FREE SOLO Q&A with co-Director Jimmy Chin

throw to you guys pretty early on cuz I know you have a bunch of questions but I'm just gonna start with the impetus of this film you know when do you first know you're gonna make a movie about Alex and then when do you learn is gonna be about El Capitan and his climb of that right well first of all just think I have to say thank you all for coming out to yourselves a round of applause and mourning these movies put up on the socials make people jealous yeah this is this is a really special weekend really special Friday night because we've been on the tour and you know if Telluride Film Festival Toronto Film Festival and we had like a premiere but this is kind of the first you know public audience that paid for tickets to come see it and it's just really supporting not just showing up yeah I know I mean it's just amazing and after three years of work it's great to see this theater pack do you know so thank you so much but I would say the idea for making a film about Alex came about around after the previous film that I made with my wife hi mehru and let me see my rope yeah yeah he's seen Meru by the there we go everybody else you should definitely check it out and then actually how many people here are climbers out of curiosity oh wow that's a good number of people even yeah well you know I started playing with the idea of doing a store film about Alex around that time because a lot of people were like what are you doing yaks what's the next film you want to make and and I kind of was thinking about well who would make a great subject and I also you know realized after examining like kind of all the people that I'd ever worked with over 20 years and some of the kind of top athletes in multiple different disciplines whether it was snowboarding or climbing or rock climbing or BASE jumping or whatever that you know Alex was truly even among his peer group I mean he's an anomaly among a peer group of an AMA of anomalies you know like these are people who ski Everest and you know like snowboard like Travis Rice or you know they're they're incredible athletes but even among his peer group and and myself included yeah people kind of recognize that he's just on a totally different level and I had never seen anybody who could do what Alex does at that level of technical difficulty where the stakes are that high and the consequences are that high for that kind of sustained amount of time and execute perfectly you know knowing that any I mean you know when you're soloing 512 or 513 in Yosemite the the nuance of the movement at that level is he's insane the Crocs I mean its world-class athleticism and you know so III knew that he was special and as you see he's special in a lot of ways and so we talked about it and my wife actually didn't know him as well as I did I'd been filming and climbing with him for ten years and I we we'd shot on a lot of like kind of high consequence types of shoots and she went to talk to him and asked him a lot of questions and tried to get to know him and Alex actually told her you know hey if you're gonna make a feature doc we should do it you know I want a solo El Cap and my wife is you know born and raised on the Upper East Side and isn't really a climber and she's like oh yeah it sounds great and and I called there that night I'm like how did your conversation go with Alex and she said hey he seems great he's a little odd a little awkward and he said he wants to solo El Cap and I just like gasped I was like he did not say that because he's never said that to any of his friends and we kind of try not to even think about it because we knew that you know given the things that he'd done kind of the only logical thing left for him to do was to free solo Al Capp and like we didn't even want to think about it and so actually after we had that conversation I decided with chai not to do the you know I said let's take some time off I don't know if I'm ready to take that burden on and we actually walked away from the film for six months and had a had to answer some really tough questions in order to get to that point of whether we wanted to make the film and what were the things that Alex expressed to you that convinced you that you were able to do this film with him was it the fact that he was just going to do it regardless of the fact that it was a film yeah we had to answer several questions I mean we had to answer well first of all if we wanted to kind of carry that burden are we willing to carry the burden because of course the the main issue and the first thing that you think about is worst case scenario what does that look like how is that going to make you feel are you you know culpable if you caused it and could you cause something to go wrong there's all these different things around it but I ended up having this conversation with my good friend Jon Krakauer the author and you know being the wise sage mentor a friend of mine he just asked me a bunch of questions instead of you know making suggestions giving advice he just said well is he gonna do it anyways whether you film it or not and I was like yeah probably and yes well you've been filming with him for ten years you know I'm really well are you in the best position to be the person that does film it if he does do it you know and I was like yeah probably and then it was do you trust his judgment and that last one you know was harder to answer but given what I had seen him do and the decision-making process he has in a lot of previous experiences I mean I did I did trust you know his decision-making now obviously try such a brilliant filmmaker as well and the fact that you guys are able to collaborate and add your different elements elements of videography is awesome I mean did you guys always see it as a what it turned out to be sort of this intimate soria you know within the van your the relationship and then also the climbing because obviously anybody could have made a video about him climbing El Cap but this is much more than that yeah well I'd say that you know chai and I bring very different things to the table and her background is you know you know serious nonfiction documentary feature-length film making and I have my background filming and shooting in in the kind of vertical realm but you know both of us had a strong intention of making a film that was you know much deeper than a climbing film or a highlight reel for Alex and we're always looking for a story that has a narrative and that kind of confronts you know Universal challenges and truths and that you know hopefully speak to people on multiple levels and you know I obviously like was really kind of enamored with the idea that we wanted to if we were gonna make this film that we really wanted to push kind of the cinematography and push you know how we shot it so that it could kind of live up to and do justice to his accomplishment and Chaya was really focused