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.

Paul Stevens, Chad Hendron and James Mcskimming

Eric Shertzel drops into the triple on the Ashlu.

Robin Avery hundred of feet off the deck

Matt Maddaloni soloing above a giant net.

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.

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 called The 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!

The Season Trailer from Fitz Cahall on Vimeo.

Air time is something that there is no shortage of in mountain biking.

photo by Nick Sopczak

In the hundreds of things I have learned in the past few years of filming, organizing good talent still sits high on the list.  It is the difference between a labored day in the filed where you are constantly trying to make things happen and one which seems to just flawlessly fit together.  Christian had lined up three local guys for this shoot.  Chad, James and Paul all ride for Dincus and have skills when it comes to two wheels, dirt trails and air time.  We were excited to be filming them and they were fired up for the camera.  Win win.

The Trio.  Chad, Paul, and James.

photo by Nick Sopczak

The first day we shot almost entirely in a big open clear-cut with tons of wooden features, while the second day we tucked into the woods.  Both locations were stunning and it is impressive what these guys and other trail builders have constructed just minutes from Squamish.  We used a number of different cameras.  Christian was shooting his RED and also gunning with my new Canon 5d Mark II, while I worked the EX-1 and the new HD Sony POV.  We have rented this new POV unit on a couple shoots now.  Pretty cool for what it is.

James and Paul waiting for the word on the cable cam.

photo by Nick Sopczak

One the second day we set up an amazing cable cam which captured riders joining each other from different trails.  This showcased how well the boys were riding together and how precise freeride mountain biking can be.  These guys have their speed and timing so dialed that they can join each other mid air in the middle of a trail.  We worked hard to come up with a way to get the cable cam over this zone and walked away with out best mountain bike shot yet.

Matt and I deep in the rigging of the cable cam.

photo by Nick Sopczak

It’s snowing in the mountain here now, so fall has now turned winter.  Hopefully some of the next blog posts include that beautiful white layer of snow!

The original spool of cable from the 2006 49 Megawatts project.  It was no small task to string that!

The portaledge suspended on the line.  It took two people.  One person laid down and shot while the other controlled the speed down the line.

There were a lot of things on the table with potential to effect this shoot.  Water levels, extensive rigging in a slimy canyon, securing extra cameras and making sure the crew could make the dates.  It took a significant amount of scheduling tricks to get the team lined out for 3 days of shooting and right up to the first day of the shoot, the river was too high from a heat wave.  The weather window was perfect and we kept our fingers crossed that river levels would drop.  Shane Robinson called it.  He said, "it will be perfect, no need to cancel or reschedule!"  At 75cm on the gauge, the Box Canyon would be juicy.  Perfect to make things look exciting on camera, but high enough to excite some nerve endings in the paddlers.

The team.  Todd Gillman, Eric Shertzel, Chris Tretwold, Shane Robinson and Max Kniewasser.

Shane scouting the 50/50 waterfall.  Steve Rogers photos give me the goose bumps at times.  This is no exception.  Wow!

The view from the lip.  This was one of the angles for the cable cam.  You can see the lines in the top of the frame.

We had pitched this story to National Geographic because we knew that we could pull off some of the most amazing whitewater angles.  Because it is so close to my house, I was able to rally up for several scouting missions to scope angles, make decisions on cable cam locations and get a solid game plan to shoot it over 3 days.  For me the whole concept of filming has really evolved in the past year.  It used to be that we would all go up to the river for the weekend and I would paddle down the river and film what I could.  Fast forward to the present.  For this shoot, I was cordinating 2-3 cameras, helping rig 600 foot spans of cable for the cable cam, communicating with the team of paddlers to assure we had them dialed and millions of other details to ensure success.  Fun but hours and hours of hard work.  While it may seem over the top to some boaters, it is what makes a professional product.  After all we were on the hook for National Geographic so needless to say those two words put a bit of pressure on!

Chris Tretwold getting it all started with a seal launch in Day 1.

