A Great Week on The Ben

The North East Buttress of Ben Nevis

Last week we had a fantastic time climbing and filming on Ben Nevis. By day we were running and climbing all over the mountain trying to keep up with Dave MacLeod and Andy Turner as they repeated all the Smith- Marshall routes from that famous week in 1960. By night we were capturing footage and editing clips on a wind powered laptop whilst drinking whisky!

The CIC Hut, our home for the week.

I’ve been back in Edinburgh now for a couple of days and I’m still amazed that we managed to pull it off and get all the routes climbed and more importantly to me, filmed well.

I'm still capturing footage from the week, but here's a video grab from each of the routes we filmed:

The Great Chimney (IV,5) 6th February 1960

Minus Three Gully (IV,5) 7th February 1960

Smith's Route (V,5) 8th February 1960

Observatory Buttress (V,4) 9th February 1960

Point Five Gully (V,5) 10th February 1960

Piggot's Route (V,6) 12th February 1960

Orion Direct (V,5) 13th February 1960

I have a lot of people to thank for the success of this project, it was a fantastic team:

Dave MacLeod - Climber

Dave MacLeod on Tower Ridge after climbing Great Chimney

As well as climbing all the routes, Dave was instrumental in the planning and logistics that went into this project.

Andy Turner - Climber

Andy enjoys getting the Hot Aches!

This was the first time I had worked with Andy and he was brilliant to work with. Climbing routes for camera requires a lot of waiting around and faffing; Andy's patience was wonderful. He also had to put up with me kicking snow on his head from above for the whole week.

Donald King – Mountain Guide

Donald King

Donald King did a superb job of looking after me and ensuring my safety on the mountain, rigging routes and getting me into some fantastic positions to shoot the climbing.

Guy Heaton – Cameraman

Guy Heaton getting the shot in comfort

Guy was my second cameraman on this shoot and he captured some beautiful long shots of the climbers from all angles. His work really illustrates what an amazing mountain Ben Nevis is.

Mike Pescod – Director of the Fort William Mountain Film Festival

Mike Pescod (Centre) on top of Point Five Gully

Mike is the director of the Fort William Mountain Festival, a driving force behind this project.

Lochaber Athletics Club

Three members of the Lochaber Athletics Club help Donald King (right) with some kit.

Thanks to all the members of the club who helped us over the week by running up to the hut to collect media and deliver supplies.

Paul Prentice - Mountain Boot Company

Paul Prentice from The Mountain Boot Company kitted out myself and Guy with nice new axes and crampons for the week.

Claire MacLeod - Website Support

Claire MacLeod filming one of her own productions

Thanks to Claire for her support and website work over the week.

Mountain Equipment - Major Sponsor

Finally, without the support of Mountain Equipment this project could not have happened at all. Richard Woodall, marketing Manager at ME, backed the project right from the start. Despite the risk that nothing might come of it because of adverse weather and climbing conditions he committed support from ME. I can remember him saying to me back in early January, “ok, it might be worth a punt!”.

The Week's Work

I’m going to craft all this footage into a film or films for release in the Autumn, just in time to get everyone psyched for the next winter season.

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How many layers? Free DVD to the first correct answer!

Day 3 - Minus Three Gully

Day three of the Smith-Marshall Project and Dave and Andy climb Minus Three Gully.

Pigott's Route

Here is a clip of Dave Macleod and Andy Turner climbing Pigott's Route as part of the Smith-Marshall Week film project.

The Great Chimney - 50 years on

Those who knows anything about Scottish winter climbing will know the names Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith. Although their reputations as climbers spread well beyond what they did in this week 50 years ago , 6-13 February 1960 will forever be acknowledged as a significant time in the history of Scottish climbing.

As part of a commemorative event to mark the achievement, Hot Aches is working with the Fort William Mountain Festival to film Dave Macleod and Andy Turner repeating the adventures of Smith and Marshall. We will be filming and editing as we go. Below is a short clip of their ascent of the Great Chimney.



You will be able to see more footage from the week on the Ben at the Fort William Mountain Festival on Sunday 14th February, dubbed "Marshall / Smith night". Jimmy himself will be there. You can book tickets for the event online at: http://mountainfestival.eventry.co.uk/

Paul will also be giving a lecture at the Fort William Mountain Festival on Saturday 13th February. This is aptly titled "Climbers I've shot and some I'd like to shoot". Tickets for this can also be booked online at: http://mountainfestival.eventry.co.uk

'Monkey See, Monkey Do' - DVD Released

‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’ is now available to order from our webshop and you can now watch the trailer here. Thanks go to Ben Knapp for his work on the trailer.

Thank You Benjamin Knapp

'Single-Handed' Premiere

This last weekend saw the premiere of ‘Single- Handed’ when it played to a packed house at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival.

The reception was fantastic, Kevin received a huge round of applause when he took to the stage after the filmed was screened. To get an idea of what an EMFF crowd sounds like, see:

‘Single-Handed’ went on to be awarded ‘Best Climbing Film’ and the ‘People’s Choice’ award. Thank you to everyone who voted, I’m glad so many of you enjoyed the film.

‘Single-Handed’ is also a finalist at the prestigious Banff Mountain Film Festival, together with ‘Slate Monkeys’. Both of these films will also play at the Kendal Mountain Festival and maybe a few other festivals over the next year.

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‘Single Handed’ MSMD – Part 2 of 4

The second film on the DVD is a profile of someone who must be one of the world’s most psyched climbers, Kevin Shields.

