A local filmmaker was entered into a national competition put together by Outdoor Magazine and the camera company, Red. The contest featured eight other contestants who all had to make a five-minute film that featured the outdoors. Ryer Gardenswartz spoke with the filmmaker.
Jesse Hoffman spent two months in the backcountry with his local counterpart Chris Davenport making his new film “The Process”.The film was shot in the Elk Mountains, or as Hoffman calls it, his backyard. He wanted people from both Aspen and those at a desk in Chicago to be able to see the beauty of these mountains. Here is a quick excerpt from his film:
“You get caught up in the daily mish mash and for me I need something to recenter me …”
Hoffman tried to relate to the everyday skiers as well as the more experienced ones. His film features local athletes and is narrated by community members.
“We wanted to get the opinion, soul and voice of local characters,” he said. “So that's Bob Wade, Andy Popinchalk that you notice and Chris is another voice in there, and I felt that their opinions and their experiences in these mountains would give it the best justice.
“I didn’t want the movie to be about who was in it in terms of professional athletes or non-professional athletes,” he continued. “It wasn’t about the skier, and also it wasn’t about the logos on the jackets or the skis or the helmets.
“I didn’t want it to be just another ski porn, which is the term we use for pretty much everything we see these days, it’s some professional athlete ripping down some huge mountain in Alaska, you know jumping out of helicopters, and that’s great and that will always be impressive, but that being said it's not really relatable to the everyday guy.”
Hoffman is more well known for his photography; however, after this two-month project he wants to keep experimenting with videos.
“I love video it was definitely one of the first big projects I’ve done in the video world and it was an unreal experience,” he said. “I definitely want to keep shooting video because as much as a photo can capture an emotion or a story a video is infinitely more powerful.”
Hoffman and Davenport are now off to South America to work on a new project.
To watch the full video click below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN3wpQ9whJI
