Sound Clash Dallas, TX

This Friday we jumped on a plane and headed to the Lone Star State to shoot the Red Bull Sound Clash in Dallas. It was our first time to Texas and we weren’t sure exactly what to expect as our interactions with texans are usually on the mountain and not always pretty. Texans seemed much more in their element away from snow and during the state’s biggest college football event of the year.

Sound Clash was one of the coolest Red Bull events we’ve been able to shoot. The event was held in Victory Park with a stage on each side. On one side was the Shiny Toy Guns and on the other was Erykah Badu and the Cannabanoids. Each band opened with a 3 song set and then went into a battle of the bands back and forth format. They both covered the other’s songs and had to play songs within different genres.

While the two bands seem like an unlikely combination there was an obvious musical connection and it was amazing to watch them volley back and forth. When the official “competition” ended Erykah and the Cannabanoids were on top judged by audience applause. They voyaged across the crowd and joined the Shiny Toy Guns on their stage for a final jam session. Watching the eclectic combination of sounds and personalities come together in a bizarre but badass musical fusion firsthand was an amazing experience.

We usually shoot events like Flugtag , Soapbox, or athlete shoots and have just recently started shooting Red Bull’s “culture” events. It is a different kind of challenge because you’re working with so many lighting elements that are out of your control while trying to capture the powerful decisive moments that express the feeling and emotion in the music. Fortunately your window to capture these moments is decidedly larger than when an athlete is going by at mach speed and that moment will only happen once. There was also the added challenge of working around the film crews which is fairly common no matter what you’re shooting. The key to working well with the filmers is to find the right mix of good communication and standing your ground. Everyone is just trying to get their jobs done and you need to find the right way to make it happen for everyone.

After pushing our way through the crowds we jumped in the car and spent a solid half hour trying to make it 4 blocks to the Digital Hause where we did our editing and post production only to find ourselves with double the parking fees and equidistance from where we started to the studio. Thanks to Mark and crew for providing us with plenty of adult beverages and a beautiful space to work in till the early hours.

The next day we hoped to take in the spectacles that are sure to come with the biggest state fair in the country but we failed to realized the cluster that would surround the fair and football game. Due to a completely clogged bus system we weren’t even able to make it to the fair grounds. Despite missing out on fried butter and guaranteed epic people watching we were happy to get a chance to tour around the city before Mike headed out to Norway for Helly Hansen meetings and I headed back to the mountains of Colorado.

Thanks to everyone involved for an amazing event!

Check out more shots at Photofiles site.

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Crested Butte & Aspen Meetings

Nothing makes work better than tying a lot of fun into it. We headed down to Crested Butte last Friday and hit the Rainbow Trail from Salida on the way. 100-mile single track that is a must-do for mt bike or moto.
From there it was on to Crested Butte where we met with the marketing folks at the resort.
We also spent some solid time with the whole crew at Match Stick Productions. They have just completed the edit of “In Deep” which will have it’s World Premier in Colorado instead of Canada for a change. Much easier to cross the border into Boulder rather than Vancouver.
We should have know when to call it complete day but dinner with the MSP folks transitioned into a serious Trailball game, many PBR’s and a late night.
This would have been OK if we didn’t need to be up at 6:30AM to do a extremely difficult 40+ mile moto ride to get to our meetings with Aspen Ski Company. Seemed as though the crew at Aspen were amused by our condition and smells coming off of us. Mike’s backpack opened at some point on the trip and literally lost his shorts so the day of meetings was spent in some tight red moto pants. Not that cool.
While in Aspen we also had a great meeting with Hamilton Sports where we will be doing some branding projects for Kastle Skis. Chris Davenport was nice enough to join us and offer up some opinions as he is the king of Kastle in the Aspen valley. 58 mile home and thinking that every day of business should be like that.
The last day of the trip we got Ian out for his first moto ride. Figured if he has worked with us this long he needed a bike so we could stop feeling guilty about leaving him behind. What was suppose to be a mellow ride had some hairball moments and ended up finishing at almost 50 miles. Ian killed it and I am sure we’ll be riding in his dust soon enough.

