Top: Principal players in TGR’s genesis, from left: Todd, Steve, and Jeremy Jones; Corey Gavitt, Dirk Collins Middle right: Todd Jones supplies the on-camera talent. Middle left: Todd Jones’s Ariflex rests on his tripod while he rewires his batteries.
Photographer Wade McKoy
Bottom: Steve Jones waits to load the tram on a snowboarding day off.
Photographer
Greg Von Doersten
TGR continued of ski bums were connecting, so every once in a while, when Jackson would turn on, Jeff McKittrick would show up and sleep on the couch. Or Dean Conway, or Kent Kreitler. It was all very organic. Who was in your second movie, “Harvest”? Todd: Similar, but we had started to get some sponsorship traction. Charlie Adams at Dynastar said, “Hey, will you check out (Jeremy) Nobis?” Steve: Gordy Peifer came in from Rossignol. Todd: We said, “Yeah, Gordy’s cool,
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Swany’s (Dave Swanwick) cool, we’ll film those guys.” It started to take a little bit of shape. But we were still handing the camera back and forth. I think Uprising, our third film, was the last one we were in. The talent pool snowballed to include lots of great skiers. Who is the longest-tenured athlete? Steve and Todd in unison: Jeremy (Jones, their famous snowboarder brother). Steve: He’s in this year’s film, and he’s in the first film. How crazy is that? 21 years later and he’s still full on. Todd: We have filmed with him on a project every year for the entire 21 years. There are a lot of long-standing guys: Sage (Cattabrigga-Alosa) is now 12 years. He was in Tangerine Dream, our 10-year anniversary film. Steve: Dash (Longe), how long with him? At least 12 years, too.
Todd: Since he was 14, in Tahoe. Who decides how the movies are scripted? Obviously, they focus largely on travel. Steve: The script is, as you said, “travel.” So, what can you do within that? You can up the production level and the creativity of how you shoot things. We put a lot of effort into live moments, making sure the athletes are synched with high-quality audio gear. It’s really hard to later describe the feelings of those moments in the field. The audio can bring viewers into that. Todd: There’re a lot of other projects we have going on that are somewhat scripted, like a documentary on the life of Andy Irons, a surfer who died tragically at age 32, and Jeremy’s series, Deeper. Further. Higher. Our new mountain bike film, Unreal, has a script of unreal moments tied in with real moments. Steve: For years we thought of scripting w w w. f o c u s p r o d u c t i o n s . c o m