 The rivers was juicy for sure.  This is from 500 feet up looking down.  Eric Shertzel coming through triple.

After spending the first day shooting the upper canyon from just about every angle one could imagine, we shifted our focus to the 50/50 waterfall for the start of day 2.  I had half jokingly said to all the guys that part of the deal on this shoot was that they had to run 50/50.  This is a significant waterfall with a fast moving pool below that feeds into some of the hardest drops on the run.  With proper safety set, several people we were willing to try their hand at it.  I proved to be one of the most incredible cable cam shots of the whole weekend.  We followed paddlers right over and off the drop.  Unbelievable.

Todd scouting the line.

Todd launching!

It has been a super busy summer.  While I have been behind on getting blog posts up, rest assured that we have been producing more material than ever before.  Stay tuned.  Lots will be launching this winter.  Hope everyone has had a good season out there.

Some of the top riders looking on

With a 6 am start we were able to get a several hundred foot line up and the camera rocking!

Filming a live event is not just any ordinary type of shoot.  It is an all or nothing spectacal that comes and goes so fast that you barely have time to blink.  We quickly moved from rigging, to testing, to the pre lim heats of the Slopestyle.  Solving just about every type of last minute problem that arises when you are under the gun along the way.  By the time the finals rolled around, we had it dialed.  The guys were cutting to us live on the Jumbotron with thousands of people looking on.  Stoked!  Here are some of the clips at GO211…  

Fortunately lots of people were excited to see this happen.  It’s a good thing, as it took a small army just to tension the line.

Matt giving me the low down on the line and how it has finally brought a solid safety factor to a high line attempt of this scale.

The man of the hour…Robin Avery…scoping the line.

Never enough pulleys, rope, caribiners and misc climbing gear for a project like this.

Tim Loubier was running the second cam for me.  In the zone capturing the rigging.

The calm before the storm.  After a long day of filming on Saturday, a freak lightening storm rolled in.  There was no sign of precip in the forecast for 10 days.  The plan was for Tim, Steve, Matt and I to bivy out on location to save hiking all the camera gear down and back for the second day.  Within 20 minutes of this picture, the rain started, then hail, then a headlamp descent of the Chief to make sure all the cameras stayed dry.  Epic for sure and a part of the story that will probably never get told.

For more details on Robin’s experience check out his Extreme Ginger blog.  By the end of the weekend we had captured Robin sending the line, hiked hundreds of gear up and down the Chief, explored new trails and routes up the Chief, watched a freak thunder storm take over Squamish and manged to get the material needed.  We will keep you posted on when the segment airs on TV.  Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

Towing into the "Bussy"

It took me the entire first day to figure out the tow rope.  Like most kayaking things, it just takes a few of the right subtle things and then it all comes together.  I would get rejected, flip and have to come back and try again.  For the regualrs, its no big thing.  For me, I gooned at least the first 15 attempts. 

The wide angle on the whole scene.  Eddy, tow rope handler, Patrick Camblain taking photos, Benny Marr catching huge air.

I really like this photo because it shows that downstream is very forgiving.  If you look closely you can see a green boat coming back into the eddy down low.  While the wave is big, fast and intimidating, there is really nothing to worry about below.  I can see why people claim that the mini-bus is one of the top 5 waves in the world.  I was fortunate to catch the last couple days of the wave in prime shape and also have the chance to watch some of North America’s best playboaters go huge.

Dave Nieuwenhuis going extra large in a carbon Project.  Love this frame.

Benny Marr launching with Patrick Camblain looking on.

Looking forward to getting back up that way next season for sure.  Obviously for people who live back east, playboating on the Ottawa is a big draw.  Great to see the top dogs flying through the air and linking up trips.  The last couple seasons, combonation tricks started to really be a big part of the game.  Now these guys are linking 3-4 moves in a row which is quite impressive.  I am not trading my creeker out for a proper playboat anytime soon, but looking forward to the next Bussy session.

One last frame!