this has been a summer to remember
climbing in the french alps the italian dolomites
that was a face obliterator in the american west shooting the process of making a state-of-the-art
virtual reality film in which viewers have the experience of free soloing
on some of the most beautiful walls on earth i'm following photographer and filmmaker john griffith
as creators are going to suffer right that's right suffer for our art yeah
i don't understand why people come and climb big mountains so chilly
so much hard work so tiring and my good friend rock climber alex honold we're getting the behind the scenes
yeah here we all are crawling ropes oh yeah 300 meters this is the hard work no one sees
i'm just a landscape driven person and a big highlight of the shoot is just going
to a lot of the places that are clearly some of the most powerful places on the
planet the reason i got into filmmaking is because the camera technology started to get smaller
and then you could actually take it on some of these adventures and at least somewhat keep up
there she is these guys are [ __ ] running unleash the beasts this production has been just that
chasing alex and john around with a couple small lightweight Sony cameras definitely happy with my
little Sony here being able to be so nimble it feels good to be like quote unquote back
on the sharp end of filmmaking hanging off a rope fighting to get into position whoa
yeah pushing ourselves physically as well as like creatively at the same time
i'm gonna wake up and smell the crossword is everybody else up
yeah everyone just started cooking and stuff
John's thinking about his life and career
he's wondering why he shoots on six cameras or eight cameras instead of one
yep some sort of camera error over there john we're back in business we've lost our light
as a single camera filmmaker lately it's pretty inspiring to witness john's process and passion
for his craft starting to get a little spicy on free soloing slightly lost it's got an
alpine knee technique double alpine knee technique everyone's doing a bit of free solo today yeah
i started as a photographer in the mountains climbing
the reason i actually really got into it was my mum was really ill with cancer when i was younger
and i wanted to take pictures and show her what i was getting up to
i'd go and spend nights you know on top of four thousand summits by myself just
to get that sunrise and i'd share that with my mum and and bring my family that
live in london you know a bit to the alps with me which was awesome
it's a big thing for me to have technology that is lightweight and unobtrusive
then there's an ease of documenting true moments
what's like a realistic guess or drawing like 15 minutes or something it's just
that i don't want to like down climb in and then just like hang there you know so
i'll wait until you're like basically ready alex takes his harness off in the middle of a big wall
yeah it's like being a stunt man no because i have to do my own stunts cool
yeah it's terrifying shooting solos it just is
as soon as they're stuttering and you've got the
camera out and they're taking the harness off it's like it's full on
there's a trust here
you're watching your friend free soloing these walls
and we're trusting him to do it safely yeah quite the process like watching
while at the same time he's trusting us to convey his feats in the most powerful way
this production is incredibly tight it's a very small crew very efficient i mean in a lot of ways
it reminds me of shooting climbing films back in the day you know 10 15 years ago it's just me and
one or two other climbers going climbing and capturing cool images
i've known this crew for over 10 years now and we've done so many expeditions together
they did a pretty good job on the face and these long-term creative collaborations
they really come down to just having fun i know shooting bts is really your calling it is
you just need to be set free like a bird with a camera yeah i agree doesn't even
have any layers on or his dinner ready he's just freaking making art we came here to capture 3d
virtual reality but the reality you catch with these small mirrorless cameras
oh yeah yeah nice job i think that's the type of filmmaking that still remains closest to my heart
it's the satisfaction of being in the moment in places like this
creating something that truly feeds the soul
you