Basejumper.com - archive

I've been lurking around these forums and bLinc for the better part of the last two years trying to absorb information & do my homework in preparation for getting into BASE. I got a media pass to BD last year and got some amazing video and stills, as well as really getting a good feel for what BASE/BD is all about.

I'm a Sr. at the University of North Carolina in Communications and making films has been a passion of mine for the last seven years. I have been addicted to making skydiving films since I started jumping camera (about 500 jumps ago) and I've been interested in making a film about BASE for a long time.

Last week I made a pitch to do a documentary about BASE/BD and just got approval to make a short (10 minutes or so) film for the department and hopefully for indy film-fest distribution. I feel really honored that my pitch was chosen and I want to make a very serious effort to presents BASE, jumpers, and BD in the best light possible.

My question for you is this... How do you think BASE can best be presented to the public, with a goal of increased awareness and access, in a 10 minute film?

I'd really like to start by legitimizing BASE as a sport & lifestyle, as I don't think that the more general public understands what BASE means to us as well as the kind of serious thought and planning that goes into it. I'd also like to give a bit of history of BD, NPS, and the ongoing conflict, showing the way in which they discriminate against jumpers for all but 6 hours a year. I will be attending Tom A's FJC and doing my first jump(s) at BD, and I'd like to include that somehow in the film... certainly BD will be the best source of footage as well. I'd love to get some footage from Norway, Italy, El Gigante...etc. to show how access is treated in the rest of the world.

I am only in touch with a FEW of the NC locals, and I know that alot of you frequent the boards. I'd love to get the local perspective and get to know some of you better in general. Please drop me a PM if you're interested in helping me out a little.

Any thoughts are appreciated... thanks!

I've always thought the best way would be to tell your own BASE story. Start with you, pre-jumping, and follow along as you learn and progress, then start following your journey through BASE. I doubt that would be easily doable in the time frame you have, because I'd picture something along the lines of an hour long documentary that would start with you wanting to jump, and end with you a few years later, with a couple hundred jumps.

Tom,
I would absolutely love to do exactly that sort of film in the long run. Unfortunately that sort of ethnographic case-study would take a few years Last year the students made a film about a national champion jump-rope team from Durham, NC. It made the rounds at film-fests and got some great exposure. They picthed a feature length documentary about the team which expanded on the short film and got the funding they needed to make it (It's still in progress... a really amazing story I might add.)

In lieu of being able to spotlight myself I'd really like to start the film with a "Day in the Life" story of a local jumper (can be flimed completely anonomously.) Something that starts out showing the whuffo audience that most BASE jumpers are people alot like them who mild manneredly work by day and leap off towers by night. It would be great to get some footage of a few real jumps off of real objects (can be shot in a way that doesn't give any clues as to location... I'm definately not trying to burn anything here...) to show what the sport is like on an everyday basis.

I'd like to show Bridge Day as the flipside... showing what happens when we're granted legal access to a nice safe object (albeit for 6 hrs per year.) I'd love to interview some of the proponents of opening the bridge (Jason Bell, Tom, and practically every jumper, hotel or restaurant owner...etc.) I'd love to interview some of the NPS rangers that we're paying to fly in for the event so they can "supervise" us. It'd even be great to get a shot of the last jumper leaving the platform then the rangers coming up and telling us to shut it down to drive home the point that anyone who jumps at 3:01 gets arrested, fined, and gets their gear confiscated.

I'd also like to find a bit of footage from TF (Maybe even fly out there for a weekend and do a jump or two myself) to show as an example of what's possible when a public object is opened to jumpers and what that brings to the area, what the whuffo locals think of it, and how it affects the local economy.

I'm open to anyone's ideas & opinions (good or bad,) so please share yours... I have really high hopes for this thing and I think that it could be good for everyone involved.

It allows me to actually make some jumps!
I'd probably still be doing just one jump a year at BD if it weren't for TF and Tom A.!

I got two words for you...Stealing Altitude. It worked then, and it'll work now. Show that your BASE jumper is a human, living in a mostly human world, and then the viewing public can identify with him/her.

http://www.stealingaltitude.com/

^Wow, that sounds amazing. I'd like to see it... I just called the USC Moving Image Archive, but got redirected. Does anyone have a copy that I can borrow/buy/copy?

^^Russel, that's exactly the point that I'd like to make... that everyone who's qualified should have access to public/legal BASE, just like practically every other sport.

I have no idea how to compress all your ideas into a 10 minute project, but I'd love to see the longer version...

for the short, you could start at the BD lz, filming the heavy ranger presense, maybe with some interviews. later, contrast it by showing the Potato lz. you could include the audio of a call into the local police/sheriff notifying them about an impending jump.

'course an interview with a first timer (yourself?) and one of the highly experienced jumpers (Marta?) seems appropriate.

Marta would rob the viewer of thinking it's a crazy male act of stupidity, and she can stress moving to UT for legal jumps.

clips of a FJC or a gear manufacturer talking about the equipment could show how much preparation and thought is involved.

heck, if done well, your work might be useful in access fights!

good luck!

I think that's a great point. You might also try interviewing people who look "off type" or "more respectable" to break up stereotypes. Rick Harrison is great for this when he's in "respectable" mode (he is, after all, an attorney who works for the department of defense).

Tom, would Don be up for an interview? I just think the contrast between him and a ranger spouting the official line would speak volumes...

rangers and badges...
Don and his dogs...

both watching a lz.

the rangers view BASE from conflict, as if no good can come from it.
Don views it from cooperation, knowing how it benefits his city.

Probably. He's done them in the past. I've also got some nice video interviews with a city councilman, the president of the TF Chamber of Commerce, and a couple business owners. I'm trying to get all that on one tape to send to Jason, but I'm pretty much just a lazy bastard.

Thanks to everyone for their insights & ideas both here and via PM! I'm afraid that I'm going to have a tough time narrowing down the focus of this thing in order to make a ~10 minute film that covers all of the bases (no pun intended.)

I think that from a public policy / recreational use standpoint it would be neat to juxtapoze the locals' opinions of jumpers at Bridge Day and NRGB with that of the TF community. Perhaps that sort of film would really make the point that BASE is good for small communities and local economies.

Please keep the ideas and opinions (good and bad) flowing. I really want this film to be something that sparks a public interest in the plight of gaining BASE access.