Monkey See Monkey Win

'Hey Presto' from the DVD 'Monkey See, Monkey Do' has just been awarded Best Short Film at The 2010 Squamish Mountain Festival.

You can watch a clip from the film on the Hot Aches You Tube Channel, or on the Hot Aches Facebook page.

Michael Klekamp and I shot this film in only a few days, almost a year ago now. It was a fun shoot, with a 12 hour roadtrip either side.

Michael Klekamp

I had planned to shoot a film with another climber who, in the end, couldn’t make it, which left me in Canada with a few days free and no film. So I emailed Sonnie and made plans to drive from Banff to Squamish to shoot him on one of his projects.

About a week or two later and the day before we were to embark on the 12 hour drive to Squamish, I called Sonnie to confirm everything. No answer. OK.... I thought. No problem. We drive over, I’m sure he’ll be expecting us.

Roadtrip Food

So Michael and I drove from Banff to Squamish through a heat wave and forest fires. After a full day on the road we stopped for some food at Whistler, only a short drive from Squamish. I decided to call Sonnie and let him know we were almost there. No answer on the land-line. No answer on the cell phone. But hey, I had a google map of where he lives, so we carried on.

We arrive, walk in through the open patio doors and Sonnie is sat on the sofa in his boxer shorts watching Family Guy. “Hey Boys, what's happening?”

Downtown Squamish

The next few days were spent getting up at 5am to climb and film before the sun hit the crag and the heat stopped play. Then we’d have breakfast at Café and spend the rest of the day hanging around at the lake or Sonnie’s apartment.

This clip sums it up:-

On one of these afternoons, we were all sat around the apartment when Sonnie’s land-line started to ring. He didn’t even flinch! He just carried on looking at his laptop. A few moments later, his cell phone started to ring and vibrate on the table next to him. He picked it up, looked at the screen and put it right back down. Now I understood.

Diff

PS ( Can you PS on a blog?)

Also, congratulations to Alastair Lee who won the Best Film Award for his epic 'The Asgard Project'. Best Climbing film went to the awesome 'Alone on the Wall' by Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen.