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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Kastle came to us recently to work on several projects tying directly to their dealer network. The first one completed is a trophy for their four best dealers.
We based the design off the brand guidelines and added the oval cutout which is based off the Hollowtech technology in the skis. The final pieces are a mix of acrylic, laser cutting, laser etching and custom-made aluminum hardware.
The image is Kastle skier Chris Davenport taken by the Public Works on a shoot in Aspen.

Just returned from The Meeting in Aspen this past weekend and it was everything we expect that weekend to be…

Amazing fall scenery in Aspen, fun parties, insightful discussions, productive meetings, and something really really fun courtesy of by Red Bull.

The fall scenery was in full effect with snow dusting the peaks and leaves in full fall display and we got to enjoy it with throttles pinned up the face of Ajax first thing after arriving on Friday. It’s a fun feeling racing around a mountain that you know so well in the summer. Looking at some of the runs it’s amazing that we can even ski them in the winter much less charge them the way we do… peering down S1 feels like you’re going to fall straight down to Spar.

Obviously a major topic of discussion was the Warren Miller Entertainment/Level1 Productions situation. Avoiding too much comment on the issue here I’ll just say that most of the industry was in agreement that there are probably better ways for WME to be spending time and money.

Saturday began with an American Supercamp session thanks to Red Bull where we got a chance to rip around a mini track and work on our moto fundamentals. Directly following a leg burning 100,002 laps on the Supercamp course at the bottom of Buttermilk we headed straight through town and up Smugglers passing dozens of nannies pushing strollers, house wives with lap dogs, hikers with ski poles, and bikers in spandex. The views were epic and the riding was fast and fun.

Straight off the trail we headed back to Buttermilk for session #2 and #3 of the meeting where we discussed the state of freeski competition and the AFP.

After a quick break we broke into the topic of the business of film making. The discussion centered around the sustainability, or lack thereof, of business models based solely around sales of action sports DVDs. It was an interesting discussion with representatives from all sides of the table joining in. We discussed the merits or team videos vs. independent films vs. special projects

After the official meetings were over we had a chance to sit down and talk some Helly Hansen and Aspen business and then on to the MSP premier at the Wheeler and a party at the Belly Up.

Sunday morning we made it a goal to be out early and as sad as it always is to leave Aspen we were excited to get into the desert. We unloaded and headed into the expansive Utah desert rolling through sage brush terrain and a perfect mix of fast and technical trails.

Add a stop in Grand Juction for some natural moto terrain park and you have a pretty great weekend.

Congrats to Riley and Katrina!!! and thanks to the entire Aspen crew!

We have been brainstorming this event for years. A week ago it was finally time for a beta run. The general idea is to gather a panel of action sports experts from different fields of expertise and let it be known to college and high school age students that if you let your passions lead the way, there is probably a job that will make you happy.

We worked with the Colorado University Freeride Club which is the largest college club in the country to kick off this 1st event. Many industry partners kicked in time, promotions and product to also light a fire under the event. There was catered food, plenty of free Red Bull, TONS of give away product from all the involved companies (snowboard, bindings, outerwear, hoodies, magazine subscriptions, shoes, etc. etc.), and a poster signing by Chris Davenport.

The event started off with 4 short films and then the panel introduced themselves and explained how they were able to get their current jobs. The most consistent themes were “chasing what you want without ever giving up” and “being unique”. Got to love Steve “Stix” Nilsen and his stories and antidotes. He told a story about a potential hire telling him she was way to overwhelmed as her house burned down the night before. So he sent her a smoke detector. Persistence with humor.

Then things transitioned into a Q&A session with the students asking about everything from how to become a pro skier to how to sell photos to a magazine. The panel was amazing and provided insight from all different angles.

We look forward to the next Business of Fun and keeping the conversations going here in this blog and also on the Facebook site. Always open to any and all feedback.

The panel was:
Chris Davenport – Helly Hansen Pro athlete
Jake Knigge – Helly Hansen regional athlete and current CU student
Shay Willams – Freeskier Magazine photo editor
Mike Basher - Snowboard Magazine editor
Deric Gunsor - Aspen Ski CO marketing
Trent Bush – Brand Base (Technine, Nomis & Sound) co-founder
Steve Nilsen – Pabst Blue Ribbon marketing manager
Ian Fohrman – Helly Hansen sports marketing
Marily MacDonald – Outdoor Divas marketing manager
Frank Phillips (moderator) – The Public Works, LLC

Huge thanks to all the people that made this first event a huge success. Video of the event coming soon.

