you never mentioned it. You absolutely know he didn't, he wasn't doing this for um, you know, because it looks cool or something. , nothing, I think almost no one knew about it and um, and they also told us not to mention it at all, right?

It was never mentioned before you know it in a

long

way, a long way, it wasn't mentioned a long time ago, it wasn't a topic, so it's quite nice, it appears suddenly, it's funny, huh, the whole time I was watching the

series

I was thinking about. I'm not hearing much about Claudio, but I want to beat Claudio, although there have been a few times where I've had doubts when you posted pictures like this on your Twitter, Instagram or something. What was the story behind that? I don't know where that photo came from, someone posted it, but I looked at it, I must have looked very similar because I had a lot of gear on my bike and, you know, backpack and yeah, it's so much with all the cameras and batteries and chargers and the drone and it's always overloaded the bikes are always overloaded yeah I can't imagine it you know I hate asking this question you don't need to answer it if you're uncomfortable with it but I've experienced Simone trying to cause a tragedy in her own life um with his wife getting it is Lou Gehrig's disease yes yes yes yes it is what is this unfortunately that parallels the whole development of the long road up um uh I had the situation where my wife was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, that's what it's called in the United States, yeah, more neural disease and since different countries have different names, I think it's motor neurone disease, in Germany, Switzerland, we call it als and then in France they call it um.

I think again it had different names, often they they the names that they use are names of um uh professional athletes famous athletes because apparently that's the type of group of people that is most at risk of contracting this disease and it's yeah, um you Lo you know statistically and you know, first of all, it's a pretty rare disease, not many people have it, but the ones that have it seem to be very disciplined people, very active people, so they're the most disciplined typical people you can get. Imagine they're the best athletes you know and they want to win gold medals and Olympic medals and stuff, so you know they have to train, they have to be very strict and interesting enough to trigger reactions in your body where suddenly everyone your nerves start to die because that's what This happens so all your motor nerves that you control with your mind start to die slowly.

With my wife, it started with her left hand and then you know, with one hand, the arm and then the next, you basically become more and more paralyzed and eventually you lose. your voice because you know that all the vocal cords no longer work you can no longer swallow you need a kind of artificial tube in your stomach it's nice it's a pretty brutal disease brutal there is no cure so far there may be some medications to slow down the progression a little, so I was diagnosed with the first symptoms it had in April 2018 and then they diagnosed it in the summer of 2018 where it was clearly defined, that's what it is, and then you know it's a death. phrase and the kind of life expectancy between one and five years, if you look it up on Wikipedia, you know that's what they tell you and that's exactly what it is for my wife, it was two years, so she died now in this . year on April 28, 2020.

So the amazing thing is you know she was already in pretty bad shape when we started in September of last year 2019 and I asked her, do you know what you think she should do? the trip or not and as you always know, she never stopped me from doing my projects and she never said no, no, I don't know, I don't want you to go and take a trip because it's too dangerous. or here you know she could have said, look, I'm already feeling really bad and I need you around because, uh, you know I'm getting more and more disabled and she still said no, no. you should do it you should you should go and do it because I have enough help around um one of our daughters we have two daughters the youngest asked for a gap year at university and then she was 100 years old, which allowed me to go and I took the long way and I knew that there was a risk that I would have to interrupt and come back and it was really great to see the whole team, you know you and charlie ross dave from the beginning, they said, look, we know.

This is a risky operation and you just need to know that you can leave at any time when necessary. You can leave, and fortunately, you didn't have to. In fact, I was able to make the entire trip. Still, Regina, progressively, you know that her situation got worse and I. I knew worst case scenario, in my mind, I would be back before Christmas 2019 at the end of the long road and she probably wouldn't be able to talk anymore, that's exactly what happened when I came back for Christmas last year, she could. He hardly speaks anymore, his voice disappeared and then communication, the only way you can communicate is through a computer, it has a camera that can read your eye movements and therefore you can write with your eye movements. the eyes, but it's cumbersome and that's how it is. difficult and suddenly I ran out of energy and you were in the middle of that very touching story, thank you for telling that, so she couldn't talk anymore when you came back, she had to communicate by computer and yeah, that's just, but I just told you knew.

I know that's how it works and then eventually, with this disease, you eventually die because you can't breathe anymore, because all the muscles, first the muscles that move your ribs, start to paralyze and then at the end it's your pharynx. which also becomes paralyzed and then basically your lungs don't work anymore, um, so it's a pretty crazy thing, yeah, that's terrible, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, she, um, she was, yeah, she was amazing and and and we ended up in London. in the end, the last three months, yes, from January 2020 to the end of April, when she died, that was in London and I was very impressed with palliative care in the UK.