Red Bull Photofiles Photographer Workshop

We were recently invited to attend a photography workshop for Red Bull photographers in the Red Bull Santa Monica offices.

The photofiles crew put together a quality gathering of photographers to talk and branding, photographic technique, technical post production, and workflow.

There is always a fine line between branding a photograph and communicating an authentic message so the viewer doesn’t feel they’re watching a commercial or having a brand shoved down their throats. This line becomes even more difficult to tread when the photograph is offered as PR. Obviously if the company is giving a photo of an athlete or event in which they’re heavily invested to a magazine, website, or newspaper, they would like a logo to be visible. Just how prominent a logo should be (where in relation to the subject of the photograph, how big, how many logos, etc.) was a huge topic of discussion throughout the day.

Red Bull is extremely good at managing their brand image in all communication tools and this workshop was a forward thinking way to keep their messaging consistent and of the highest possible quality.

We were honored to be invited and be in the company of amazing photographers: Christian Pondella Garth Milan, Chris Tedesco, Francois Portmann, Brian Nevins, Jeremiah Klein, and Jimmy Wilson.

Thanks everyone!

Check out the mac party…

Public Works Client and Vendor Visits in Chicago

We just had a great trip out to Chicago.  Toured the 80/20 facility and got to spend some great time with the founders and marketing team.  Check out their product at 8020.net. The Public Works has been using their “industrial erector set” in everything from library furniture to skate ramps. Great to see where it comes from and meet the crew.
From their we were off to McDavid sports equipment. Once again a great crew. Also amazing to walk through a door and see 100,000+ sq feet of manufacturing going on. A little different view than the doom and gloom you hear on CNN about American manufacturing!
We also had a chance to stop through the Chicago office of DraftFCB, which is one of the largest creative agencies in the country. We’ve done an assortment of work for them over the years and it was good to check out their massive Chicago set-up.
In the mix of all this Frank was also able to pick up his new Jetta TDI wagon. It will soon have Public Works produced bio-diesel pumping through it. Seems like a solid car as we proceeded to put about 3000 miles on it within 48 hours. One big fat raccoon was almost a victim but probably only lost a couple hairs off its tail.

Selkirk

Another Helly Hansen photoshoot at Selkirk Wilderness Skiing produced and managed by the Public Works.

“Statistics don’t do Selkirk justice. Sure, 78 square kilometres (30 square miles) is big. Bigger than all of Vail and Whistler-Blackcomb combined. With only 24 skiers maximum per week, visitors to Selkirk Wilderness are guaranteed over 80,000 vertical feet of untracked bliss. But, like we just said, statistics don’t do it justice. “

The lodge is beautiful and comfortable, the food is amazing and plentiful (bacon breakfasts and constant cat ride feeding rendered some serious heli-belly by the end of the week), the staff was friendly, fun, knowledgeable, and accommodating, and the terrain was endless.

For most of the shoot we broke into two groups… the group with sleds and the cat group. The sled group was basically just the MSP crew: Murray Wais filming, Blake Jorgenson shooting and Mark Abma, Eric Hjorleifson, and James Heim skiing. The cat group was John Roderick on motion, Mark Gallup on stills, and JP Solberg, Lisa Filzmoser, and Chris Davenport riding.

Check out a few photos:

[note: the tree burning, while extremely fun (especially when the tree is lit with a roman candle), is actually fire mitigation and prevents the red trees from burning in the summer when the whole hill could go up... so please no angry patchouli-scented comments.]

Portchester

After spending a few days with the Aspen Patrol I headed out on a mission with Adam Moszynski, Danny Brown, Tony Prikryl, and Darcy Conover to Portchester. We took our time and enjoyed the sunshine on the skin out. Ended up taking 4.5 hours from the base of Highlands to dropping in on our line.

