Hi all,
Just thought I’d share my experiences filming for a TV episode last weekend. A
few months I was contacted by a production company that produces shows such as
Guinness Prime Time and a new version of That’s Incredible. They were interested
in doing a segment on “Extreme Unicycling”. It was a huge struggle on my part to
convince them that I wasn’t interested in jumping through flaming hoops etc. but
anyway the producer, director and comedian show host flew up here from L.A. on
the weekend to do some filming in the Vancouver area.
From the start it became evident that they were looking for “Danger and Holy
Shit Video” as they put it, and weren’t particularly interested in the
deeper aspects of why people are interested in adventurous sports. However,
we had a fun time at a trials demo I did on Saturday, and headed to the
North Shore on Sunday.
On Sunday we were joined by a large film crew (12 people in total with 4
cameras) and we struggled up to the trailhead of a trail called Circus. It then
took us 3 hours to get onto the trail because the show host had to do so many
takes while introducing this part of the segment. Definately this was a crash
introduction for me into the acting world as I had to interact “spontaneously”
with the show host for numerous takes, interupted by fairly angry shouts of
“CUT!!!” from the director. We then proceeded to one stunt on this trail, a 100’
long ladderbridge that ends in a 15 foot drop. According to the comedian on set,
it was 300’ long and ended in a 30 foot drop.
Anyway, we spent about for hours here where I rode the ladderbridge over and
over for different angles, and eventually we went to the 15’ drop.
Unfortunately the bottom of the drop was a steep transition covered in about 3"
of wet snow, and was difficult to land, so I entertained them with some good
wipeouts but no successful landings. They seemed happy as I think they were
looking for DANGER anyway.
It will be interesting to see what they do to me in the final cut of this
production but we’ll see… I think it will air sometime in July, I think on
the Warner Bros. channel. It will likely include this footage plus some stock
footage and new stuff riding on a mogul ski slope.
Cheers,
Kris.
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