For the past several months “updating the Reel Water website and blog” has made the to do list on more than one occasion, only to get moved onto another list and constantly pushed down the priority ladder. The reality is that we have been so busy between field production, development and delivery on projects that even a simple update has been challenging. There are worse problems to have. Then there is Facebook. The world’s biggest time suck, I mean networking tool. It has become a more common portal for Reel Water updates and happenings, but somehow it is just not the same as blogging.
There we lots of great behind the scenes stories to blog about over the past few months, but actually capturing the stories was all consuming aside from the odd post here and there. We will work on that for 2011. Excuses aside, 2010 has been the best year yet at Reel Water. Over the past few years we have grown from a couple making sea kayaking films, to a team of professionals working on a diversity of high end projects. Looking back in a few years from now, 2010 will certainly stand out as a turning point. From reaching an audience that we could have never imagined via several highly successful web TV projects with Fitz Cahall to a stream of unique opportunities with National Geographic, it has been a year to remember. In no particular order of importance, here are a few of the things that stand out from 2010.
THE SEA TO SKY CABLE CAM TAKES OFF
Back in late 2007 we began playing around with the idea of a cable cam. Matt Maddaloni who was working for Zip Trek eco tours scored some old 3/4″ cable and we decided to try the human version while shooting for 49 Megawatts. It worked exceptionally well, but it was heavy and hard to get into locations that we wanted to shoot. So in 2009 we created a remote operated version that has been a work in progress ever since. We used it heavily in 2009 for the production of the Season and also the Nat Geo Amazing series. We learned a ton from those projects, kept refining the system and 2010 became the magical year where the system went to work for live events, doc work and television. We went from spending an entire day rigging to a matter of hours and from playing around in our backyard to flying over big crowds.

Matt sending the Sea to Sky Cam off at Krankworks 2010
The latest demo reel which includes the very best shots over the past year or so.
WORKING WITH THE PHANTOM GOLD
This was an opportunity that all camera geeks dream of. Kevin Rigney, Tim Loubier and I had the opportunity to go out and shoot on a Phantom Gold complete with a set of Zeiss primes and the highly coveted Angenieux zooms. Essentially we had 48 hours to come up with as many different locations, athletes and ideas as we could muster and about the same amount of time to shoot it. Of course we dreamed up a list that would have taken us weeks to shoot, but we managed to pull off an incredible amount of shooting over the course of 2 days. While this was organized primarily to build a library high speed stock, we also decided to cut a short piece for the film festival circuit. Edited by Tim Loubier, “Seconds” was a finalist at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in November.

Every DP's dream to operate.

Careful, very careful.
Seconds…a five minute short that is really only about 30 seconds in real time.
KAMCHATKA…A DREAM COME TRUE
The Kamchatka Project was an expedition that was several years in the making and perhaps the biggest highlight of 2010 for me. Kamchatka is considered one of the last truly wild places left on Earth and is home to around a quarter of the world’s wild salmon population. Getting to Russia’s far east required flying across 20 time zones and then the only way around the 600-mile long peninsula was Soviet era MI-8 helicopters. Add in the largest concentration of brown bears in the world, uncharted class 5 whitewater and active volcanoes and pretty quickly the equation equals “the trip of a lifetime”. It was a project that had an incredible web woven between science, adventure and media. The exploration components were mind blowing and the opportunity to be shooting for National Geographic was a dream come true. Here are a handful of photos, but check out the Kamchatka Project website for more details on what we accomplished.

Shooting out the side of the MI-8 on the way to the Karimskia River.

Putting on the 4 days source to sea first descent of the Karimskia.

Spending some time on a Varicam for the NG Monsterfish show.

DP Rob Taylor keep me super busy doing the bulk of the underwater work.

Seriously the most ought there I have ever felt in my life.
SHOOTING STILLS FOR OUTDOOR RESEARCH
While I have slowly migrated away from photography over the past 10 years, it was where my roots in the media world began. It is where I learned the basics of composition, exposure, lighting and most importantly when I first discovered how hard it was to actually get into the locations I wanted to shoot. While I prefer to work with video cameras, still photography has a simple clean feel that is unrivaled. Outdoor Researchgave me the opportunity the snap some stills with the 5d Mark II this year and I had a blast. Between the climbing and sea kayaking assignments I managed to capture some decent images. The adventure involved in getting these shots was on par with anything we did all year.

First time I had been to Red Rocks...what an amazing place.

Paul Kuthe playing with mother nature on the Washington Coast. Finally some rock gardening shots that do justice to coastal paddling.
NAT GEO LIVE SPEAKING SERIES
Last year at the Banff Mountain Film Festival I met Greg McGruder who is the head of the NG Live speaking series at National Geographic headquarters in Washington DC. I pitched him the idea of a humorous, light and fun take on what it is like to be an adventure filmmaker. I constantly get asked if I “miss being a part of the action as a filmmaker”. The reality is that there is just as much adventure in the filmmaking itself. There are an untold number of epics that take place to actual achieve any give shot and that has always been an attraction for me. Well at least it makes for good stories. People love hearing about some of the extremes we will go through to film certain sports or locations. This talk for NG Live came right of the heels of the Kamchatka expedition and I was beyond stoked to have a sell out crowd of over 400 people. Here is a short post from one of the NG staff attending.

An honor to be standing on the stage at NG Headquarters in DC.
INSTRUCTIONAL WEB SERIES
Reel Water had the opportunity to produce two different instructional web TV series this year, which saw widespread distribution through Canoe and Kayak and Backcountry magazines respectively. The first project was a three part series on backcountry ski technique and safety while the second was a three part series on fundamental sea kayaking skills. In both of these projects we aimed to bring high production value to instructional content online. Super fun projects and I learned how bad some of my technique has become from spending too much time behind the camera. Both projects dovetailed in with editorial in the mags. Here is a link to the one of the ski vids hosted by Backcountry. Below is one the vids from the sea kayaking series.

Proper rough water tidal conditions for the instructional sea kayak series.
STARTING PRODUCTION ON THE SEASON 2
In early 2010 we launched the Season web TV series with Fitz Cahall of the Dirtbag Diaries. It was a 22-episode series following 5 athletes over the course of a single season. Our existing advertisers were so excited about the outcome of this project, it rolled into a Season 2. In some ways it almost felt like we never stopped. As soon as the last episode of the first project aired, we were already spinning of gears on the next round of stories. This fall we worked extensively with boulderer Thomasina Pidgeon and mountain bikers Kevin Landry and Jeremy Norris. This winter we will start work with skier Greg Hill who just completed the 2 million vertical feet miracle and fly fisherman Ryan Peterson who we worked with in Kamchatka. While we will be following a similar format to the first Season, it’s a whole new era of stories and the amount of time we are spending on production has increased significantly as well.

Thomasina getting ready to session a project in Squamish.
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So all that said, 2011 is stacking up to be another amazing year for Reel Water. We will keep you posted on how it all goes. If you have not seen it already here is our 2010 demo reel. A select look at some of the projects above and some others that were equally as fun and important. Happy New Year everyone from the entire team at Reel Water!




















