Last weekend Caroline Gleich and I spent the day shooting footage for a video we hope to complete later this winter. We spent part of the day in SLC and the late afternoon up at Snowbird where I took the following photos. Besides crashing my Phantom 2 drone, it was a fun day and we got a lot of great footage. It was beautiful at the top of Snowbird, but let's all keep praying for snow.
In conjunction with ZEAL Optics posting my video, article, and photos about local violin-maker John Young, I also created photo essays in both Steller and Storehouse. Here's a link to the new Storehouse page I added to this site where you can look at my Storehouse stories.
It happened last spring. All it took was for my wife to see a video with an aerial perspective of a skier descending through trees and knee deep powder. She was sold. She showed me the video and so was I. Now I've been experimenting with my own Phantom2 copter and GoPro in preparation for the upcoming ski season. The aspen groves in the mountains around my house are lighting up and give me a great excuse to head out and get some footage before all the leaves fall away. This particular shot was taken a few minutes from my house on the road heading up to Snowbasin.
Being a very recent convert to the word of the iPhone, I recently discovered the iPad/iPhone apps Storehouse & Steller. Both apps let users use their own multi-media to create stories along the lines of more expensive and complicated online stories, such as those created by the NY Times and Powder Magazine.
This link on the right is to the Storehouse version of the story, which is presented in more of a scrolling article format that's great for high fidelity photos.
Over at Steller, which features more of a flipbook type presentation, I was pleasantly surprised to see a larger community and quickly a lot of people were reading and liking my stories....which is exactly the point of posting stories in the first place. Here is the same story about Kokanee salmon, but in the Steller flipbook format. Enjoy.
Tomorrow night is the world premiere of Lynsey Dyer's film, PRETTY FACES, in Boulder, Colorado. While I can't make it out to Boulder for the premiere, I'm certainly going to the SLC screening later this month with my family to show our support for the movie (it was funded in part through a Kickstarter campaign). Several years back, Lynsey, along with Claire Smallwood and Vanessa Pierce, created the non-profit SheJumps organization to promote women getting out and involved in the outdoors. I'm proud to say a short video ad I created for SheJumps will play at the premiere and most showings of the film. Thanks to Claire for asking me to do this and having the confidence I could quickly put something together fitting of their inspiring organization.
Thanks to everyone who rallied behind our video and cast votes throughout all the rounds of the competition. We garnered more votes in the final round than any of the previous rounds, but the Midwest team proved too strong. Congrats to Joey Wallis and his supporters! It was a well deserved win, and I look forward to meeting him at the SLC premiere. Joey won the overall contest and we proudly settled for the runner up position and winner of the Intermountain Region. Thanks again to everyone for your support -- we'll see you at the premiere and on the mountain!
It's officially time to get excited about the premieres of two ski movies next month. First, the all women ski film, PRETTY FACES, is making its Utah premiere in SLC on October 8th. Our family happily contributed to the Kickstarter campaign and are now thrilled to see the movie come to fruition. I've done some video work with SheJumps, so it's great to see this offshoot of that organization put together a big time ski film to promote women getting out on the snow and charging.
The second film is Warren Miller's NO TURNING BACK. This film has its world premiere in SLC on October 18th (and will also be playing closer to my home in Ogden on October 22&23). My short film, THE WORLD OPENS UP, which won Warren Miller Hometown Hill competition for the Intermountain region, will be playing on the big screen before the film. This is exciting for us to present this short film of skiing here in our local mountains for everyone to see and get excited about the upcoming winter. Let it snow!
It seems like I've been surgically attached to my chair and desk the last two weeks as I finished up a ton of video projects, so I decided to get out and camp in the nearby mountains for the night to a) shoot some test video with a new Phantom copter, b) shoot some video footage for a project, c) take some photos with a new lens, d) test out a new sleeping pad, and e) just get out and sleep high on the mountains for a night. The views of Ogden on the west and the Eden Valley on the east were amazing, most of the tests worked well (I'll ignore the crashing of the Phantom copter for now), and Lucy and I had the ridge all to ourselves.
An earlier post of mine featured a recent trip to the Uinta Mountains, and I'm happy to say that Orvis selected my story, photos, and the short video of the trip for their web page. You can check it out here.
I'm not a "classically trained" writer, I don't call myself a photographer (there are way too many others who take better photos than I do), and I really wasn't on the trip to shoot any usable video, but I must say I'm happy with the results of all three. I like the praise from Pat Monahan at Orvis, "The Trifecta! A great story accompanied by killer photos and a video."
Since my trip to Alaska I've been on four trips to the Uinta Mountains of northern Utah. They're one of my favorite places on earth with their grand vistas, verdant valleys, miles of crystal clear streams, and their innumerable lakes with colorful brook and cutthroat trout.
