My Year in Review

This year was a wild one for me! What you’re about to read is a monthly breakdown of all the projects and insights I learned from my past year as an adventure filmmaker. You’ll notice that things pick up in excitement and scale as the year goes on and ends in some difficult challenges I faced as a filmmaker. I won’t spoil too much but hopefully you enjoy this year in review from a number of my projects!

January

Client work is always a little slower for me in the winter time, which I love since it allows me to focus on different creative outlets. This year I focused on creating reels and YouTube videos to grow my YouTube channel and made some ski related reels that accumulated over 1 million views over the course of the year. The end of the month took me to Nicaragua where I spent a week surfing and editing some Reel Rock videos alongside friend and climbing filmmaker Pete Mortimer.

February

In February, Mal and I bought our iconic yellow van which became an epic adventure-mobile throughout the rest of the year. I backcountry skied lots and continued to crank on the YouTube channel, hoping that the skills I was learning in these slower winter months would set me up for success later down the line. I did some more work for reel rock this month, hopping on some post-production sound and coloring work for the Patagonia sponsored film “Jirishanca.” My good friend and musician Ryan Kinder came to Boulder this month and we filmed some music videos together for his album “Heirloom.” At the end of the month, my film “Unseen Peaks” kicked off its US film festival tour at the Boulder International Film Festival. This was the first of 7 other US based film festivals that Unseen Peaks was shown.

Interviewing Brandilee, one of the athletes for From the Ground Up in Memphis, Tennessee

March

In March, I did some shooting for La Sportiva at Eldora ski resort outside of Boulder with another good friend Davide Giardini. Working with friends was a big theme of the year. That theme continued with From the Ground Up, a documentary series about four beginner cyclists training to complete one of the hardest gravel races in the country. In March, we had our first of four shoots for the documentary series in Memphis, followed by a road trip with Mal through Mississippi and Louisiana. A couple weeks after Memphis, I flew to Bentonville, Arkansas to continue directing From the Ground Up as the riders went through a skills camp there.


April

In April, I took a trip down to Salida with Mal where we decided she’s going to take over my old elopement business from college, Castlehouse Videography. This was the start of a really fun ride with Castlehouse again. I stopped filming and photographing elopements about 4 years ago but that was how I got my start so it was fun to pass some of the knowledge I gained to Mal throughout this year. Halfway through April, I took a trip to Indian Creek and Moab with Noah where we climbed, and filmed climbing, for a few days.

I made a nearly 20 minute YouTube video “How to Film Rock Climbing” on that trip that skyrocketed to 13,000 views in the first couple of days which was my first video to really take off. It felt like a celebration of finding my love for filmmaking again after being a bit swamped with shoots and work the past couple months. I took another short editing gig for Reel Rock editing a film about Brette Harrington which was a total blast to work on. I make way less money working on the Reel Rock films than I do working directly on my own projects but the people are so great and I always learn a ton so it’s totally worth it.

May

In May, we launched another one of my films “The Summit Within” that I shot last summer with a group of veterans in the sand dunes. I finished filming and editing it last August but it toured about 7 different film festivals so it was released online for free and people seemed to really enjoy it! There’s always something deeply rewarding about seeing a project finally released into the world. Also in May I got recognized by a random YouTube subscriber I didn’t know in Boulder who says he watches all my videos which was a fun grounding in reality moment of the YouTube journey that’s still happening. Weekly videos still getting uploaded all this time.

Day 1 of shooting The Summit Within in Colorado

I made a behind the scenes of the Summit Within that went up in May too. I also shot a short documentary piece for YouTube with a couple good friends, Mike Bounyavong and Danny Rodriguez, about the river surfing wave in Salida where I interviewed the Colorado Water Trust. It was one of my favorite projects for the year. Filmed in a day, edited in two and uploaded to YouTube 5 days after we began filming it. At the end of May, I presented my film “Unseen Peaks” at Mountainfilm which as a total highlight for the year. I met a lot of filmmakers I really admired, was interviewed for the second time on the Backcountry Marketing Podcast, and learned a ton about various ways of monetizing films.

June

On June 1st, I photographed a running event for Patagonia in Boulder, then it was summer in full swing! On a personal level, we hosted outdoor dinner parties, attended outdoor concerts, hit up trail runs in the alpine, I volunteered at a kids summer camp at church, we hiked, we ran, skateboarded, swam and camped.  I took a trip to Gunnison to film again for From the Ground Up then Mal met me and we took a few days van trip in Crested Butte. I made a YouTube video about it you can check out here. I spent the rest of the month editing and having a pretty great work/life balance working about 30 hours a week before heading to Yosemite with my good friend Noah Kane to film the spring/summer 2025 climbing campaign for Mammut.

