Deer Valley FIS World Cup
It's that time of your again, and for three days the slopes above Snow Park Lodge at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah come alive with non-stop action as the world's best freestyle skiers compete for a World Cup win, as well as a spot on their Olympic teams. What a fun time! This is a short video shot on the first day and then edited and released the next day to promote the event on social media. The difficult part was wading through the ton of terrific footage I shot of the amazing athletes, fans, staff, and volunteers.
Snowbasin Overview
I recently created this video for Snowbasin Resort to highlight the activities and good times to be had on the mountain all year long. I'm lucky to ski at a lot of different ski areas here in the Wasatch, and I'm especially lucky to have this ski area so close to where I live in Ogden. Let's just hope it starts snowing even more in the coming weeks, so we can enjoy some amazing powder days before we start dreaming of all the fun summer activities ahead of us.
Turkey Chili Anyone?
Winter has been slow to get here to Northern Utah, but in the meantime we've been keeping busy completing videos not featuring skiers carving, crushing, or punching through soft slopes of snowy goodness.
ST JOSEPH CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL
This was a fun project to work on. First, the staff and students at Ogden's St Joseph Catholic High School were nothing but professional and a joy to work with. Second, the concept, execution, and delivery of this video happened fast and came out exactly how we had envisioned it. Finally, everyone who watches the video has the same reaction -- "I'd go to school there!"...and that's exactly the reaction we were hoping for.
ESQUE STUDIO
DEER VALLEY SKI SCHOOL
The countdown to the 2017-18 ski season seems to be speeding up as we find ourselves well into November and looking forward to all our ski areas being open in the next month. Last season I was fortunate enough to work with the Deer Valley Resort Ski School to produce a four video series highlighting their different ski programs for kids. We shot the footage last season, edited over the summer, and now Deer Valley Resort is releasing the videos prior to its opening day on December 2nd. Time to inventory your gear, get out the skis, wax 'em up, and start praying for snow!
Portland Slacklife
What would inspire a person to precariously balance themselves and walk across a long piece of webbing spanning hundreds of feet above gorges, waterfalls, and tall towers? In this short video we briefly explore the motivations behind two avid highliners, Anthony and Corbin, as they practice their sport in Kenton Park, Portland, Oregon. Anthony & Corbin are on Instagram at @robslacks and @chundafalls.
A DEER VALLEY SUMMER
While there's a certain calming beauty to the drizzle of Portland, the gray skies make me yearn for the warm days of summer. A couple months ago, I was lucky enough to meet the wonderful Grenney Family as we shot a short video to promote summer activities at Deer Valley Resort. I forgot to post the video when the weather was more appropriate, but I thought it'd be nice to post it now before we totally make the mental transition to Fall activities and dreaming of powder turns.
GETTING EXCITED ABOUT WINTER
Snowbasin Resort has been using this short video to advertise the sale of its 2017-18 season passes, so I thought I'd post it again to help others visualize what we're all looking forward to in the relatively near future here in Northern Utah. I put this edit together shortly after shooting video over the course of two days last season. Our original intent was to create b-roll of the lodges with gorgeous vistas of cliffs and mountain tops caked in white, as well as happy, smiling, mellow family lifestyle shots. What ended up happening was that it did nothing but snow and snow and snow more. We rolled with the punches (if getting tons of wonderful powder can be considered a "punch"), accepted that Mother Nature wasn't going along with our plans, and we changed our agenda and to shot run after run of skiers and boarders enjoying the powder with free refills. When shooting outdoors you're always at the mercy of the weather, but sometimes it surprises you with conditions that are even better than you could have hoped for.
ALMOST ENDLESS SUMMER
"And I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know -- that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it.”
Beryl Markham, West with the Night
I want to share this article here before the dustings of snow on the nearby peaks and the decreasing hours of daylight slowly push my dreams away from exploring green hills to ones of wandering around bright white peaks. I wrote this article for ZEAL Optics and it was originally posted on their social media and blog last month.
VAN ODYSSEY
We've been off the grid for the past two months as we loaded up and embarked on a two month odyssey in our Sprinter van - Miss BAV'y. We explored to the west and then slowly made our way up into Canada and back down to our home here in Utah. It was an epic "wander about" and the lack of a defined itinerary added to the sense of adventure, the spontaneity, and our overall fun. We're already looking forward to our future van travels.
I even occasionally got out the drone and shot some aerial footage along the way. Here's one example from the Northern California coast on the Pacific Coast Highway.
SOLITUDE MOUNTAIN RESORT
Here are two videos I produced for Solitude Mountain Resort to help promote the resort's array of summer activities. The Big Cottonwood Canyon is such an oasis that's easily reached by a short drive from the city below. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you can climb up and out of the heat of the Salt Lake City valley into the cool, green alpine climate surrounding Solitude Mountain Resort.
1 Minute Videos
As I do late spring cleaning of my hard drives and consolidate project files in preparation for our summer travels, I didn't want to simply file away long b-roll assembly videos of the various drone footage I've shot since last summer. I did make the b-roll assemblies, but I also created some one minute long videos utilizing the best of the drone shots. Aerial views are spectacular, but as more and more people venture into the world of flying drones the world is becoming inundated with numerous aerial shots of all sorts of places, people, and things. That being said, I'm still a sucker for a nice aerial shot, especially if it features a location that's especially beautiful or remote. The videos here were shot either on the Phantom 4 or the newer Mavic Pro. Both of the drones are amazing creations utilizing the best and latest technologies & engineering -- the way the Mavic Pro folds to such a small size is a wonder of creativity and design. While I don't fly the drones often, just one or two shots can add a special touch to most videos.
Farewell to Winter
FAREWELL TO WINTER
THANKS FOR THE EPIC TIMES.
"Day Of" Videos
Here's the latest "Day Of" edit I created yesterday for Snowbasin Resort featuring Alexandra Pallas.
Below is the first of the "Day Of" edits I created yesterday for Snowbasin Resort featuring Greg Roman.
What a Winter So Far!
SKI THE DIFFERENCE
What a great snow year it has been out here in Utah! The "Snowpocalypse" continues as I type - we woke up to several inches of snow (not in the forecast) after shoveling 2-3+ feet off of our driveway yesterday. It's hard to complain, since the skiing has been amazing day after day. Deer Valley Resort hired us to create a series of "Day of" videos in which we shoot, edit, and release videos the same day. While it has been a logistical and planning challenge to make sure everything is in order on each day of a shoot, the results have been successful and we've gotten the first two videos out the door on time.
SOLITUDE RESORT: SKI AND SNOWBOARD CROSS
Solitude Mountain Resort hosted four days of ski and snowboard competition in preparation for hosting the 2019 World Cup finals. The 2017 "Snowpocalypse" continued during the all the days, but it didn't hamper the racers or the fans. We shot b-roll of the events for use in future advertising, but in the meantime we created this short edit to promote the current competition. Thanks again to everyone, employees and volunteers, who made this such a successful event.
DEER VALLEY RESORT HOSTS FIS WORLD CUP
Deer Valley Resort is hosting the FIS Freestyle World Cup competition this February, so to promote the event we created a short video featuring Olympians Brad and Bryan Wilson. Besides being Deer Valley Resort skiing ambassadors, they're just nice, friendly, outgoing, good guys. We wish them all the best on this season's competition circuit.