What if He Falls? The Terrifying Reality Behind Filming “Free Solo” | Op-Docs

Alex Honnold is the foremost free soloist in the world he has free solid roots that no one else can to free solo means to climb without ropes or safety equipment one false move one slip and it's over the risk and free soloing is always to fall off you fall your death I mean that's pretty straightforward my directing partner and husband Jimmy chin is a professional climber and we were interested in making a feature-length documentary about his friend Alex when chai and I first talked about making a film about him we were talking about a character study a general portrait of Alex why he's extraordinary but we realized Alex was dreaming of doing something much bigger much more dangerous the only thing that would justify making a movie with me is doing something that I'm like truly proud of to me the big dream has always been free soloing I'll cap that is the culmination of anything I can imagine I'll cap is monumental 3,000 feet of sheer granite free soloing it would be one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of climbing but as it ethical to film someone as he risks his life when I found out Alex was thinking about free soloing I'll cap chai and I needed to step back and take some time to really think if this was something we wanted to take on every journalist and documentary filmmaker goes into situations without knowing what happens next this is the truth of nonfiction you can be mindful not to put the needs of a film before those of your subject but how much precaution is enough we had this ethical question is he more likely to fall when we were there because we can be a distraction than if he is by himself I'm aware of that a camera changes the dynamic in some small way and when the margins of success and failure are very very thin you just don't know what it's gonna be that might tip the scale yeah buddy hey guys crest of the mountain I was perfect I was like I was pretty sick are you okay yeah [Music] alex is going to do the climb with or without us but we decided that to be able to live with ourselves filming it we needed to set certain guidelines first Alex's safety was always going to be the priority and second we needed to protect the integrity of his experience to be able to move forward on this film the makeup of the crew was critical they had to be elite professional climbers who understood what Alex was doing their interactions at Alex had to be carefully managed and they had to remain completely neutral about Alex decision to make or not make the attempt to free solo cap [Music] even though we thought through every scenario carefully it was still difficult to film Alex do you ever get nervous before like Robert do I ever get nervous to the edge you want to be Paris nervous the people we chose for the crew had to be not only great at shooting but also very strong climbers and able to work under incredibly stressful situations and not make any mistakes it also helped that the crew is made up of Alex's friends that added a layer of comfort camaraderie and Trust but I also understand the reality of when something unexpected happens that's outside of your control and then it doesn't matter how good you are it doesn't matter how talented you are I put my foot on this what looked like part of the wall and a piece about the size of a small backpack launch and Jim is below me Dave is below me that flew like right here and then another one went right here part of being a professional climber is identifying and acknowledging the risks assessing them minimizing them and then moving on got real down there why are we up here again we're up here because practice makes perfect perfect essentially over the course of two years in the process of Alex training to free Sola El Cap our process was to film them on the roof and refine our choreography for the big day one thing we knew was that in certain instances we needed to give him more space a good example was the boulder problem the hardest part of the climb Alex issue is not that he could possibly die it was that he didn't want to die in front of his friends so ultimately we decided to film that section remotely to minimize our presence Alex's line of sight it was very technical filming the climbing it was dangerous it was extreme and at the same time we had to capture Alex's most intimate moments and try to get to know this person who was very very uncomfortable with intimacy as he's preparing for the most difficult thing he's ever done in his life so you're kind of tinkering in his head and it's not even a good idea when the guys were still coming down from the wall you know Claire Popkin and I would be on the ground and start this you know second wave of Alex and filming where he had to explore ideas that were very very personal the most challenging thing about all the the Veritate filmmaking was it a lot of it we spend six or eight hours on the wall doing very physically toiling work and then I get down and then there's another camera with a different crew that's all fresh and ready to hang out for the whole evening and I'm like I'm so poop I just went lay down but those are kind of the key moments in which to film and you know I get that but it's still you know hard sometimes more more pressing questions any kind we followed him for two years as he practiced and weighed whether to attempt the solo claim it's early June 2017 I can tell that Alex is kind of peaking in terms of his training and everything he's doing we had everybody dialing in our plans we knew exactly where everybody needed to be what their shots were but I refused as a personal line that I'm not willing to cross to ask Alex when he thinks he's going to do it the directive was to stay out of his sight unless you were filming with him our goal was to reduce any sort of external pressure and really focused on giving him the purest experience that he could have oh yeah on June 3rd 2017 he decided he was ready to do it he's definitely not going back he's only going one way I'm running through all the different scenarios you if you fell like what it would sound like what I would say to people after it what I don't know like what the footage would be like you know I'm just like in my mind I just I almost couldn't control it [Music] for almost four hours we're on the edge of our seats watching Alex make his way up El Cap achieving something no human and ever done before [Music] [Music] give me how do you feel like a gigantic wave of them [Music] you

Channel: The New York Times

Views: 8,337,768

Rating: 4.8825626 out of 5

Keywords: free falling, free solo movie, what is free solo, el capitan, yosemite el capitan, rock climbing, free solo, alex honnold, el cap, free solo climbing, climbing videos, what if he falls op-docs, what if he falls?, op-docs, rock climbing op-docs, new op-doc, new york times, nytimes video, video from the new york times

Id: 3-wjmIFlnNo

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 02 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/BlackFire68]

It takes a special kind of strangeness to look up thousands of feet of sheer rock face and think”imma climb that with no gear”. El Capitan is gargantuan.

[u/Captain__Marvel]

I was watching something about El Capitan (might have been this) and they were talking about a double fall witnessed by a third climber. They hadn't secured a line and one of the guys fell and the third climber heard a noise and then something fell past him and then a few seconds later he heard "Oh Fuck!" from the guy tethered to the falling man who then fell past him. I can't think of a worse experience.

[u/Young_Jedi333]

Was anybody’s hands perpetually sweating while watching this, like mine’s were?

[u/Dvanpat]

The camera crew was more terrified than he was.

[u/lmk445]

Good movie, def recommend it

[u/Absolute-Filth]

Tremendous athlete, but I hate to say, it’s just a matter of time.

[u/TheMarsian]

Every time i see this/him it reminds me of that long hair guy who jumps off mountain cliffs with just the climbing rope, then he did i think the same jump but uses a rope that was on the cliff some time ago or weathered idk but they're not fresh. The rope snapped and his friend who was with him to film his jumps saw it all.

[u/[deleted]]

Look at those fingers.

[u/caustic_kiwi]

Title: What if he falls?

40 seconds in: The risk in free soloing is always to fall off, and fall to your death, I mean that's pretty straight forward.

...welp, guess it's settled. Documentary over.