Behind the Scenes - Adaptive Sports Documentary with Garmin

I wanted to write this blog because I had a ton of fun shooting this with A Collective US so felt like it could be cool to give a little behind the scenes look at what it took to make this happen.

Here’s how we made it…

So, in past articles I’ve written about the process of making a career out of filmmaking. My career mostly revolves around working as a director directly for a company or client however, I will occasionally jump on a project from another director as a “camera operator.” For this shoot, I was hired to bring the visuals to life while Adam Bove and Kate Rolston co-directed the entire thing. Documenting a story like this posed some unique opportunities and some exciting challenges that are worth sharing so here’s how we made this branded documentary about Kiana Clay.

The Schedule for Garmin - Woman of Adventure ft. Kiana Clay

This branded documentary about Paralympic hopeful Kiana Clay took place over four days. The schedule looked as follows:

Day 1 - Scout day

Day 2 - Skiing at Copper Mountain

Day 3 - Motocross at IMI Motocross Track

Day 4 - Gym Sequence in Breckenridge

Why We Scout The Location

Scouting where we wanted to film Kiana at Copper Mountain for the snowboarding scene.

Working on a project that’s a little more scripted, such as this one, you’re given an opportunity to take a little more time to really hone in where you want to shoot. Some documentary projects, such as my previous film Credimus, about a group of students canoeing in the mountains of Colorado, I was restricted to taking a more real-time documentary approach. I didn’t get a chance to scout and direct too much because it was a more “fly on the wall” style that limited where I shoot and what I do.

Planning Around the Light

However, in branded documentaries, these more commercial style documentary projects, it’s really beneficial to take a look at the areas we’re going to film before shooting there. We took a couple of runs at Copper Mountain to search for the most ideal places on the mountain and what would be the best time of day to shoot in those areas. When we reach the top of the mountain we discovered that it would actually be better to shoot there in the morning because we wanted Kiana to be lit from the back by the sun. We use an app called SunSeeker which shows you where the sun is going to be in this sky at any given point in the day which really helps when planning these sorts of shots. After we nailed down the shot list and the places we wanted to visit at Copper Mountain we also checked out the motocross track and the gym in Breckenridge to get a better idea of what to expect when shooting those locations.

Filming Snowboarding

Me filming Kiana at the top of Copper Mountain

Snowboard cinematography is a large part of my business during the winter time. I’ve been skiing for over 20 years and snowboarding for over 15 so it often feels as comfortable as walking. Sometimes it can get overwhelming to be filming and skiing or snowboarding at the same time when first starting out but, like any skill, it gets easier with practice. Thankfully, I have worked with A Collective US in the past so they knew my experience level and trusted me with a lot of responsibility during the snowboarding portion.

In terms of camera specs, we shot everything for this film on the RED Helium with the Cooke Panchro lenses. For you non camera folks, this is one of the most premium camera setups you can have. Each lens cost about $14,000 and the camera body cost upwards of $30,000. The look that it produces, from a scientific standpoint, is phenomenal. It’s 8K resolution allows the editor some flexibility in the editing process as well as providing a guarantee that the viewer will not have to suffer from a lack of clarity in the image. The only downside to a set up like this is it weighs about 30 pounds so snowboarding on the mountain all day with a camera that society definitely takes a physical toll. But, when working on an important project such as this one, it’s a necessary inconvenience given the scope and impact of the final film. In case you’re curious, I made a whole video and article on how I film skiing/snowboarding and how I work as a ski cinematographer in Boulder!

Filming Motocross

For the motocross scene, we wanted to move quickly because there was only A limited time of day that we could shoot in because of the natural light. As you would imagine most video productions that happen outside aim to shoot either in the beginning or the end of the day when the light is softer but that means you may have to get a lot of shots in a limited time frame. Because of this, Adam took over the RED cinema camera, and I hopped on as a drone operator and sound recordist while Kate photographed Kiana Clay doing her thing.

Life as an adaptive Athlete

Aside from the logistics of filming, it was really amazing to watch Kiana perform at such a high-level despite not having function in one of her arms. There were so many small activities that she had creative workarounds for. They had moved the throttle from one side of the bike to the other, she took advantage of door handles to put on a hair tie to make a ponytail for herself before skiing. She used her nose to operate her Garmin watch. It was really inspiring to see her continue to do what she loves after overcoming the major hurdles of a potential physical limitation.

After some speedy drone clips and some beautiful shots of Kiana riding with the mountains in the background, we called it a day. In order to show the full extent of Kiana‘s lifestyle as an adaptive athlete we also spent half a day filming in a gym in Breckenridge to provide more context to what goes into her training. 

Working Collaboratively Not Competitively 

Adam and Kate from A Collective US filming Kiana Clay getting ready to ride.

Something that I feel very grateful for about the film making community, especially in a lifestyle and adventure niche, is that everybody understands that we’re all on the same team helping to accomplish a shared goal. This project be with A Collective US and the in-house producers at Garmin to share Kiana story in the best way possible. There’s lots of smiles, laughter and positivity on set for these few days that we were working on this project but we also knew when to hunker down and get the shots we needed.

I definitely feel grateful to be able to work with such amazing people such as Kate and Adam because they not only bring that positive spirit to their productions but also create some really amazing work at the end of it. They put a lot of care and passion into their projects and the beautiful stories and images they create really showcases that. 

Connect with Roo

Roo is a commercial/documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has produced films for Outside Magazine in Ireland, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, photographed among indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador, directed videos with professional climbers in Mexico and has received notable recognition in his hometown of Orcas Island in Washington State for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.