Carved Production Diary

The Beginning I got the idea for this project, when I was coming home from an amazing snowboard ride January 2008. I was frustrated, how little was left of alpine snowboarding in the resorts, of how little you see of those, who really know how to ride a board. I searched the internet and I found Patrice Fivat and Jacques Rilliet and their snowboard SWOARD. I was very impressed. I knew as well, that by that time, Daniel Reichenbach was about to receive his RED ONE. The first RED in Switzerland. In that instant I knew, what needed to be done. A couple of emails, phonecalls and meetings later, we set march as a date for the production. I returned to New York and started to write the script and made the first contacts to the people who's help would be needed to make this possible. The Pre-Production Two weeks later, I returned to Switzerland and met with Daniel and Patrice for a location scouting. We were very pleased by the amazing view onto the mountains, we enjoyed at the Zinal resort. The sun was shining, the snow was perfect. Little did I know of the troubles that laid ahead. It was soon clear, that with one week preparation I had a lot of work to do. I scouted the locations, made production arrangements, organized a helicopter, rewrote the script 3 times. Our resources were changing all the time. We could not get as many people as we wanted for this project. Whole Switzerland seemed to be booked out for months. My friends could not make their way from Germany to help out, things that seemed sure got complicated. The closer I got to the shooting date, the more everything seemed to fall apart. Yeah, I got pretty nervous. And then, the mountains wanted to have their word in this production. The weather became worse and worse. Even the closest weather forecast was unpredictable, as Zinal has a unique geographic location, and no radar, no info from anywhere could really say, how the weather would be like the next day. I got my first lessons from the mountains. We decided to post-phone the production for 2 days. The weather forecast predicted sunshine for those days, so it seemed to be a very good choice. Daniel could get more people for those dates as well, while his company was getting under triple load than normal at this time of the year. Day -1 I decided to test out the hut, we were suppose to live in for the next 4 days. It was about 600m away to the right and 400m below the top station Sorebois. The lift Tzarmettaz crossed the way on the half. Tzarmettaz started below the hut, so it was our way to get up and back to Sorebois. The hut itself was on the very far right edge of the resort. The cliffs started another 800m to the right. All day long, the weather was getting worse and worse. As I headed up alone in the one of the last cabins, the winds shook it left and right. The cabin had extra 500kg of load, to not be thrown at the pilons, but still it was shaking. The mountains were giving me a warning. There was still time to go back. I did not listen. When I came to the top station Sorebois, the temperature was about -5C with heavy wind. Only very few people were up. The snowcat teams decided not to make the slopes overnight, but to start at 5am. A standard procedure, when heavy snow is coming. Around 5pm, I took my snowboard and my 30kg suitcase and headed to the hut. It was still daylight, but the combination of suitcase and snowboard turned out to be the most stupid idea ever. The first half of the way to the hut was relatively easy. I could follow a road made by snowcats. The other half, was off piste, on frozen surface. I took of the board, places the suitcase on it, and tried to make my way down. I made another 100m, then I lost control and rolled down the next 30m, the  suitcase flying left, snowboard right of me. Full of snow, no injuries, I started realized, that out alone, with the night coming... I should better be quick. I made it to the hut. It was warm and cozy, and once inside, all seemed alright. I made a dinner and tried to sleep, while the temperatures outside fell to -14. Day 0 In the morning, a little sunshine. As if nothing has happened. In the Sorebois restaurant I meet Jean-Michel, the chief of the slopes. He was just telling how funny it was to see my descent from the station. Nice guys, I am glad I made you laugh. I returned down to the Zinal station, to tight some loose ends and to wait for the first team to arrive at 23:00. I also borrowed skis, having learned the lesson from yesterday. All was prepared, all info given, the script rewritten and visualized. I felt confident. The mountains must have had a good laugh, though. In the afternoon, the top station reported heavy snow. By the time the team arrived, there were 5cm of snow on the roads. The temperatures were close above 0C, the snow was heavy and wet. Antoine, the owner of RED 336, Michel the AC and Pietro, the 2nd unit Dop were in a quite good mood. I was getting anxious: after the nerve-wrecking week, where all seemed to work in the end, now it seemed, that the weather will be not playing along. We loaded the cablecar with about 250 kg of equipment and ascended up to Sorebois. It took another half an hour for unloading. The garage is full of snowcats, and our supply room is at the very far back. Thank you Mr. Murphy, I said to myself. Close to midnight we were ready to go to the hut. 20-30kg of equipment