Last summer we had an impressive run of shoots for the Nat Geo Amazing TV series that begins airing in a couple weeks. It is pretty ironic that we are off to Kamchatka right now on another National Geographic project and will miss seeing a lot of these shows live. I’m excited to see how they integrated a number of our short stories in this series that they describe as documenting our wacky world. The Nat Geo Amazing site is expanding by the day and if you cruise around you will notice that we are included as field producers and contributors of stock footage in many of these episodes.
Reel Water Productions produced a total of 7 shorts for this series. It started with a piece on Matt Maddaloni free soloing Young Blood above a giant net. Then we filmed Robin Avery walk a several hundred foot high line between towers 3 and 4 of the Stewamus Chief. Next we shot a sea kayaking expedition to the Butze Tidal rapids just outside Prince Rupert, British Columbia. We then spent 3 days up at the Ashlu River doing some amazing stuff with the cable cam before finishing the summer out with a great trio of mountain bikers on some of the local trails here in Squamish. Perhaps the most intense shoot was working with three local base jumpers and Randy Schultz’s flying his winsuit from the top of the Chief. Over the winter we had the opportunity to shoot some ice climbing with John Ferneaux in Marble Canyon. Everyone of these stories was a team effort, with 2-4 cameras, lots of rigging and some pretty epic days. Most of the shoots involved the Sea to Sky Cam and we worked on both the Sony EX and RED platforms. The series begins airing on July 9th and there will be a new episode every Friday for 10 weeks.
It has been an amazing year indeed. Fitz Cahall and I embarked on two seperate web TV projects and along the way made some incredible friends. Working with athletes across different sports, seeing their motivations and goals and getting to know these souls has been rewarding and inspiring. I just wrapped up the post production on our latest creation called Tracing the Edge on the cusp of a big expedition myself. Having gotten to know Colin Haley, Krissy Moehl and Gerry Lopez a little bit through this project, it is hard not to feed off their drive and energy in my own endeavors. Their is passion in there stories and I hope Fitz and I are able to give you a sense of just how amazing these individuals are. The series will unfold in the late summer, but cruise on over to Patagonia’s Tin Shed for their current collection of stories. Check out the One Percent for The Planet video by the boys at Felt Soul, my favorite in this current collection.
I think is was late February when I was on a conference call with the folks from In Focus Asia. National Geographic had just connected me with Dean Johnson (Johno) in regards to the Kamchatka Project and we were discussing some ideas and logistics regarding the tv show they would be shooting for NGT. As the conversation closed Johno asked me what we were up to and I said we just got back from shooting this ice climbing route called “Icy BC”. He was keen to see some footage, so I sent him over a link to the demo reel for the Sea To Sky Cam. I think within a few minutes, I got an email back asking if I wanted to come to Taiwan to shoot cable cam for a documentary that they were working on for Taiwan Public Television. It was the last thing I expected to be doing with the cable cam, but a perfect application. I spent the next few days with Matt trying to lock in schedules, budgets and sort plane tickets and excess baggage fees. It seemed pretty reasonable to get the whole system checked with just a total of 6 pieces of luggage. Matt kept asking me where exactly we were going and I kept telling him, “A 3000 year old ancient cypress high in the mountains of Taiwan that the Smangus tribe calls home.” We were both curious for sure. Never would we have guessed that the cable cam would meet the Asian doc market, but sometimes light simple and effective techniques in adventure film cross apply to the doc market perfectly.
A warm Taiwanese welcome from the Taiwan Public Television crew.
After arriving in Taipai, we quickly made our way up into the mountains to hook up with Johno and the rest of the production team. Within a few hours of leaving the capitalist mecca of Taiwan, we were on a winding mountain road overlooking lush forests. It was a view of Taiwan I would have never expected. Full blown rivers, rugged mountain landscapes and undeveloped wilderness. Then we arrived at the Smangus village. Truly a magical oasis in the heart of the mountains. The demeanor of the people had the overwhelming feeling of content. This was a place I would have never imagined existed inside of Taiwan.
The Smangus school. I could live here. Beautiful.
