Basejumper.com - archive

http://www.reuters.com/...dUSTRE48P1AC20080926

But from the man who did "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", which was a pretty good doc.

I watched Marah's trailer last night again. It really is the best documentary BASE film that I have ever seen and even gives me chills watching the trailer. She hiked up with heavy camera equipment all over the world.

Ask why? Asshole

Were can we find the trailer?

This should be one of the best, if not the best, BASE documentary out there. I forget the relationship, but Marah is related to an old school BASE jumper (Mike Allen?).

that alone could make it a must see.

http://www.scissorkickfilms.com

Marah is Mike Allen's niece.

The trailer is not publicly available.

Marah is Mike Allen's niece . . .

Mike was killed in an auto accident in Florida (Alligator Alley) in the early 1990s. However, in the late 1980s Mike and I plus a couple of others were the very first BASE jumpers to communicate with each other over the Internet. I recall how amazing it was to actually receive Msgs from other BASE jumpers from clear across the country. Mike called us an "elite sub-species" because we had to first be BASE jumpers AND we had to know how to use computers.

Here's a couple of early Msgs I received from Mike Allen:

I'm alive and breathing! And this old gravity just keeps bringing me down. I didn't see much activity on this board and wonder just how many participate. It must be a really elite sub-species of BASE jumper. I'll throw my 2-cents in when something sparks a neuron. REMEMBER: Always practice safe BASE, and always know your partners!

C-ya,
Mike

And another Msg:

Ah, the moon is so big and bright tonight. It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart to know people from all corners of the globe are jumping off of stuff. What a wonderful nutty world.

C-ya,
Mike

And another:

Ahoy, matey and all that other Jolly Roger talk. Sounds like you had a great time navigating your way off those big secret cliffs. As you know my local fixed object aviation chapter has been practicing our flying technique quite diligently off a variety of short runway type launch points. I just love good aviation.

C-ya,
Mike

And lastly:

I think I'm getting burned out on jumping all these Florida towers. Maybe I'm getting R.A.D.I.O.A.C.T.I.V.E. I'm developing a taste for microwaved foods. So, I think I'll head out to sunny California and jump her monolithic protrusions. Or maybe, launch off a some small little coastal bridge and land in the surf. Or, plummet off a glassy downtown building in Los Angeles waving at myself in the mirrored windows as I go by. It would be great! I need to relax a bit anyway, so what the hell, I feel a BASE mission coming on!

C-ya,
Mike.

That was the last time I heard from Mike Allen as he was killed soon after that last message . . .

This was also the beginning of the end of civil discourse between BASE jumpers on the net. But on the up side this form of online jumper to jumper communication isn't as important as it once was. There is all the info one needs available in the BASE courses, from BASE gear manufacturers, and from fellow BASE jumpers. But in the old days we didn't know much about anything. No one did. And everything was an experiment of sorts. And the most valuable Msgs we sent each other went, "Hey Mike, I tried something the other night and it doesn't work, so don't do that!"

Anyway, years later Mike's niece Marah, who by then had grown up and became a filmmaker herself, came across Mike's old footage (Mike was an early video pro who did commercial TV work) and contacted a few of us who were in those films about her idea for a history of the sport movie.

With Marah being "in the family" so to speak and the fact BASE history was important to me I agreed to get involved as did most others. This isn't going to be a "glory hound" type movie but rather the so far definitive history of the sport and a tribute to her Uncle, and our friend, Mike Allen. And I felt from the first it was important for Marah to get these interviews with early BASE jumpers down on film before they were all gone.

NickD