It's amazing, very impressive, really, really impressive, actually, much better. that what we had before in Switzerland, it was interesting to compare, you know, those types of medical systems very often, like in the United Kingdom, you have the national health system, where often people complain because it's like it's for everyone Just the same, you know, there are no exceptions, you know? someone who has money and who can get better service, not everyone is the same so sometimes you know there are certain aspects that people always complain about, but what we experienced with palliative care for Regina was very impressive, really incredible, and we were very lucky to be.

There and we, um, we had a very special situation because the whole family was together, so not only the daughter who took a gap year at university so she could be with the mother full time, but then we had the second daughter . Plus she could come so for the last two months we were all together and that was pretty unique, it probably doesn't happen to many people where you know if people die of cancer you're in a nursing home or a hospital. you go and visit but you always have a bad conscience you think, oh, I should visit more but you know there are other things you need to do and your job and this and that, so there is always a deficit and the dilemma was for us, yes, Regina had It's a really very hard and difficult illness, but fortunately we were all able to be there with her and that allowed us to digest it probably better than, we had more time to digest it somehow, and you got even closer, you drove closer to your daughters during this time, did you?

No? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we all had different forms of different coping mechanisms that we just developed, like a daughter, she was always drawing, she was just drawing the progression of what happened with her mother, uh, me. I started making little videos, what did you expect? And actually, just with the mobile phone, um, and it was an interesting experience. I actually started because I wanted to capture what my daughter was doing with the drawings and I think, and you know, For anyone you know who faces similar difficult situations, I think if you have any kind of creative ability, whatever, you know music, drawing, writing, making videos like me or photographs, I think it's a very good way to deal with difficult situations in life.

She just tries to do something with it and it suddenly starts to have meaning and for us, all of a sudden, it helped me a lot to digest the whole process and I was surprised that even in this kind of tragic situation. situation, you had many beautiful moments and you had fun, you knew because with these diseases, yes, your body is paralyzed but your mind is completely there, your mind is, there is nothing wrong with your mind, so you know a way that Regina rebels against cruelty, you know, the cruel side of this disease is just making silly comments and jokes and it was amazing, really amazing, that's really touching.

Thank you so much for sharing that, that is truly an amazing story. So I. I wanted to ask, I know we're out of time, you've been so kind and I know it's late there in France, I just wanted to comment, I can't wait to see your documentary on the jet stream, it seems so. I wouldn't want people to end up thinking that you only document travels around the world and wars in the Middle East and rebels in New Guinea. That must have been a lot of fun to do. Yes, as I say, I like variety. I like contrasts.

The greater the variety, the more interesting and actually, with what's going on, you know, I was at the beginning of my career and I was focusing mainly on political stories, current affairs stories, war zones, news, news reports, things like that and, suddenly, I leave the world. blue, they hired me for a long way, so suddenly a totally different type of movie came out, you know, adventure entertainment, so entertainment is the main type of aspect, it has to be cool, it has to be fun, so that there is a totally different approach than before. with all the political investors today, you only look at the negative side of humanity, everything that goes wrong, that's your story, which is incredibly depressing over time, it's really difficult and then suddenly, with a long road, you know that you navigate the world and In fact, look, you know, we also looked at some difficult things, especially with the UNICEF projects, but in general you enjoy discovering the world, but in a positive way, and for me it was quite eye-opening to realize.

You know, there are actually more beautiful things in the world than bad things and that's how I discovered it, after a long journey, suddenly other people called me saying that I was doing an expedition and you know what I'm looking for. someone who can film it and because everyone started thinking that I'm the expeditionary and then I said and I got involved in all kinds of expeditions um, you know, mountaineering, you know all kinds of things, and then one of one of the guys who called me in 2017 were the Swiss parachutist who said, Yeah, he found out about my name because of the long journey and was wondering if I might be interested in his story, so his story was that he, um, you.

I know his whole life he was interested in anything that flies, so he flew gliders and other airplanes and he was into, you know, skydiving and he managed to set a world record in speed skydiving which he achieved in like 2012. I think set the world record of 304 kilometers per hour as a forward skydive and then he discovered that he suddenly realized that it's strange, you know, in our time, when everyone talks about renewable energy, we talk about solar energy, wind energy all types. of things, but with wind energy you know that the most we can achieve is with this type of wind turbines that do not exceed 100 meters, I think the largest ones are about 100 meters high, um and that's it, but to him he likes flying he knows that you know that the higher you go, the stronger the winds are and the more constant the winds are, you know that on the ground, you know that closer to the ground, sometimes you don't have winds and, um, but yeah you go high enough, you have like constant wind and then the top, you know, the maximum speed, the maximum wind power that you would have in the jet stream, like eight to twelve thousand meters of altitude and these jet streams only use them airplanes, you know they get into them, so they use lessfuel if they fly within the jet stream because they are pushed from behind, so, from the United States, flying to Europe is always short, it is faster than the other way around because you can fly in the jet stream and then he discovered that there are companies, you know, startups, engineers, some smart, clever engineers who started building small prototypes to capture high altitude winds for power and electricity production, and felt he could combine his passion for flying by setting a new world record of being the first human jumping into the jet stream as a skydiver and at the same time drawing attention to this new technology for capturing wind energy at high altitudes, which almost no one has heard of, I haven't heard of it before and basically then I made a movie with him where we just did these two things, you know one thing, his preparation for this world record being the first human being to jump into the jet stream from a hot air balloon and then that and in parallel to his story, we looked at various inventions new ones, which is really fascinating and there is potential.

I wonder how long it takes before people start investing a lot of time into it because the prototypes are there, I filmed them, it works and it can be done. but somehow right now they are very strange technological developments, you know what it takes to take off or not and of course it needs serious investments and right now, I haven't seen it yet, this wind energy technology taking off, but I hope so because it's a lot cheaper, a lot easier than traditional windmills, um, and I like the idea of ​​using my skills for these kinds of positive stories, so it's not just about wars and conflicts, but in fact. some, uh, they bring some hope to humanity that, actually, yes, we have a lot of challenges, but you actually can, with a little brain, good engineering, um, and and, and you know, the necessary political push , you could solve many problems, we could definitely improve all kinds. of things that at this moment we could create, you know, suddenly, on the energy front, we create a lot of problems the way we were doing until now and I hope that we know, we change very quickly to more sustainable situ systems, well, That's fascinating and also sounds very important for the future of humanity.

You have a lot of other films too, like amputees climbing to the top of Kilimanjaro, I think, etc., so it's been fascinating talking to you. I always wondered who this guy is. When he was watching the long walk up who was the third silent member of the group. I realized that there are many team members, but you are going to follow the path and, besides, I am interested in the camera. the work and the drone and everything else, so thank you very much for doing this interview and good luck to you, what's your next film project?

We'll end with that question. Yes, in fact, I'm planning to do it now. More stories with Mark Hauser the skydiver because we feel like it's cool, it's a cool combination, setting world records and promoting some cool new technologies, it's just a nice concept, so we developed a whole idea of ​​a

series

of similar films, um, where we make world records and new technologies, um stories, and now we have one lined up for new inventions, how to use hydropower in different ways, you know, not just the traditional way, we know where we have a dam in the mountains on the lake and then a kind of power line with a lot of pressure and the turbine at the bottom of the mountain, so that's the turbine that we know, but there are new inventions about having little tiny turbines that just run in a river in front of your house or something really very effective, that's why we want to promote these new ideas for hydroelectric energy and combined with a world record in free diving, but not vertically down but horizontally somewhere in an area with a lot of currents in the sea and then see how much we can do like the current freediving, the record for horizontal diving in a single breath is about 250 meters, which is crazy, wow, a Russian guy, but now we want to know how far he can go if he does. we get into, you know, a big current and to see, you know, maybe I could go up to a kilometer just to draw attention to there's so much energy around you, you know, in terms of current that's not used, we No. use it, but there are systems you can use it, that's fascinating, that reminds me that I used to be a kayaker, I was training with the Olympic team and all that, and one day we went and rented kayaks in a fjord in British Columbia.

Most people don't know there are fjords up there, but there are, and one of the areas we're supposed to stay away from is an area of ​​saltwater rapids. Who has ever heard of rapids in the ocean because there are big tides there when the tide comes in? Up above the fjord fills up and there is a big rapid and of course I couldn't resist running that rapid, which I did in a k2, a two person kayak with my daughter in back and in front, and the waves were high enough to to broke on her head and froze her and then we couldn't get back up the rapid because it was so strong you had to wait for the eye to walk through the thing and everything else and the fishing boats and other motor boats that weren't there either.

They were able to go up the rapids, there was so much energy there, but you can run the rapids both ways if you can wait for the title. Exactly, yes, do they have tidal power plants in this area or none at all? Not only am I aware of tidal power plants, there are very few in the world, you know, there is a famous one in France, I know, and then, no, there are not many areas, and that is also a story we want to tell. comes into this new movie, you know, a new title concept, power plants, there's one in Scotland that we want to show, yeah, that's the plan, one of the next stories that's fantastic, well, I'll go see the documentary JetStream. now and I look forward to the new ones.

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure meeting you and thank you. I will send you a link or ask someone to send you a link. I don't think I have your contact information. but brilliant, thank you very much, wonderful, thank you, okay, bye, wow, you've made it to the end of the whole interview. Thanks so much for looking. When we contact guests and ask for interviews like this, they often want to know how many. subscribers we have, so if you want to help us get more guests, please subscribe and like, thank you very much.