Lincoln/Mercury/Ford and Toyota snow running footage - Ranch Exit Films

As usual the early winter in Bozeman gave us great conditions in December to shoot cars. One of my specialties seems to be CARS IN SNOW (for the record - I do shoot cars in WARM CLIMATES too) - the friends on the crew have taken to call me "Mr. Frozen Earth" I hope this in reference to my knowledge of the snow covered world where I seem to always work - if it's in reference to my personality - I don't think it fits. Anyway, we had 3 weeks of great shooting, perfect snow cover, great soft light with the bright but overcast skies and as usual a great crew as well as super fun creative teams to work with. Chris Raser the Executive Producer/owner of Ranch Exit Films and I have worked together on these car jobs for at least 10 years and we both felt that this year we had the best conditions ever, it could have been slightly warmer, -28 on the days we shot Lincoln and Ford up at Hylite Lake. But as usual our crew never complained and just stayed focused on the task.

NEW - Fly Fishing Film "RISE" IN PRODUCTION - Location Venezuela

IN THE PHOTO:
Millie Paini with a 8 pound Bonefish at sunset in Los Roques. I took only my trusty Bolex super 16 camera's, it's been fun getting back to the simple side of film, I enjoy the creativity and the old school approach. (photo by Jim Klug)

Well - with the great reception of DRIFT (www.confluencefilms.tv) we (Jim Klug and I) are off and running on another fly fishing film. Just days after we started shipping DRIFT dvd's in mass, we jumped on a plane to Venezuela. The location of the first shoot for "RISE" was Los Roques, a national park/chain of islands about 100 miles off the coast. Roques is home to some meaty Bonefish and joining us on the shoot was Millie Paini of Island Park Idaho and Jason Jagger of Steamboat Colorado. Millie's husband Rich also came along to sample what Roques has to offer. We had a great shoot - tons of fish, lots of rain, which lead to lots of mosquitos - but all in all a success. When I got involved in this making of these fly fishing films it was specifically to go to warm locations to shoot - but I had know idea about the bugs. I think I honestly said "I'll take 40 below and a blizzard over these F'ing bugs"

September 2008 - Warren Miller's "DYNASTY" Production Meeting

It's hard to believe we are getting started on the 60th annual Warren Miller feature film. Yep 1949 Warren started this machine up and it's still going strong. This marks my 17th year with the outfit and I have know idea where the time went - I have to look through my passport to recall all the adventures - it's been an amazing adventure - THANKS WARREN!

So each September or October the production team gathers in Boulder to spend a few days making fun of one another and throwing around ideas and at the end we have somewhat of an idea of what we would like to do with the upcoming winter. When you look at the board covered with the names of great athletes and places - you can't help but get excited for the snow to fall. It's amazing how each year we all get the same stoke when the air gets a little cooler and crisp mornings greet us - I always give Josh Haskins at the office a call and say "it's about that time..." then for a few weeks we all seem to call in with the reports from our home towns - claiming snow and cold - Tom Day rings in from Tahoe, Micah from Sunny LA?, Kimbo for Sun Valley. It's a really fun process to be part of a core team (Max,Josh, Jesse, Tom. Kimbo and Micah) that collectively crafts the movie each year, everyone knows their job/place in the team so well - it's a great balance of talents. At the moment it's looking like we are going to head off on another epic and make a great 60th movie. More to come as the snow falls.