A tribal elder is all smiles in this paradise called Smangus
Our main role here was to shoot a series of cable cam shots over three days. About 10 years ago when the tribe was suffering from most of the people moving out of root vegetable farming for mainstream jobs in Taipai, some of the tribal elders made an amzing discovery. While they were out on a hunting mission, they discovered a groove of ancient Cypress trees that would have been missed when the Japanese logged these mountains hundreds of years ago. A group of 3000 year old trees that stood untouched towering over the elders, just 5 kilometers from the village. It was a discovery that forever changed the tribe. It ushered in tourism and with that came wealth. The challenge has been management, but clearly this discovery has allowed the Smangus to thrive. Our job would be to create dreamy like shots where the cable came came out of the forest understory and revealed the giant trees. Shots that would allow the story of the discovery to be told with magnificent visuals. The first step would be getting an anchor up in Ya Ya, the biggest tree in the bunch.
A couple of motor bikes went a long ways in getting our equipment into the location. I'm just glad I was not driving.
Matt Maddaloni a way off the deck in the trees.
Beyond shooting the cypress forest scenes we did a scenic shot over a small river canyon and a bunch of work in the bamboo forests. In total we pulled off 4 different cable cam rigs with numerous angles from each rig. For us it was a challenging shoot in needing to really focus on the scenery more than subject matter transposed onto the scenery. We are used to following action, moving quick and providing that sense of speed from adventure sports. This was an entirely dirrent focus, but we were able to offer angles that could never have been achieved any other way. It was clear that we not only nailed a few shots, but added a level of production value to this doc that could only be achieved by the Sea to Sky Cam.
A long cable cam down a pritine creek drainage.
Matt trying to sort anchors out in bamboo. Not our typical forest rigging scenario!
A huge thanks to Johno of In Focus Asia and Jessie and Selena from Taiwan Public Television. While I love to go out and get cool shots, being part of genuine story telling always makes it way more fun. The story of the Smangus will be out as a co-production from In Focus Asia and Taiwan Public Television next year sometime. I’m hoping they submit to the Banff Mountain Film Festival, as it would be an unique twist on mountain culture and an opportunity for North America to learn about these people. I would have never guessed that such a place existed in the modern pace and era of Taiwan.
I get asked a lot how I got started in the production business and making films. Are you self-taught, did you go to school, who showed you the ropes, ect… It always seems to be a curiosity that people have with what we do. It is almost like people are looking for that secret recipe for success. A formula that I’m pretty confident is a random combo of events, but may sometimes look similar across successful producers, directors and production companies. To succeed in this business there is some kinda of tincture that includes education, connections, luck and above all an eye for imagery. For me the eye for angles and imagery began with photography. I learned the basics here and then cross applied them to film. I never looked back, but always had a burning desire to shoot stills along the way. I could never give up that simplicity of capturing a moment. So this year I was thrilled to have the opportunity to spend some time behind the 5d shooting stills for Outdoor Research. As a brand ambassador for OR I have been involved with a number of projects over the past year for them, but shooting climbing and sea kayaking has been a top priority. Have a look at their site and various print materials for some of the images I shot this year. Here are some of my favorites.
Shingo Ohkawa coils up his rope afater a day in Red Rocks
Djuna Mascall at first light in the kelp along Juan de Fuca Staright.
Sarah Hueniken inspecting a tough sport route in Red Rocks
Playing in the rock gardens off Cape Flattery
Lisa Nelson on Stratocastor Wall in Red Rocks
Prepping for the trip around Cape Flattery
Blake Herrington steming on Diedra in Squamish, BC
Happy New Year from headquarters here in Squamish! 2009 was an awesome year and we are going into 2010 with lots of momentum. For the past year I have been working with Fitz Cahall, producer of the Dirtbag Diaries, on a on a project calledThe Season. We kept it under the radar most of the summer largely because we were too busy shooting this and several other things to post about it. Fitz and I poured our sweat and heart into this project. We hiked the cable cam system, crane arms, tripods, cameras and mics all over the Pacific Northwest. The goal was to capture the stories of five athletes in five different sports over a single season in the Northwest. It’s a 22-episode web television series shot in HD. It begins the last week of January. As Fitz says, “The idea, or maybe the question, behind the series is this: Could we take compelling stories from our community, combine it with tightly crafted footage and create small installments that reveal a bigger story?” Check out the trailer. I’m very stoked about this project and looking forward to sharing all our hard work!