Lucky winner of an autographed copy of Chris Davenport’s book

Our newTrailball table seeing its first action

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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.

We like projects where we get to utilize multiple skill sets that might at first glance seem disparate and disconnected.

This is the second year we’ve been able to both fabricate the ramps and shoot Manny Mania. We refurbished some old ramps as well as adding two new ramps made from recycled material in our shop.

As always, we delivered the ramps running on our own bio-diesel. It was the hottest day of the year but the skaters still sessioned the sh@# out of the ramps and we got nothing but good feedback on the build and design.

Expect to see them traveling around the mountain region. Get photos from Photofiles here.

No dead squirrels, no tornadoes, and slightly fewer PRBs, but these ramps were still pretty fun to make.

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We’re hosting another photography workshop. 9AM in Denver at the 400 on Sunday. $50/person for the whole day. Trying to keep it super inexpensive and accessible. More about sharing knowledge and helping out friends than making money.

We’ll be reviewing photo 101 material, going over camera basics for those that need it, then going out to shoot around Denver for a couple hours, then back to the 400 to do some photo critique, workflow (Lightroom2), and post processing discussion.

Hit us up on Facebook if you’re interested.

Crankworx, one of the biggest mountain bike festivals in the world, came to Colorado last week for the third consecutive year and we were asked to design and create the trophies.

We’ve been designing and building the trophies for Crankworx since the festival came to Colorado. The past two years we had incorporated laser cut, laser etched Plexiglas but this year we wanted to do it as eco-friendly as we possibly could.

The rockies have a huge issue with the pine beetle decimating the forests and leaving enormous swaths of red trees. There has been a push to figure out the best way to deal with these trees but as of now there doesn’t seem to be a huge demand. We decided to do our small part and utilize a few trees from our local forest.

We also decided to design the trophies around the concept of mountain bike features. In feature building there is an ethos around building out of natural materials from the forest and we decided to stick as closely to that as possible. We cut beetle kill from nearby woods, trailered it to the shop, and cut and milled it ourselves.

We came up with 3 different processes to mark the wood with the necessary branding and event/place call outs: silkscreen, laser etch, and hand burning.

We had never silkscreened on wood before and had never done anything with wood this fresh. Our first concern was that since the wood didn’t have time to cure that it would crack while it dried. After a little research we found Pentacryl an environmentally friendly wood stabilizer. It turns out the company had just relocated down the road from us several weeks prior and was more than happy to work with us.

Next we spent a day with Joe, a silk screening master living in Wheatridge. We spent the day learning the art of screening in Joe’s cramped tagged up garage dodging band equipment, art supplies, and a random mishmash of the usual garage/storage obstacles. It felt like the right place to be learning an art form popularized by Andy Warhol and used for band t-shirts and posters since the 60’s.

After a few hours of playing with the screens signs of a storm started to move in and within two minutes the barrage of wind and hail escalated to a deafening roar. Frank had forgotten his computer outsides and when he opened the door to save it a shotgun pattern of water and hail burst into the garage. We were all laughing hysterically until Frank tossed himself back into the garage with bloody legs from the hail and we all realized that we also had to brave the storm to make it back into the house. The storm past in less than 15 minutes and Joe was left with a broken bedroom window and a neighborhood that looked like an apocalyptic scene out of a Spielberg movie… other’s were left with worse:

Poor little guy never saw it coming.

Once we back in the mountains and sheltered from natural disasters we began the build process.

Then added some hand burned Trestles logos, lacquered everything, and packed up for delivery.

Then we filled up the truck with homemade waste oil biodiesel and headed out.

There was no question that we were bringing our bikes up to get some laps in after the delivery but we didn’t know until the night before that we would also be loaded down with PBR thanks to our good friend Stix.

Winter Park was fired up on the trophies and their share of the beers and we got to meet up with our good friend Kevin Kruse from Scott USA. Kevin was kind enough to let us borrow a few of the new whips and get some laps in the sickest bike park in Colorado!

Local eco materials, local vendors, a happy client, and some fun shredding… mission accomplished!

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Polaris came to us and asked us to help design and build a display for an upcoming dealer sales show in Wyoming, MN (just north of Minneapolis). We designed this timber frame structure with strength and a raw powerful look in mind and headed out to manage the install. We wanted something that would display well from across the showroom floor and show the undercarriage of the vehicles and we think this solution worked out well. This is what it looked like after the build.

More info and photos after the event this week.

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…