and supplies for everyone to carry. Outside, the night was deadly silent. No wind. But heavy snow. Visibility about 80m. The lights we had on our heads illuminated only the first 10m because of the thick snowfall. In the lead, I was better off without light. That was the only way I could vaguely see the poles of the artificial snow system. I lead the team in the direction I knew, but there was no road anymore. There was no slope. Only 40cm deep snow, that had snowed in the last 4 hours! We went from one artificial snow spray pole to the next, till we crossed the Tzarmettaz lift. From there, the hut was somewhere in the white, dark desert. We could not see anything. I made the decision to play safe. We followed the lift down, as I knew how far the hut was from the bottom station of this lift. I did not dare to lead the team out into nowhere. The hut could not be seen very good from the top by day, because the roof was full of snow. One can imagine that at night, that route would need GPS navigation. When I could see the bottom of the lift, I went ahead. I lost sight of the lift, but there it was, something a little darker: I finally found the hut. But it was another 100m up. In snow almost waistdeep, those were the most hellish 100m. While on the way back for some equipment I left on the snow, I got a call from Pascal, the chief of the resort, if we are ok. It took us over an hour, what is a 5 minutes ride in sunshine. It might have had been a good idea to let the outside lights burning. I know that for next time. Wet, from the snow and from the sweat, we made an early breakfast. Antoinne powered on his RED, made a check and two beers later at 3am we went to bed. Day 1 We woke up at 630am. A snowstorm was roaring outside. From this hut, your were supposed to see the whole "imperial crown", five mountains, higher than 12 000 ft. Even the Matterhorn, the symbol of Switzerland. None of it was there in the white. We packed and got ready to drive to the Tzarmettaz lift, that could bring us above the top station Sorebois, so that we could descend to the garage. But nobody was coming. A phonecall assured me, that the lift equipment had be cleaned of snow. The whole top station was covered in the new snow. We had to wait. Finally someone came and turned on the lift. All equipment on the backs, we tried not to fall down from the 1.2km lift. The wind was coming strong from the side. On the top, we could barely see the slope. At 9am we finally made it to Sorebois. Almost frozen and tired already. We got the camera ready and went out to shoot a couple of scenes outside, near the station. Antoine wrapped the camera completely in neoprene. Nobody knew how the REDDRIVE would perform in this hell or how long the batteries would last. We were about to find out. We shot about 3 hours in the snowstorm. One time, the wind was so strong, that the camera almost fell over with the sachtler tripod. I could not believe it. But the only issue we had was the need to reboot one time. A known bug of Build 14 beta. Apart from that, the RED worked like a tank. I made a backup of the 30GB to a standard La Cie drive during lunch, but we left the data on the REDDRIVE as well. I decided to skip the sunshine scenes, I naive fool wrote into my script and to rather shoot a couple of interior scenes in the garage. I had some nice ideas, that would still fit into the story. We already had the snowstorm, so I did not see the point in wasting our energy outside. A good decision. At about 5pm Jacques and Patrice went down with the cabin. The team packed and headed to the hut, still by daylight. The snow and wind was still going, but the visibility was fair. A "piece of cake", compared to yesterday I got the unfortunate pleasure to wait the next 3 hours in the abandoned station, for the arrival of the second team at 9pm,  Daniel and Grisu. There was no way for me to get up to Sorebois from the hut without the lift. I do not think, that I am a scary person. But after 2 and a half hours alone at a station at 6600ft, with the wind making noises, moving everything, whispering something... It was creepy. From time to time I went out, to look how bad the storm was. -4, heavy wind, heavy snow. When I returned back, I wondered, what would happen, if I could not open the garage door anymore... Yeah, a nice plot for a horror movie, the only thing, I totally did not want to be the one being in it. Then, I heared voices. They came from a room, that was next to the one I was waiting. (I moved back and forth between this room and the garage, not to get too bored). Laughs, 2-3 men. Where could they come from? I put myself together, went out into the storm. I went around the building and knocked on the door. My blood surely froze, but I had to find out, how real this paranoia was. And yes. Someone opened. Turned out, that those were three guys, who went up from Zinal on their touring skis, to make a fondue on the top. Storm or no storm, a real "Sportlergeist". There surely are strange people in the mountains... I returned back to my "room" and waited another half an hour. Precise at 9pm, the lights started to flicker. The heavy electro engine roared, turned on by an invisible hand. The cabine started to descend. Ten minutes later, I welcomed Daniel and Grisu to the white hell. We stored the remaining equipment in the garage and went out. We could see even less than the night