on the narrative and kind of the Verte aspects of the film and really capturing who Alex was what makes him tick and then clearly you know when he meets this woman Sahni and this kind of budding relationship starts to happen you know that was something that you know Chie spent a lot of time thinking about and she can also relate you know she's married to a climber and and I think that she also wanted to address it so that it wasn't like the normal trope you know of like the some sort of a helpless woman waiting for her you know I mean sonnies this incredible character cuz she's she stands up for herself and she's confident and she's articulate emotionally and she can kind of push Alex in a way that he's never really been pushed before and you know I think that that was that was helpful and kind of really bringing the film together it's funny talking to Alex cuz he says those moments are actually the most difficult the ones in the van and this one you guys have a bunch of shots of uh the crew in the van shooting him which I'm not sure if you guys can actually get the scale of how big it was in there how many people you know when you have like your DP chai on the ground the sound guy with the boom in the passenger seat and then the AC and the and the other seat all squeezed back there and alex is having like the most vulnerable intimate conversations of his entire life um eating from a skillet yeah eating off his spatula you know that and and that was that was really special in the sense that you know these kind of shoots after two and a half years of filming or two solid years of filming with somebody that's exactly what's supposed to happen like you know the film crew kind of just becomes an extension of your life and the barriers come down and you get caught saying all kinds of terrible things like no I'm not gonna take you into consideration when I free solo I get those moments man now we've talked about the technical aspects of the van but let's talk about the mountain and in the crew that you got and scimitar fee that you got I mean it was absolutely incredible and the guys that you got to shoot this were amazing how did you get this group together the criteria was there's some very you know basic criteria for this job which was a you had to be a full professional climber like there was just no chance that you know we could expend any energy having to worry about whether or not somebody's gonna make good decisions on El Cap and like could move around I'll cap efficiently move really quickly because Alex is the fastest climber in the world in this kind of terrain and you also have to be so good that the climbing aspects and the safety systems were second nature because you still had to film and you also had to be an incredible film er an operator so that pretty quickly narrows down the the pool and literally there's only like a handful of people that I can call and and these are some of the people that I call for a lot of my projects or bigger shoots and Mikey Schafer being like oftentimes my so good my number one call even though as you know the joke is that he's the DP that can't look at what he's shooting you know is this good for his career a bad for his career but he he's a total badass you know I mean he climbs 514 he has done first ascents all over the world the alpine climber for those of you that climb I mean he's freed territory you know free climbed it I mean that's what the rope at like it he's a he's a badass and he he's also super tech with like cameras and shooting and and he's a great he has so much respect from this slightly younger generation well from all of his peers cuz he's just super he's got tons of street cred and then we had the rest of the crew a little bit younger but all professional climbers like Shane Limpy who has like the solo speed record on the Saloth a you know on I'll cap I mean he's they're all like really incredible but yeah that team was was really extraordinary on multiple levels because they had to function as these single unit camera teams with no AC no audio guy no rigger like they had to go in and be able to rap in with a thousand feet of line have all their food and water for the day and know exactly what they were gonna shoot and then be able to get themselves out quickly at the end of the night haul all the ropes up and then hike out you know I mean these were huge days but the emotional kind of challenges were very you know difficult as well because there are all of his friends and we had to kind of maintain this neutral space with Alex you know we couldn't be encouraging we couldn't be discouraging we kind of just held this kind of safe space as friends but you know there was just tough moments like when we knew his ankle was still hurt and he decided to go up and give it a shot and what do you you know now I promise it's gonna throw to you guys so yeah if you have any questions just just throw your hands up yet right there first of all thank you that was amazing you know what's gonna happen but I still felt like I was gonna throw up the whole time like holy what that's a good point actually I want to say everybody know you know Alex was gonna make it I mean I mean there's bull if he didn't know I mean actually do the climb I mean that doesn't do it and then you know you always knew he was going to do the climb but okay no no I just want you to know what I mean I hate to say it cuz this was amazing like what you guys did what he did was awesome but is there anything that you guys want to do next from like the vertical realm of filming the next Meru the next I'll cap that you're like we got to do this I hope someone does it so we can capture it no we definitely joke about the fact that we are not gonna do free solo2 like I can't age that many years in two years again you see it on your face man with that final shot when he makes it you know yeah I mean we literally woke up with that idea and I mean I woke up with the worst case scenario every single day for two years it's like the first thing because the pressure of the film was always present there was always something to do about the film there was always so it was kind of ever-present and that was a lot to carry for a long time and you know and then it gets more feverish pitch as you got closer and closer and closer and it was just you know so so much pressure and with the crew and still trying to be trying to be objective and trying to make a film and but no we are not gonna make another I don't think I can survive another Meru first of all but but we have other we have we have some films on the on the docket that we're really excited about so awesome I think there was another one back there yeah to what extent did you factor in the audience in terms of understanding the incredible accomplishment that he did like I know you could have filmed it just from the ground and he could you know documented it happening but what decisions