1000 Words: “Through the Woods” from Orvis

The folks at Orvis do such a great job of branding and marketing that it’s easy to forget that they provide the goods and apparel to enjoy such adventures.  It’s like you are looking at images and watching videos that are the preview of your next vacation.  That’s how it feels to me.

Their most recent video: “Through the Woods” is verification that I need to get out and about. Very soon.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I did (watch it on ‘full screen’ for the full effect):

ORVIS_Through The Woods from Nate Gunn on Vimeo.
 

Contributing to the 1000 words, here is some background from Nate Gunn, the director:

Coming together

This trip really came from a desire to create something that we could all really get behind. When chatting with Orvis about this project, we wanted to make it clear that this was somewhat of a short feature narrative, and that we weren’t out to just stand around and film a few guys catching some fish. On the flip side, I knew the project had to feel real and authentic, so naturally having the story revolve around two great anglers, Nate Leavitt and Spencer Higa, made total sense. With all those elements, it was a trip and story that I knew anglers could get behind as well. 

The goal was for it to feel slightly documentary, but have much more of a stylized and cinematic approach. For me, Fly fishing films always seam to have this similar rhythm and feel. I actually really dig it, but I really wanted to bring something different to the table. Just taking it to another level really. There’s a lot of content out there and I wonder sometimes if what we’re actually saying is interesting. You know its easy to bring some killer gear down to the river and go get some pretty shots, but I hope people see the project for the subject matter and message. It’s not just an edit with some good shots and music, its about saying something. Every time someone watches one of my projects I really appreciate it. They’re giving me their time, so I hope in return I can give them something of value. If every angler said “man thats totally fishing” Id be a happy guy.

The shoot

A lot of thinking, planning and scouting went into this thing. We had a real look we were going for. From the evergreen trees and rivers down to the the camera set up. I really wanted to shot on these beautiful anamorphic lenses, all RED Epic. We had a set out plan and shot list, we knew which character would play out which roll, but we definitely left a lot of breathing room to let Nate and Spencer have a good time and really enjoy the trip. 

We shot this all over the east central part of Utah. Not far from Salt lake. It was mid June and we were chasing good light so we had some long days waking up at 3am and shooting till 10pm sundown, then offloading and talking about the next day till late. One of those shoots that really pays off when the footage starts to come together, but sometimes those shoots you suffer for have the biggest pay off and make all the difference. 

In my mind, a good adventure can’t be completely scripted. Some of the best moments happen in between takes so we wanted to make sure we captured it all. 

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Jim Walters
    10/07/2015 / 11:57 AM

    Wow with the fall temps beginning come around this makes me want to hit the backcountry foe a little ME time.

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