Levi LaVallee

Now that the secret is out and ESPN hyped the hell out of the double back, photo-files has posted the Levi shots.

Check them out!

Red Bull Mission

We got the call less than a week before Xmas that Red Bull athlete Levi LaVallee was working on a top secret new trick for X Games at his home in Longville, MN and they wanted us to shoot it.  It took a bit of schedule fanangling but we decided we could make it happen.

It was a long truck to get up to the small town (pop. 180) of Longville but once we were there we were welcomed to the compound by Levi, his RB filmer Adam Buck, and Levi’s crew of hometown friends.  Through the large shop, past the muscle car, lifted truck, and wakeboard boat, is Levi’s living quarters complete with full fitness room where we hung out, edited photos, reviewed video, and played Van Damme on his punching bag.

The  mountains of gear lived in the shop and all the action happened less than 100 yards away.  Each morning we would wench the roof off of the foam pit, adjust the ramp, and Levi would send his mandatory warm up straight air.  From there he would pretty much immediately go into working on the trick and adjusting all possible variables… bar height, ramp angle, track weight, and technicalities of his form. It was pretty amazing watching and capturing the process of learning to do something crazy that has never been done before… a lot standing around and “what if…”s. Sometimes it felt like there were way too many cooks in the kitchen but for the most part it was an interesting collaborative brainstorm session between Levi, his mechanic, his dad, his long time friends, and the random onlookers who just dropped by because they heard Levi was up to something.

Levi and his friends built the retractable roof on the foam pit themselves and found an old working logging truck to crane the sled out of the foam after each hit. It was an impressive system with just the right combination of progression and backwoods DIY.

Don’t forget to tune into Xgames snowmobile big air to check Levi out!

Photos coming soon.

Chatter Creek

Last week we booked tickets for 20 people (12 athletes, 2 photographers, 2 motion guys, 3 company guys, someone from a potential account) to Calgary, drove them to Golden via packed-to-the-gills rental vehicles, loaded a school bus and took a field trip to the heli pick up, took 6 helicopter loads over a beautiful mountain lake to the snow cat pick up, and rode a snow cat into the best place on earth.

Chatter Creek Lodge is an epic log cabin build entirely from on-site lumber deep in the Canadian Rockies. They have an enormous tenure (238 square kilometres) accessed by 4 snow cats and a heli and the coolest staff in the world.

We simultaneously negotiated a deal for a Helly Hansen uniform contract for Chatter Creek and booked the annual early season winter photo shoot.

The crew killed it with Nate Abbott and Mark Gallup on stills and Pixl Family on motion behind the lenses and Mark Abma, Eric Hjorleifson, James Heim, Shin Campos, Eric Pollard, JP Solberg, Chris Davenport, PK Hunder, Lisa Filzmoser, Jessica Sobolowski, Jake Knigge, and Karine Falck-Pedersen in front.

We managed a huge shot list with a boatload of product and seem to have nailed everything we needed. We also managed to collect product feedback from the athletes and the Chatter guides and staff.

Ridiculously beautiful setting, great people, sick terrain, good snow, hot tub, good food, bar games.

All in all… great success!

Red Bull Flugtag, Portland, Oregon

The event is insane and the masses of fans that showed up were even more mind blowing.  We heard estimates of 100k+ fans in attendance thrown around and that number certainly didn’t feel far off.

We shot with two other photographers, Francois Portmann and Timothy Wheeler, both who were a pleasure to work with.

The shooting was a bit hectic as one of our locations was a floating dock that a fan who happened to own a tugboat anchored in the Willamette.  A giant island of water vessels tethered together formed around the dock and to change angles you had to battle the drunken floating crowd and jump from ski boat to dingy to yaght without getting corralled by a guy with a megaphone or a beer bong.

Though parts proved challenging, the event was crazy fun to shoot and it was great working with the Red Bull Photofiles crew.

Huge thanks to Marv, Sandra, and everyone involved!

Photofiles