From this week's Jackson Hole Planet weekly alt-newspaper:
http://www.planetjacksonhole.com/news/A_101997.aspx
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Riding High
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
By Sam Petri
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The vibe inside the offices of Teton Gravity Research is in constant après. And it should be. The boys filmed all last winter, edited and produced their latest ski film throughout the summer and now are ready to present it to us, the skiers and snowboarders, this weekend.
Along with Jack Daniels and Pabst Blue Ribbon, stoke emits from the pores of every employee who works for the action sports film production company. With the blinds closed, you’d swear it was a powder day, judging by the level of energy.
Their ragtag offices – located at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, a stone’s throw from the tram dock and just above the Village Café – might as well be made out of duct tape and p-tex. But their jerry-rigged headquarters is a far cry from what it was 12 years ago, when Todd Jones, Steve Jones, Dirk Collins and Corey Gavitt founded the company and worked at a company desk made of a plastic milk crate with a piece of plywood on top.
If you’re into snow riding, watching their films – especially with an audience of like-minded alpinists jonesing for some snow after a long, busy summer – brings you closer to the sport, the lifestyle, the culture and the attuned dream.
On Saturday, TGR will host the world premiere of their new ski and snowboard film, “Lost and Found.” The film will screen at 5 and 7:30 p.m. at Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village (tickets are $12) followed by the usual raging after-party ($23) at the Mangy Moose. This year’s blast features the 20-member rock band Bang Camaro.
It’s the climax (as apt a word as there is) of another annual cycle for the TGR Crew, perhaps made all the more thrilling given rumors of their imminent demise this past spring.
Making of a Ski Flick
In a room illuminated only by the glow of the computer screens, Editor Tate MacDowell has been going through four hours of Jeremy Jones footage to produce a 14-minute “FUEL” TV show that highlights the big mountain snowboarder’s life, fears, aspirations, etc. It’s a painstaking process, staring at the screen for 13 or so hours at a time until the job is done. Especially since MacDowell just finished editing “Lost and Found,” where he had to sort through 40 hours of 16mm footage on top of almost 80 hours of HD and helmet cam footage for a film that’s just over an hour long.
“You go through what was actually shot, you get rid of all the shit, and the story just kind of seeps up,” MacDowell said, explaining the basics of editing. “We call it top-lining – the cream of the crop rises. After a while the other shots just get less and less relevant.”
TGR produces TV shows as an alternative and essential source of income. Because so much footage is shot over the course of a year, it would be a waste to edit it all down for one film and throw the rest away. But the snow riding community looks forward to TGR’s film each year, and that’s what the company is known for, that’s the genre they were born out of, and besides, they capture some of the best footage in the industry.
“As an editor, you have to hold certain rules for yourself,” said MacDowell.
“When you’re watching the movie, I hope that this year, more so this year than any year, that you’re seeing the ski shot for what it is, because that’s what you’re going to the movie for.”
If you saw last year’s TGR film, “Anomaly,” you may remember that it featured lots of tricky graphics, like skiers jumping over their own names during the opening credits and a map sequence that, in between segments, transported the viewer around the globe in rapid fashion.
This year, “Lost and Found” features a much cleaner, tighter approach.
“I think last year was just too much,” chimed in Graphics guru Scott Fischer, who designed and produced all the graphics for “Anomaly” and for “Lost and Found,” too. “I mean, the graphics were cool, but they kind of took away from some of the action. This year, we just wanted the movie to be itself – forget all the flashy gimmicks and hype, just let it work.”
When TGR first started, its founders spent as much time behind the camera as in front of it. “The Continuum,” their first film, in 1996, was a very grassroots ski and snowboard film. Now, 12 years later, a company has grown out of something a few good friends were doing together – namely ripping harder than most. Now the TGR brand name is known across the country and each fall American theaters are packed with skiers chomping at the bit for winter.
Despite the success, it hasn’t always been the smoothest ride. This past spring a chunk of TGR staffers were laid off when the company couldn’t pay their salaries. Rumors spread like wildfire and by the time the company made it to the bar for a drink, half the valley thought they were going out of business.
“It’s just kind of standard business. We just did some restructuring, and everything’s moving forward, business as usual,” said Todd Jones. “I don’t really know why all that buzz started and got any crazier than any other phase we’ve been through. That was kind of a misinformation campaign. As far as people are concerned, you’re looking at it, we’re here.”
The founders are, for the most part, the principle cinematographers for the new film. Their footage – along with footage from Pete O’Brien, Matt Herriger, Rick Johnston and TGR producer Josh Nielsen – is given to MacDowell to shape into a feature length ski and snowboard flick.
“This being the fourth year of doing this, the fourth movie I’ve done,” MacDowell said, “I feel like they are giving me, Josh and myself, giving us the reins a bit more, trusting us with their decisions.”