before, because fog added to the snow. But somewhere in the distance, when you turned off your light and let the eyes stare trough the darkness, you could see light. The hut. At times the light disappeared, behind the humps. Grisu was on a freeride board, with a heavy backpack, having similar problems like i had days before. Being a much better rider, he appeared to enjoy the deep snow. The snow was heavy again. This time, we got there without the need of climbing up. Daniel's RED was without harm. I slowly started to understand, that in the mountains, everything is a little more complicated. In the hut, we had a laugh a couple of beers and we checked the footage of this day. 4k in REDCINE on a 17'' MacBook Pro. Backup to a standard drive. On the top of Switzerland in a little hut. There you realize, how genius this system is. I was so tired, that I went to bed at about 1am, while Daniel and Antoine prepared the timelapse shoots. Day 2 It stopped snowing in the morning. Still, we had to wait at the lift again. Daniel took a snowcat, that was coming by and headed up to Sorebois. We stayed at the lift. Nobody from above could tell, when it could work. Again, tons of snow everywhere. We decided to traverse around the resort to a chairlift called Chiesso, on the other side. Yesterday, we could see this lift moving as one of the first. When we arrived there, we saw the Tzarmettaz lift we just came from running. A guy who came down told us, that we need to wait another 15 minutes for the Chiesso to work. Too much snow in the gears. Thank you Mr. Murphy. While the team prepped the cameras and I looked outside. The mountain people call this "jour blanche" - white day. It happens, when the sun is under heave clouds, so that there is zero contrast. The light is so diffuse, that you cannot see humps or tracks in the snow, when you are going down. Imagine you have the perfect fresh powder, untouched, virgin powder. Every minute counts, as some freerider can ruin it. But you cannot shoot shit, because of the light. Not even a little. We decided to reshoot a take in the garage, Daniel had a great idea how to improve it. So we kept ourselves busy, hoping the sun would shine at last. It did not. After lunch, we took all equipment on the back and took the Combe Durand lift on the very left of the resort. We shot the descent in the fresh powder with 2 riders and a speedglider. But it just did not look right. The riders had the powder, but the mountains did not gave me the light I needed. All in sudden, the our lift stopped moving. Half an hour passed, the riders could not get up. We called the chief of security. He said that 2 avalanches went down an hour ago, and buried 10 people. Those freeriders went into the closed zones. Two of them had to be dug out, but fortunately, nobody died of this stupidity. He has to stop the lift, to prevent people of accessing the safe freeride slopes, as he needed all forces at the accident site. We were stuck in the middle of the track, with no way to go up. The riders and Diane (our speedglider flyer) had to climb on foot! We shot then some jumps with the mountains as background. This was the only way how to do a somehow good image. But how much takes can you make, when everybody has to climb up for a next shoot? We returned at 4pm to the top station. The sun did not shine all day. Next unfortunate news. Another little avalanche took a special device, which what we wanted to shoot the extreme carving. We positioned it there days ago, to save time. Now it was buried somewhere in the snow. Pietro had to leave us and took the cablecar down. I think I saw a little regret in his eyes. This was just too much of hardcore to be missed. The Combe Durand lift staid closed for the rest of the day. The problem was, that some of our equipment was still on the top. I went with Patrice up to the highest point on the other side of the resort, the Corne De Sorebois. We then traversed over a kilometer and another 200m up to get the equipment, we left there in the afternoon. I arrived at Sorebois, exhausted. The team was in a good mood, drinking wine. That was a good sign. I needed one too, very badly. We took a fondue with us to the hat. This time, we went by daylight, so it was easy. The two REDs worked the whole day without a problem. The REDDRIVES had no dropped frames. We shoot at 4k 25 and 2k 75, with prime lenses and zooms. The cameras were covered in snow a couple of times. We forgot to cover one properly, so we booted it down and had to dry it as best as possible. The huge amount of connectors on the side can surely be a problem, when one does not pay attention. The camera reported an audio error twenty minutes later. We assumed, that that was because of the water shortcutting the connections. 