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VIDEO
Spirit of the Rainforest
Play one video each day to create a sense of adventure, so your children can 'travel' with us.
If they have any questions they can still ask us, and that allows us to make it a 'live' adventure for them.The videos were shot, edited and transmitted from an iPhone, via portable satellite ,from Brazil.
Videos embedded from Vimeo. If you need YouTube please use our alternative page.
How did we get to the Amazon? (1 minute)
John Dyer talks us through an animated map of the journey he will take to get to the Yawanawá tribe deep in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil.
Day 1 - Cruzeiro do Sul (6 minutes)
The Last Chance to paint team, artist John Dyer and musician Martha-Lilly Dyer finally arrive in Cruzeiro do Sul after travelling for over 30 hours from the UK. The second largest town in the area Cruzeiro do Sul is surrounded by rainforest and this remote Brazillian town offers the Last Chance to Paint team the opportunity to relax before continuing their journey to the Yawanawá tribe.
Day 2 - Rio Gregório (10 minutes)
The team are met at their hotel by Nixiwaka Yawanawá and Alvino, who is a police officer. Alvino and Nixiwaka drive the team for three hours to the small settlement of Sao Vicente where they can then take a canoe upstream along the Rio Gregório to the tribal village of Mutum. Alvino the police officer knows the route well and how to avoid any dangers. The team leave late from Sao Vicente, their canoe suffers a broken propeller and they arrive at the tribal village of Mutum at dusk to discover some interesting spiders!
Day 3 - The Yawanawá Tribes' Mutum Village (7.5 minutes)
The Last Chance​ to Paint team explore the tribal village of Mutum whilst they wait for permission to continue their project from the chief of the Yawanawá tribe. They then explore the rainforest with Nixiwaka Yawanawá looking for painting locations​. Parts of the rainforest are very sacred and the tribe paint John and Martha-Lilly’s faces with annatto seed red paint to keep them safe and to respect the spirits​ of the rainforest. Martha-Lilly eats a purple potato and John sniffs a very potent plant to clear his nose!
Day 3 - Painting in the rainforest (8 minutes)
Martha-Lilly and John get ready for their first day of painting in the Amazon rainforest with Nixiwaka Yawanawá and members of the tribe. Many hours go past as the permissions are sought from the shaman to enter a specific part of the rainforest and for the decisions about which artists from the tribe will be chosen to join them​. ​The shaman blesses her canvas by rubbing it with annatto seeds and washing it in the river. Nixiwaka and John paint spiritual paintings featuring a shamanic​ pot and Martha-Lilly hears Toucans in the canopy of the rainforest as well as discovering​ a forest crab the night before! John uses the art app Procreate live in the rainforest to create a new digital painting on iPad mini.
Day 5 - Painting and digital art in the rainforest (10 minutes)
John and Martha-Lilly are taken to an ​area of the Yawanawá’s rainforest that is full of sacred plants and paint next to a river whilst the tribe paint, draw and also fish. The tribe wear their traditional headdresses to show their culture and to honour​ the rainforest. At one point everyone disappears but they quickly return. John and Martha-Lilly answer more of the questions that have been sent in via satellite. John also creates new digital art using Procreate and his Apple iPad mini 5. Martha-Lilly discovers that the global plastic pollution​ problem​ has also reached the remote Amazon.
Day 6 - Painting in the Yawanawá's tree house (7.5 minutes)
Martha-Lilly Dyer and John Dyer await the arrival of Robin and Merlin Hanbury-Tenison to the Yawanawá Mutum village in the Amazon rainforest. Robin and Merlin set up camp in a giant tree house and Robin enthusiastically recounts his morming encounter with birds and monkeys from the rainforest. It is raining for the first time during the expedition so the tree house is used as an art studio for John and the Yawanawá artists to work from. John is feeling unwell and is given coconut water to drink as it is a natural and sterile source to rehydrate from.
Day 7 - Painting in Mutum Village (9 minutes)
John and Martha-Lilly go for Readybreak with filtered water for breakfast and tell us about the tribal Uni (ayahuasca) ceremony they attended the previous night. We see the team’s hammocks that keep them safe from insect bites at night and the Last Chance to Paint team answer lots of questions that have been sent in from children via Iridium satellite for them to answer. John paints the tribal ceremony in the place it happened the night before and Robin and Merlin discover a decapitated snake!
Day 8 - Painting the Rio Gregório (9 minutes)
Artist John Dyer has his last painting day in the Amazon rainforest and chooses to paint the Rio Gregório whilst enduring the hot tropical sun and capturing life on the water. Merlin Hanbury-Tenison goes hunting with Nixiwaka Yawanawá and recounts a memorable story of his adventures in the rainforest. John takes a plunge in the river to cool down and shows us hundreds of Amazon butterflies and Martha-Lilly discovers more plastic polution in the village and hides under an umbrella to keep cool whilst dreaming about sandwiches!
Day 9 - The Yawanawá school (14 minutes)
The final day of Spirit of the Rainforest project from the Amazon Yawanwá tribe and the Last Chance to Paint team visit the school in Mutum village. Martha-Lilly plays flute for the children whilst they paint rainforest pictures using annatto seed paint. This special video contains the ‘Voices from the Amazon Rainforest’ film made following the school visit where the children talk to Martha-Lilly about their paintings and how important the rainforest is to them. The video also contains the world premier of a special piece of flute music performed by Martha-Lilly Dyer that was composed by Jake Thorpe for the project based on the Amazon water spirit Yuxi Yuve.
'Spirit of the Rainforest' feature length video diary (1 hour, 18 minutes)
The entire Procreate ‘Spirit of the Rainforest’ chapter compiled into one feature length video. This video is 1hr and 18mins in length and follows artist John Dyer and musician Martha-Lilly Dyer on their adventure to the Yawanawá tribe in the Amazon rainforest. Watch as the Last Chance to Paint team paint, meet the tribe, paint with the tribe, play music and experience the Yawanawá way of life. A unique and inspiring insight into tribal culture and life in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil.
SATELLITES
HOW DO WE GET OUR VIDEOS TO YOU?
We travel with portable state of the art satellite systems that we keep charged with fold up solar panels and solar powered battery packs. We use one system from Immarsat for video and one from Irridium that we used for our blogs. We try to shoot short bursts of video on an iPhone during the day and then edit the footage on the iPhone in the evening before 99% compressing it (it is super expensive to use satellite), and then connect to our satellite basestation to upload the video to our streaming service. It's quite difficult to get it all working and to line the satellite base station up with a satellite in orbit, and to get enough power to keep it all running is sometimes almost impossible! The videos on this page have been replaced by the full resolution versions, but when we are 'live' you will receive highly compressed versions, but they are super exciting as they are released each day of the adventure.