Freshwater Adventures has been providing air cargo service out of Dillingham, Alaska for many years. Owner Jerry Ball's experience is unmatched when it comes to safely traveling through the vast Alaskan wilderness. Thanks to him and his employees at Freshwater Adventures, people can successfully enjoy the remotest areas of southwest Alaska. I just finished spending two weeks in Alaska shooting video and photos (and primarily fly fishing), and I loved flying in their vintage Grumman Goose. Jerry and company flew us to a remote lake, landed on the water, taxied up onto the shore, and deposited us and all our gear in the "Alaskan bush" (in four flights total). Eleven days later Jerry flew us out from a gravel runway over 100 miles from our drop-off point. It was a flying experience that rivaled my time in the F-16...except at a much slower speed.
Here's my personal items packing list for the trip: Packing List
As part of an ongoing series of videos I've been creating for the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, here's a quick trailer created to promote the FUNdamentals Camps held at the Utah Olympic Park every summer for young teens. I shot on the Canon 70D as the kids participated in a myriad of activities during the four day camps. The autofocus system on the Canon 70D is truly amazing and makes single person filming much more manageable in uncontrolled documentary settings. This camera, along with a variable ND filter, make it much easier than ever before to properly expose and capture good footage.
Zeal Optics is a great company out of Boulder, Colorado that creates all sorts of eyewear ranging from hip summer shades to bomber winter goggles with integrated video cameras. I'll be taking their sunglasses with me on our Alaska trip and shooting video/photos of our team using the sunglasses in the remote wilds of Alaska. Meanwhile, I shot a few shots locally at Park City and Snowbasin for the Zeal Optics crew.
This was a great month to wrap up three video projects and now feel like I'm not multi-tasking too many creative endeavors. Park City has been our base of operations for the month and we've loved every minute of it...good food, good friends, lots of hikes, lots of bike rides, some fishing, more food, some snow, some sun...basically a good time. Next month is a big month with two weeks spent in the remote Bristol Bay drainage of western Alaska where I'll fly fish for huge salmon and shoot some video for Zeal Optics. Sounds like another great month to me.
Special Olympics Utah runs a wonderful program called Project Unify in which students with and without intellectual disabilities play and compete on teams in both soccer and track. It's an inspiring program, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to help promote it to students and school administrators. I sincerely hope more schools choose to participate in this program in the future - the benefits to all the young athletes is beyond words. You can learn more about this and other programs at the Special Olympics Utah website (www.sout.org).
Last week we finished the principal photography for a short film we are creating for the Utah Heritage Foundation. Utilizing a small crew and two teenage actors (twins, actually) we shot everything over the course of two days on historic 25th Street in downtown Ogden. The film's message is about the importance of a Main Street to all towns, large and small, and the film will be part of a curriculum developed by the Utah Heritage Foundation for kids in elementary school. We scouted the area months ahead of time and utilized old photos from the area to show that the buildings haven't changed much nor has the vibrance, energy, and community of the people who occupy them.
One of the greatest aspects of video-making is the opportunity to meet people, peek in on what they're doing with their lives, and to learn about their passions. I'm able to get an inside glimpse into the lives and lifestyles of many people, and while I don't have to make their lives my own, I do get the benefit of seeing them doing what they love to do.
A good friend of mine recently hired me to make a documentary video of a high school softball team he helps coach at a local high school. It was a chance to gain an insight into a sport I've never played before and have little interest in. That doesn't change the fact I was able to meet a wonderful group of young women who really love each other, who truly embrace playing as a team, and who know softball is a great way to prepare themselves for the future. Their determination, self-assurance, and upbeat attitudes made me very hopeful for their generation. I'm thankful for the chance to stand in the dugout and on the field and film them doing what they love - playing softball!
I am way overdue posting this, but through the support of all the people who liked our Snowbasin video, THE WORLD OPENS UP, we won the Southwest region in the Warren Miller Hometown Hill competition. Thanks to everyone for their support! The next round of voting for the National champ is in September. In the meantime, here's a photo of Emma and Lucy enjoying a nice ski run after the lifts closed at Snowbasin.
Our video, THE WORLD OPENS UP, made it to the second round of the Warren Miller Hometown Hill competition, so voting is open until midnight Tuesday night (22 April) at the Warren Miller Facebook page (http://bit.ly/1gLGoGn). It'd be nice to win the region and see the video play this autumn at all the Warren Miller screenings in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.
We're making a series of videos about the people behind the scenes at Snowbasin Resort, and the first video in the series highlights veteran ski patroller GR Fletcher. He and the other members of the Snowbasin ski patrol are up well before the crack of dawn to set into motion their avalanche control plan. I had the good fortune to follow GR around early on a beautiful morning as the ski patrol team did avalanche control work around the Needles Peak area. We look forward to presenting this and the other videos before the start of the 2014-15 ski season.