10 minutes later the error was gone. In the hut, I tried to relax. I had my first original Valais fondue. The mood of the team was great. It was incredible after all the beating. But back in my head I knew, that tomorrow, is the last full day of shooting. It was Grisu's and Michel's last day as well. If the mountains would not agree, the whole project could go down the drain. And the invested money with it. I did not sleep well that night. Day 3 According to the weather forecast, the sun was supposed to finally shine today. But it was not. We also had to chancel the helicopter flight. That hurt quite a lot. I was very proud, that I got Air Glaciers on board of this project. And now, because of the bad weather, they had to fly a lot of cargo. In the mornings, they also "bombed" the snow, which means, that they threw dynamite into the snow, to cause little controlled avalanches, while nobody is in near the slopes. This way, they avoided the snow to accumulate for huge avalanches. We positioned ourselves at a very dramatic and rocky offpiste, about 100m below the top called Combe de Barthelemy. We shoot again the 2 freeriders and the speedglider. How amazing this would look... if only the light was right... We did some takes, giving up the virgin powder, just to have something in the can. The riders and the flyer had always to go up the 100m. This was exhausting, the altitude about 8800ft. I was coordinating from the top, so I waited there with our talents. Around me, every damn mountain was lit in the sun. Only the Zinal resort stayed under the  clowds. They compressed exactly above us, before they joined their brothers at Zermatt. A very rare phenomenon I was told. Great. I sat on the top at about 9000ft and was depressed. This resort had 28 sunshine days in february. It was the one with the most sunny days in all Valais. That's why we chose it for the production. To NOT have bad weather on 3 out of 3 1/2 shooting days. After almost half an hour of waiting, we decided to make the third take and move to another location. While on top alone, I lost it. I shouted, weeped, roared at the mountains. They did not answer. I came down to the team. 60 seconds later, the sun came out for 3 minutes. If he had waited, we would have the perfect take. I gave up. This was just not meant to happen. Jacques and Patrice headed for lunch. We took some sandwiches, and I meet with Diane to explain her the next take. Sun or no sun, we had to do something. Her boyfriend Phillipe meanwhile checked the device, that was in the avalanche. It seemed to work, but needed to be digged out. I did not even know, if that was good news. At 1pm everything changed. The sun came, and it came with all power it had. Finally we started to shoot! While the extreme carving piste was unusable, due to 5cm soft snow we climbed another high, from where where the powder was fresh, untouched. Now that started to be fun. My bad mood was gone. I stayed on the top, this time it was close to 10 000 ft, between Combe Du Sorebois and Combe Du Barthelemy. I stopped to feel my feet. Skiboots are not made for climbing. Quickly, we moved to another location to use the disappearing sunlight, for another 5 shoots. It was great! Later in the restaurant, we setup both cameras for a time-lapse of the "crown imperial". Now, that was for what we came. Michal and Grisu had to leave, so we packed half of the equipment and told them good-by. Daniel checked the RED ONE user forum with his GPRS data card, and there it was: Build 15! It came out this very evening! That meant 120 fps recording at 2k! We were speechless. In the darkness again, we went to the hut. This time, we had another kind of snow. Frozen on the top, soft below. It was very hard to turn in it at all. But by that time, this could not surprise us anymore. I was too exhausted to speak. Frederike, the production sweetheart, who joined us a day ago, made us pasta. Daniel and Antoine checked the time-lapse takes. Unfortunately, one was ruined. But by that time, we were too exited about the new high-speed ability. A quick test of a stirring wineglass showed, that it really worked. We were so excited about the next day. Day 4 I fell asleep, but it was not very relaxing. I forgot to tell the others to turn on a heating. I woke up at 4am, frozen to stone. The sleeping bag was too light. Antoine and Daniel were setting up the time-lapse for this morning already. I had not the power to join them. This morning was the beginning of the freeride contest in Zinal. Hundreds of freeriders were expected, along with those, who came for the easter holidays. Therefore we had only half a day. The lift went earlier today, and somehow everything went smooth. The sun was shining. At my request, lift team had perfectly prepared the Bartholomy slope overnight. They used the snowcats twice, instead of the regular one time. It froze at night, so that the snow had the perfect consistency for extreme carving. It was just perfect. We blocked the black Barthelemy slope and started to shoot in the amazing light. We shoot in 3 hours, what he have not in 3 days. Antoine and Daniel had to deal with their REDs without help. An incredible tast. Pull focus, pan and zoom. The cameras worked flawlessly at 120 fps. The images were incredible. A ballet on the snow. 2 carvers and a speedglider. A study of motion. A symphony of movement. The scenes were quite dangerous, but I was lucky, nothing happened. It was always very very close. The mountains seemed to give me back. Daniel hat to leave with Antoine, I stayed one day longer in Zinal. I am still recovering. My skin is burned, my feet are destroyed by days of running on hills in skiboots. But we got what we came for. I could not realize my script, but I understood the lesson, the mountains gave me. It was very rare, that fresh powder followed immediately such good conditions for extreme carving. Fantastic light. On 120 fps. No harm to the data. No problems because of Build 15 beta. We had it all. The mountains knew better. Jonas Rejman