Kevin Shields (pic Steven Gordon)

All top climbers talk about calculated risk, but Kev pushes the margins of his ‘calculations’ closer to real limits than any other climber I’ve ever seen. It can be terrifying to watch. Even the detachment from the action that comes from being behind the camera does not offer any protection from that terror.

Kevin Shields (pic Steven Gordon)

I’ve been filming Kev since early 2006. Some of the footage I shot then was used in Committed Vol I, but the rest of it has gone unseen until now. This year I’ve filmed Kev both in the Peak District and the Highlands and, without wishing to give away too much of the story, have captured some really special moments, from ecstasy to extreme tension. Even during the editing process, watching short clips back has left my palms damp…and I already know what happens!

For me good films are all about emotion. For a film to be great it has to make you laugh and make you cry. Films that do both stick with you. One emotion that you should experience when watching Single-Handed is frustration. This was highlighted when I was adding subtitles as an option to the DVD. In this scene Kev is struggling with the crux move on an E7.

00:14:31:23,00:14:33:17, That's just never possible.

00:14:33:17,00:14:34:17, F**king F**K

[Big fall /slide down the slab]

00:14:37:05,00:14:38:11, Oooh ya f**ker ye

00:14:38:21,00:14:39:21, F**K F**K F**K

"F**K F**K F**K"

00:14:57:14,00:14:58:14, Argh F**K IT

00:15:02:02,00:15:03:15, Nah, it's just never gonnae work, Gaz.

00:15:04:15,00:15:05:15, Lower us down now.

00:15:07:20,00:15:08:20, F*ck

So just for Kev we've added a special warning to the DVD cover:

"Warning contains some effing and blinding"

The Score

‘Single-Handed’ has a light score in terms of music. We recorded some good location sound from the radio mic Kev was wearing, so I wanted to make maximum use of that in the mix. You may have noticed in other films that the breathing of a scared climber can add much more tension than any music, so most of this film uses an atmospheric soundscape rather than a musical score.

The one track I have used is by the singer/songwriter Francis Hayes and is called “Friday, Saturday, Sunday”. I had this track on an old CD that was recorded live in a pub in Stirling. I really liked the track, but the recording quality was quite poor.

singer/songwriter Francis Hayes

Since this was the only version of the song ever recorded I managed to persuade Francis to re-record this track especially for the film. This allowed us to adjust the length of the intro to match the opening sequence. Francis and I spent some time in Chris Hall’s home recording studio to get the piece just right for the film. Chris added some bass guitar to Francis’ original acoustic and worked his sound engineer’s magic to complete the track.

Chris Hall happy with the track

This short clip from the film shows Kev enjoying the wonderful line of ‘Traveller in Time” at Ramshaw Rocks in Staffordshire.

World Premier at EMFF

The World Premier of Single-Handed will take place on Sunday 18th October at 7pm at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival in the George Square Theatre. Kev will be there to answer a few questions after the film.

Tickets and details can be found here:

I’m really excited about seeing the audience’s reaction to this film. I may not manage to make everyone laugh and cry, but I'm sure its a film that will generate some emotion and leave your palms damp.

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Kev is sponsored by

Mountain Equipment and Wild Country

'Slate Monkeys' MSMD Part 1 of 4

In this series of four posts I want to give you some background and a sneak preview of each of the four films on Hot Aches Productions’ new DVD ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’ or ‘MSMD’ as the kids call it.

Hazel Findlay on the MSMD disc artwork. Photo by Adrian Trendall, design by Ifan Bates.

MSMD Part 1 – ‘Slate Monkeys’

I was very fortunate to get this footage, it wasn’t exactly a planned shoot. Matt Segal was on a four-week climbing trip to the UK and although I had planned to catch up with him, we had no plans to shoot anything on the slate. I met him a week into his trip in the Vaynol Arms in Nant Peris.

Also in the bar that night was the young British climber, Hazel Findlay. After a lengthy debate on conditions and weather, we made plans to spend a couple of days climbing in the slate quarries of Llanberis.

Matt and Hazel in the Vaynol (pics Tom Kirby)

The next day while Matt and Hazel were attempting the esoteric slate classic Gin Palace, who should turn up but Johnny Dawes, nicely completing the line up for the film. What followed was six hours of them taking it in turn to besiege this crazy route. You’ll have to watch the film to find out which of them makes it to the top.

Matt Segal (pic Adrian Trendall)

I think one of the things which makes this film interesting is the contrast between the climbers: A professional sponsored athlete from the US, a young student from England, fairly new to the scene, and the British rock master.

Rock Master, Johnny Dawes (pic Adrian Trendall)

The Score

Very early on in the edit stage I commissioned my friend and regular collaborator Chris Hall to compose the music for the film. I asked him to write a theme for each climber, based on their personality. Later, these themes were arranged to make the score for the film. I wanted to be able to tell who was climbing just by listening to the music.

Chris Hall

Chris then scored the music to match the climbing action. Since Chris is a climber himself he’s able to appreciate the situations that the climbers face, dilemmas over whether to move a left hand or a right foot first, that tentative feeling which comes with a sketchy foot or a razor sharp crimp. He also included several subtle musical cues which follow the action on screen, for example as Hazel’s foot slips there’s a ‘twang’ of a guitar string.

Here’s a two minute clip from the film:

I think the star of this film isn’t the sponsored athlete, Matt Segal, or even the rock master, Johnny Dawes. In my opinion, it’s the new girl, Hazel Findlay, who steals the show:

Hazel Findlay attempting to onsight 'Rainbow of Recalitrance' E6

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