July

Running through the old growth forests on Orcas Island before a busy month of work in August

July was a really fun month where I had edits to be done, not many deadlines but a lot of projects to gradually get through. That meant I could take some short trips (like a bachelor party in San Francisco) and work about 3 hours, go outside and play for 3-4 hours in the middle of the day then go back and work 3 more hours at the end of the day. I was getting through that project with Mammut, editing episodes for From the Ground Up and continuing the weekly uploads for YouTube. In July, my family came to visit for my Emmy nomination experience. I got dressed up for the black tie event and while I didn’t win, I was able to super honored to have been nominated and made a video here about the experience. At the end of the month, I spent a few days on Orcas Island to recharge before a super busy fall of projects. I also made a video about that you can watch here.

Photographing with Jelenew for an all-women’s cycling documentary

August

This month kicked off with a project with Cultivator, an ad agency based out of Denver, for Breckenridge Grand Vacations to share the story of their 40 years as a company. I don’t do many videos like this but it’s always fun to break out the lights and provide some value for a company who’s financially supporting a lot of people in the mountains. I modeled for Zeal Optics the next day with Mal then did a shoot with Olympic runner Dom Scott for HydraPak. After that, my Grandpa died which put me in a little bit of a sensitive place before a really busy work season. I headed to Steamboat Springs to finish filming From the Ground Up then shot another quick project with Jelenew, an all-women’s cycling brand. After all that, I took a few days to visit Mal’s family in the midwest before diving into a super busy couple months. I filmed the first of many social videos for KT Tape, a monthly retainer contract I had from August - December. By the end of the month here’s what I was working on:

A photo of professional pickleball player Alix Truong from our September shoot in Utah

September

As you can imagine by reading the list above, I cranked so insanely hard on edits for most of this month so a lot of my free time revolved around that and I learned a lot of lessons. I went to one of my best friend’s weddings then shot a campaign for KT Tape in Utah (in addition to what I had for our monthly retainer) so the travel didn’t totally stop in September but everything got delivered.

I made more money in August than I did in the entirety of 2020…. And I would NOT do it again in the same way. I cracked. My mental health took a hard hit. My creativity was totally zapped and I was the most unhappy I’d ever been in my career. I even outsourced some edits but it wasn’t enough to keep me from breaking down. In fact, it took me months to recover from. More on this later…


October

In October I mostly slowed down. At this point, I was just making KT Tape videos and editing weekly YouTube videos in addition to helping Mal on Castlehouse stuff when she needed it. We took a trip to the northeast to see some fall colors and recharge more. By the end of the month I started taking photos for fun again, something I hadn’t done in years.

I was trying everything to get back to my happiest self professionally but it didn’t seem like what I was doing was working. I felt like I needed to stop entirely but that wasn’t an option since projects there were some lingering things that needed to be delivered and weekly YouTube videos that needed to go up. There were still moments of joy—swimming, hiking, and enjoying the snow - but professionally, I was in a rut.


November

By the time November hit, I had a huge win professionally. I was brought on to a project with Keen and Singletrack that is full of so much goodness, hope, kindness and genuine positivity. I went to Austin to film at the Running Event and found that the community of runners brought so much energy into my life again.

After going through over a year of an Achilles tendinitis injury, this trip also coincided with my shockwave therapy treatments working and allowing me to run 1 mile consecutively with no pain. It meant I was getting back to myself again. Running, sharing goodness at a healthy rate, etc. When I returned from that trip, I edited the whole video in just a few days because I was so excited about sharing something I truly believed in and had the creative energy again. I stopped uploading to YouTube every week after hitting a year of consistent weekly uploads. I let that achievement pass with no big fanfare because I was so exhausted by the process.

At the end of the month, I celebrated a big fall of work by taking all the money I earned in the past few months and buying a house with it!

My brother-in-law and I running a holiday fun run in Washington. We won the costume contest :)

December

A few days after we closed on our new house, Mal and I took a 10 day trip to Europe. We bopped around Sweden and Denmark and hung with my sister in Copenhagen. I returned to Boulder for an in-person editing session with Mammut to finalize the Yosemite film, which is now about 98% complete, and headed home to Washington for the holidays. Writing this now, I’m rested again. I feel like I’m out of the darkness of that insanely busy time and am equipped now with the knowledge to prevent that overworked season from happening again. I tried to do too much and while I got through it, I can never do that again.

Emotional Recap:

As you can imagine from reading those past few months, this was a big year. I made more money than ever and worked on a few big projects and had a number of career milestones. I had three films touring film festivals this year (Canopy Climbers, Summit Within and Unseen Peaks) and received a lot of recognition in the outdoor industry because of those films. All three of them I had filmed, directed, edited and (for the most part) produced myself. This was the year I got nominated for an Emmy and spoke on big stages about stories I believed in. I uploaded weekly to YouTube and gained about 3,000 YouTube subscribers in the process, totaling over 1 million views over the course of the year. I also had some massive lows...

There were a few days in September that I cried at the end of my work day because I felt so overwhelmed by my job. I almost ended up in a lawsuit because of a dispute over a contract and faced a lot of really difficult moments of professional confrontation throughout the year. This year was really hard for me professionally and, honestly, I’m sitting here at the end of it not able to say it was the best year yet. In fact, it might have been my worst year professionally. Every year I ask myself if I’m happier in my career this year than I was last year and this is the first year that’s not true.

I made more money than I ever have yet I was the most unhappy I have been as a filmmaker.

Hopefully this coming year holds more surf trips like this one :)

Because of that, some things are going to change for me in 2025. Nothing will look difference on the surface, but underneath, I’m going to be setting better boundaries and be more willing to walk away or say no to projects that aren’t healthy for me. Thankfully, I’m in a place now where I’m creatively rested and ready to continue working without feeling like I need to take a few months off. I’m ready to film and edit videos again and take photos that I’m dreaming of in my head. Winter is always a slower time for me and I think it’ll give me the chance to find what to prioritize this year so I don’t get burnt out in the same way.

While I probably shouldn’t share these rules publicly because they are really personal to my filmmaking journey and honestly might not work for everyone, here are some reminders that I’m creating for myself at this stage of my career to move forward with joy and peace. I want to bring the best of myself into my work and these guidelines will allow me to do that. There’s no order of importance to these, mostly just what came to mind first…

Rules for My Success in 2025

  1. I should never feel obligated to upload to social media or YouTube. It’s there as a creative outlet - not a secondary income source or job responsibility.

  2. If I don’t have the bandwidth to do a project under $3,000, it’s 100% absolutely okay to say no - even if it’s a cool project! Protecting my time is valuing my creativity and personal life.

  3. Personal life is always more important than work life.

  4. My health and wellness is the most important part of my career. If I’m unwell physically, mentally or emotionally I need to stop working until I get better or else everything will collapse.

  5. Set very clear expectations during contract negotiations up front and demand intense pre-production and outline of deliverables before signing anything.

  6. Money is nice but it’s not worth sacrificing your mental health to get it… no matter how much it is.

  7. You can’t predict the impact of a video so just enjoy the process and hope people resonate with it. If I don’t enjoy the process but make it great video it’ll still feel like a failure to me.

  8. Cameras, lights and editing matters but the story is what matters the most. I’ve felt more proud of the stories I’ve shared than any of part of the process.

  9. Financial freedom and creative freedom go hand in hand. The more financially free you are, the more creatively free you can become.

  10. Spending time working on the business and not in the business can help prevent burnout and allow for both short term and long term happiness.

Alright, that’s the end of this recap. I know it has a bit of a negative tone but I’m at a place at the end of this year where I’m genuinely excited to start clean. I have a few projects coming up in 2025 that I’m so incredibly excited about and I feel like my skills as a filmmaker and storyteller continue to grow so rapidly and I can’t wait what I get to create this next year!

Why We Should Work Together…

When I’m not on this website rambling on about filmmaking, I’m actually out there making films. From crafting memorable branded documentaries to capturing stories and products that move people, I’ve got you covered. Need a filmmaker who can scale mountains, brave the surf, or just tell a dang good story? Let’s chat!

In case I haven’t convinced you, here are three reasons why it might be fun to work together…

  • I believe in stories that stick with you - like campfire smoke on your clothes. The kind that makes you laugh, cry, or immediately want to call your mom.

  • I’m just as comfortable at 14,000ft as I am in front of a timeline. You get me in the mountains, in the ocean and in the editing room, making sure the magic out there really shines in the final cut.

  • I’ve filmed in some pretty wild places, but the best stories are the ones that bring people together. It’s those shared moments -big or small - that remind me why I love what I do.

Let’s Connect

Roo is an Emmy nominated commercial/documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has directed documentaries for Patagonia in California, produced films for Outside Magazine throughout Europe and Africa, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, photographed among indigenous communities in South America, and has received notable recognition in his hometown of Orcas Island in Washington State for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.

Roo Smith