Continued from January 2008 edition of Climb Magazine

THE 80s: THE BIRTH OF EXTREME               

What were the highs and lows of working with such a precocious talent?

We worked together well and never argued. He had great ideas, some of them too much for me! For example, he wanted the last hand hold on the top of the Quarryman to be a corner of a TV set, which would then come loose as he pulled on it and fall down the groove smashing to bits.

I favoured a more steady approach, I was fairly sure of the structure of the programme and I wanted to finish in Wales with the 'Quarryman Groove'. We went to all the locations that Johnny suggested in Derbyshire and worked out exactly what we thought would work. I filmed all the angles. Johnny scripted the original ideas. I got the commission, a part not to be underestimated, and produced and edited the programme. On most of the 5 day shoot we had a professional crew, it had to be like that in those days, they refused to let me be on camera because I was not in the union. We also had a director who 'translated' what I said to him to the crew. When these two 'proper' cameramen came to Wales and saw Twll Mawr in all its glory, to be told that one camera location was on the ledge at the top of the groove they just said, "No, we are not doing it". We lost that day but fortunately they didn't charge us so we had another chance. I phoned a company in Manchester, Vector TV, and they arranged to send down a young lad with all the kit. Between us all, the lad, Johnny, Paul Pritchard & Bob Drury we hauled everything into place, I had my chance to be a 'proper' cameraman and Johnny did the groove three times resting in between takes as we changed camera angles. We were all mad keen, nothing was too much effort. So to answer the question, it was all a high at the time, and most of the time Johnny was on best behaviour.

What do you think of the film now?

I still enjoy the movements in it, and I respect more and more Johnny's inputs especially the little touches. For example, he disappeared at lunchtime when we were doing the dyno sequence at the old Plas Y Brenin wall, just as we were getting very worried where he'd gone he reappeared with two round bits of sheepskin from Anna Davies Welsh wool shop at Betws y Coed - to go on his shoes to match his hat on the dreamy dynos. He had to get it just right and it worked.

There were rumours of a series of films for Channel 4 to follow Stone Monkey's success - what happened there?

After such a success we did expect another commission and we did put some ideas in. But commissions are always so very hard to get and soon after Stone Monkey was aired the commissioning editor Adrian Metcalf left to be replaced by an American who said to me, ' I don't like climbing', and that was that.

The documentary telling the story of the ascent of The Indian Face bundled with the DVD is excellent; climbers are really enjoying it. How did making of that film differ from Stone Monkey?

I had a piece of climbing history on tape, so all I had to do was tell the whole story as best I could, or rather get the main characters to tell it. I'm fascinated with the events surrounding the climb, for me it represents all that's good and all that's bad in climbing. Some people seem a little ashamed of what went on but this represents what happens at the top end of climbing all the time, and it is as good a story as any I think. It was a climbing event that will never be forgotten, it is now part of climbing folklore, and I had it on tape. I managed to get Johnny one evening to agree to do what became his interview, this was the hardest part of the whole thing, to get him in the right place at the right time and in a reasonable mood. He wasn't in the best of moods and the outtakes became his 'rants'. Joe Brown, John Redhead and Nick Dixon readily agreed to the other interviews, which were shot locally. Jim Perrin kindly agreed to narrate it. Then Justine worked on the structure and edited it. So it was all pulled together fairly painlessly at home with a very low budget. 

S4C seem to have been an important outlet for your work. How important do you think this important regional broadcaster has been in promoting adventure sport films?

You sell ideas for TV programmes to commissioners, so what you get is whatever they happen to like. I was lucky that a producer in Caernarfon supplying S4C with mostly light entertainment and sports programmes was also very keen on adventure programmes. He let me work some kayaking ideas into programmes to begin with. This association grew and soon I was supplying him and S4C with 'first ascent news' items from the climbing world, e.g. 'Liquid Amber', (Jerry Moffat on his first 8c in the UK ), and 'Hubble', ( Ben Moon on his first 8c+ in the UK ), to go on an S4C sports programmes called 'Sgorio'. The adventure slot then seemed to look after itself and I got more commissions. S4C was happy with their newfound expertise and I was glad to supply. This association has continued for twenty years, and is still going on. Some of these programmes have done well internationally, winning awards and being sold to foreign networks so I guess all this promotes adventure sports films.