did you make in terms of how close you got or whether you know it was a drone or close by in orders so that the everyday person could understand how unbelievably incredible this is and was Alex miked at all or was that yes he was my chalk bag yeah I hear I heard the NAT sound but I couldn't yeah so he has this little chocolate with a zipper in it which is now black diamond and his sponsors made the Alex Honnold El Cap free solo chalk bag like the one that he used he they've like they stopped making that one so was an old one and they like rereleased it in there anyways it's kind of but there's a zipper and we put the the Zak's calm like a recorder in it and then it ran through a hole in his shirt and then up on his chest so it was like the least you know kind of out of the way or the most out-of-the-way spot to do it and our sound guy was is a great climber as well and everybody on the team was a great climber but he made it so that you could move the chalk bag around and it was and it would wouldn't pull the mic off his chest but in terms of you know how we thought about shooting Alex weight I had a specific point what was the specific question again sorry about my two-part question it was the how did you factor in the everyday people the audience who would be seeing this so I know you factored Alex and how did you factor in the audience so that they would best understand the oh right right so you know we had to establish a few different characters right we you know Tommy we establish in a certain way you know Mikey's established everybody has like these you know a few pieces of information to give you enough color to understand kind of their role and who they are and obviously El Cap was one of the characters and you know over the course of the film you you're essentially getting to know El Cap from the beginning how he says you know this is free-rider this is this great this is the route I would do there's actually six sections on it that really concerned me and then you start to kind of delve into all the little minutiae of each of these different sections whether it's the monster off with where you're you know it's like the worst Pilates class of your life and you have to hold the position while someone stands skin off your body and stuff like that but um you get to know the mountain hopefully and a big part of that also is kind of holding up you know people's understanding I mean there's a lot of difficult sections but clearly the free blast was I mean that's like horrifying for a climber to think about 511 slab which is the rating it gets in Yosemite is it's just like a nightmarish grade no matter what it's just very difficult to climb but the boulder problem pitch you know until you understand that he's his entire life is being held together by like a quarter of his thumb pad and the only thing keeping him on is the pressure he's pushing down on the foothold he's on and the foothold is like this you know the outer quarter of a golf ball you know like this rounded thing and then he has to match his I mean there was that we definitely built up so that you could enjoy the actual class yeah great question yeah next question I think we have one right there first off super inspiring I wish I lived a lot closer to Yosemite than New York at this point me too yeah a quick question we talked a lot in the film about how Alex deals with the emotions of the climb I'm wondering how you as a filmmaker and a friend deal with being up there and watching him doing this extremely dangerous sport and being able to be at the top of your game and get these shots that you really only have one chance to get yeah so the question is how do we deal with kind of the managing our fear and emotions during something like this climb and you know that's something that we addressed all the time during this production and you know over the course of the production we also kind of continually addressed it because there were a couple issues one being that the amount of time that we were spending up on the wall was very significant even for professional climbers I mean we spent so much time up there the exposure to the risks often catch up to people the numbers like the statistics so it was always a reminder that you your climber first you're a filmer second and you have to cover all your bases as a climber always and you never like no matter how rushed or like what shots we need to get you have to like make sure you're still climber first and so on then the night before and this is an ongoing thing but the night before we went into the chute you know that was a very conscious conversation I had with the crew saying okay you know focus on what you're doing you know do not get distracted because you're being a climber and then you have all the pressures of like do I have enough batteries do I have enough memory cards you know I mean there's just so many things on the filming side that you have to think about to that like adding one more layer of like your very good friend free soloing next to you on like a 512 corner on the enduro corner or whatever I mean it's enough to probably potentially tip the scale and so having told the team that was on that was my mantra as well because you know inevitably you're like oh god here he comes he's like rope list like you know there's all the things that you could think about and then you had to stop yourself and say stay focused on your job what are you doing right now and there was a lot to think about you know all the locking beam is locked is everything like are all the ropes that you have hanging off of you like clipped tightly so that they don't unravel and fall down and hit Alex or are your cameras you know clipped off to other clip in points you know is don't forget to press record which you know in these kind of situations is something that could absolutely happen I know this but you were actually shooting the the magazine story for National Geographic at the same time so you're doing three things at the same time yeah actually more like twelve but yeah no I was shooting this I was shooting a photo the the the magazine story at the same time so I literally had a cam camera screwed on top of my film camera so while I was filming with one hand is firing shots at the other hand cuz run of applause for that guy there we go that's all the time we have for so sorry tell your friends free solo in theaters now Jimmy yeah no thank you so much again and and you know these films really live and die by word of mouth and I mean you can do all the marketing in the world but it really is word of mouth so if you spread the word and got people the theatres that would be amazing thank you so much one more time [Applause]

Channel: Angelika Film Center & Cafe

Views: 16,645

Keywords: jimmy chin, free solo, documentary, Q&A, climbing

Id: A-1R3opvJR8

Length: 24min 51sec (1491 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 03 2018