2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies

Yep - back to Canada - AGAIN.... This time not for work - well kind of... Friday I attended the Opening Ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics - both as a tourist and kind of working.

Let's jump back to March 2009, Warren Miller Films Executive Producer Jeff Moore called me and detailed a potential project he was pursuing with David Atkins Enterprises (DAE). DAE producing huge events - in this case the Opening Ceremonies and they wanted us (WME and I) to shoot a 3 minutes snowboarding segment that would open the Vancouver Olympic games - then in April 2009 we began production - it was a TOP SECRET project - I had to keep my mouth such on this they didn't want any of the creative leaking out and spoiling the excitement of the event. See some of my "not to detailed" earlier blog entries below. We shot the action at Mike Wiegles Heli Boarding in B.C. Then in May we went to Whistler and shot the portion of the segment that involves the torch lighting and what would be the Maple Leaf the rider passes through as he enters the stadium. Hopefully you saw it and know what I am talking about. FYI 4 billion people viewed the show all over the World - so I suspect you watched it.

Anyway - the production notes are not as exciting as seeing the piece in the stadium on the giant monitor and hearing 60K people cheers when rider Johnny Lyle airs through the Olympic rings and lands to then introduce the Vancouver games.

I was thrilled to attend and thrilled to have been chosen to Direct and Photograph the segment - teaming up with David Atkins and his super talented crew was a dream and our team at Warren Miller really stepped up to make this work we are very proud of. I am still pumped from the Vancouver show and replay the moment over and over in my head - what a privilege it is to have worked on a project with such scope.

It's been a mind blowing few months - In November I was on "Inception" working closely with Chris Nolan, then tons of great car shoots for Ford, Lincoln and Toyota in December - then back to Canada in January for a Warren Miller shoot at CMH - now I just REALLY blew my mind at the Opening Ceremonies - I love this job..... Next I head to Colorado for another Warren Miller shoot in Breck and Telluride.

Back to Canada....CMH - Warren Miller Shoot

I just returned from a great shoot with CMH (Canadian Mountain Holidays). I was joined by WME producer/cinematographer Josh Haskins, still photographer Ilja Herb and skiers Jonny Mosely(Olympic Gold Medal Winner and Narrator of the WM feature film) and Andy Mahre - Son of Legendary Steve Mahre - and an incredible skier, he has a great creative approach to the terrain - he is so fun to film. It was a great week - snowing 24/7 for 5 days of our 6 day shoot - so we spent most of the time deep in the trees skiing pillow lines. We stayed at the Gothic Lodge (1 of 12 CMH heli lodges) it has great tree skiing and access to stunning high alpine terrain (weather permitting). Also along on the trip was Mark Paquette of CMH - he gave us everything we asked for as well as put together some fun video clips on the CMH BLOG (http://blog.canadianmountainholidays.com/heli-ski-blog/bid/34929/Gothics-Film-Shoot-Night-Putting). CMH offered great support of our shoot - pulling out all the resources - we had a 212 heli to move our crew and a 407 with the Cineflex camera (operated by aerial DP Mark Hryma). A great staff at the Gothics kept us fed and working hard - Heli Guides Claude, Big Geoff, Lindsey and Craig kept our crew safe and busy in some beautiful terrain - (Claude also made sure we spent plenty of time "Scouting"). Pilots Roger and Jeff kept us moving all over the place - safe and efficiently. I shot the photo above on our way back to the lodge on our final shoot day (the only sunny day we had) it was a busy day with all camera's working overtime. It's going to be a great piece in the next film (Still UNTITLED). Next I have a few weeks in Colorado later in February, then back to CMH in March and the Arctic in April.

Thanks for checking in.