Filmmaker Converts Sprinter Van into Mobile Studio to Create Adventure Travel Films
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Levi Allen is an adventure filmmaker that lives in ‘Florence’, his adventure van. The idea of living and traveling in a vehicle and having this adventure platform that he could take places definitely came from when he was a kid. His dad had a VW Westfalia van and they'd take that on surf trips. His first adventure vehicle was the classic small pickup truck and the car, but the ideal in his head was always moving towards like a larger van, expedition platform. For him, the value of a vehicle has always been, "where can you go and what can you do with it?"
He was searching for about a year, and eventually stumbled on some small used car dealership. He had just enough cash to buy the van, so he took the plunge. For the first six months that he lived in the van it was just a bare cargo van with some plywood and a sketchy foam mattress. He realized this dream he had of outfitting it to perfection was not actually conducive for what he was trying to do at that time, which was just make a film, so he had to simplify his vision. He ended up making it sort of accommodating, but a majority of the time was going to be spent outside of it anyway. He decided to just be okay with how it was at the time and be grateful for a roof over his head, and move on from there. In stage one of the van he was living in the van in Vancouver and he needed it to be as stealth as possible, but now the van is moving into stage two of its life where he’s using it on adventure productions and he’s not living in cities as much, so he’s getting ready to morph it more into where it's more obvious that it's an adventure rig.
His van is a 2004 Mercedes Sprinter. It's the longest wheelbase and highest height model. One of his favorite upgrades of the van that he’s done so far, as well as one of the most expensive ones, was the Knobbier BFG KO2 tires he put on. They're a little bit overkill for a van, but it helps make up for how much this van doesn't do well off-roading. He likes taking it up mountain roads and stuff like that. He’s thinking about putting some windows in it, giving it a paint job, a roof rack, and all those things, but that's further down the road. Right now it's still in a bit of a stealth mode where it's hard to tell someone lives in it.
What he likes about this is right when he opens the door he tries to have all the bags that he wants to access for filming within arm's reach of the door. He found he was getting in and out a lot when he had the gear further back into the van, so he tries to keep the most necessary filmmaking stuff close and within arms reach and in the same place. That just really helps keep things organized.
He keeps his food in a cooler right at the front, which is also what he’ll take out to cook off. He has a table that folds in the middle and changes height. Often what he’ll do is leave this there in the van up against the wall so he can prep his camera gear inside. Underneath in back against the wall he’s got his inverter, which is just 750 watts. For electricity he’s just got two golf cart batteries that are isolated from the main battery. One day he’ll get solar, but for now charging off the alternator works fine for him. He has plenty of room in various milk grates for different outdoor equipment like basic slacklining gear. He’s got ropes around and in the van, which comes surprisingly helpful, especially if he ever gets the van stuck.
The walls look sort of finished and were really easy to build. He essentially just took slats off pallets and fastened them to the wall. This is super bare-bones purely just for the aesthetics of making it look slightly finished and he’s a big fan of the cabin vibe. His dream's to have cedar tongue-in-groove that's become a little bit trendy with van conversions, but he’s surprised the pallet walls have lasted this long. For lighting he has a really basic light LED strip. On the bed area he’s got a six inch foam mattress that is about a queen size. He has his clothes in a duffel bag for storage.
It's really nice to have a place for everything to go as well as a generic catch-all because sometimes you just need a place to put things. When you start driving, stuff just goes everywhere in the van, so even if it’s temporary it’s important to have stuff stowed away.
The build is super basic in the sense that there's no shelving, but that keeps the space super flexible. Definitely the dream one day is to have those shelves at this height all around and add a bit more like permanent storage areas, but for now it's been serving him really well to everything in cases. Stuff like his monopod, tripods, and other things like that that he’s using all the time don't necessarily have a place so they get just left around.
At the front he’s got upgraded captain chairs that he pulled out of just an SUV in the record lot. The back is the part that he’s most embarrassed about. It's his himssy garage, but he put in this door off one of the Sprinter vans in an auto wrecker. It’s all white unlike the rest of the yellow interior, but the original door was bent and janky.
The bed structure itself is just a basic 2x4 frame raised off the side ledges of the van and then anchored in through the walls. He loves mountain biking, so being able to carry bikes inside the van is pretty important to him. He left a bit of a space in-between where the bed ends and where the end of the van is because he thought he might want to prop bikes up in there, but he’s realizing he doesn't do that as much as he thought he would so he might actually move the bed back in the next version of the build. The dream would be to have a big drawer that could pull out on this side and then have a water tank and other things on that side but just haven't gotten there yet.
People don't realize but we're constantly telling ourselves stories about our own life about what they can and cannot do, where we came from and the opportunities that are ahead of us. Try to find out what those are so you can actually challenge them. Once you see a different way of going about it, it's weird to say it, but it makes the hardships fun. Hardships, barriers in life, conflict, all that stuff is all a guarantee. You don't have control over those things, but suffering through them and just drudging through them, that's totally a choice. He doesn't feel the right to tell someone else that they have to change their perspective, but he truly feels that while suffering is optional, hardships are guaranteed. You can just find so much joy in overcoming them and that's like so much fun.
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