How do you see the status of adventure sport films within the general broadcasting world? What might improve their 'visibility'? Are international Mountain Film festivals such as Banff, Trento and Kendal important in promoting such films, or just a nice social occasion?

Adventure films always have been and always will be on the fringes of  mainstream entertainment with some films breaking through occasionally. That's it, there's not much you can do about it, our sport will always appear bizarre to the general public and misunderstood by producers. That used to annoy me, it doesn't now. At the festivals, I am always entertained by the talks, they remain with me, and I think that's the value of such tribal gatherings. As for getting adventure films into general broadcasting, it is difficult to get a film that satisfies and inspires the expert and also appeals to and inspires a general audience. You need to frighten, but it has to be fun. That balance is the key I think. I'm not much of a film buff, and there is a lot of absolute mind bending crap out there. But I think its important to have the festivals, the top handful of films are always inspiring for some reason or other, either by being very personal in their appeal, in their content or their technique, I remember seeing 'Vision Man' a few years ago and being moved by all three factors. But if there is not much going out at the top end as it were maybe the value of the festivals is in getting stuff in at the bottom end. In the Llanberis Adventure Film Festival last year the best new filmmaker award went to Paul Higginson who made a lovely 7 minute film on 'the different uses for old slate blocks'. There are a lot of people walking the streets talking about good ideas but not many are following through and actually producing a finished programme.     

What do you think makes a good climbing film? Which other people's work you particularly admire or find inspirational?

Johnny Dawes makes a good climbing film, but only in front of the camera.

You're also particularly well known for your filming work in the worlds of kayaking and parapenting. Have you made many other climbing films apart from Stone Monkey and Total Control that we should know about? Are you planning to re-release any more of your back catalogue on DVD?

I've made lots of climbing and adventure films for television here in Wales, but these are not particularly suited for selling on DVD to climbers, they're not 'culty' enough, as perhaps SM and Total Control are. But now I've re-cut 'Buoux' the late eighties programme with Ben Moon, Jerry Moffat and Johnny. They're bundled with 'Gogarth' and 'Strone Ulladale' on a two DVD package.

How did working with the late, great Jimmy Jewel (who stars in Total Control) differ from working with Johnny?

Jimmy was great to work with. Like most of the top people I've filmed with in dangerous situations, e.g. John Silvester, and Shaun Baker (in Waterfall Kayak), they would set the parameters of what they were prepared to do which somehow released me from 'worry'. When we started filming Total Control, Jimmy simply said, "When I'm climbing don't make any contact, don't shout or say anything till I'm on the top". He would then repeat the routes many times for me to film with our one camera, from different angles. The one route he did just the once was T.Rex, so this was shot in one, 'the ten minute shot'. He soloed Left Wall six times in succession the morning we filmed it. I knew he was soloing close to the limit of his ability and I did have nightmares of him falling. If I didn't have a camera with me I couldn't just watch him solo, like once when I saw him on Cloggy soloing The Axe, followed by The Boldest.

It was more noisy working with Johnny

Given your breadth of interests, do you actually get to do much climbing these days?

Yes, did 'Too Hard for Jim Perrin' in the Pass recently, brilliant moves!

In the documentary bundled with the Stone Monkey DVD, Romancing the Stone, you recount an anecdote in which you mention other water sport films you showed to a snoozing Channel 4 commissioning editor before he picked 'The Leaping Boy'. What happened to them? Are they still as fondly remembered by kayakers?

Yes, at the time plastic kayaks were just coming in then so kayakers were looking at some bigger drops. The very first video I ever did was 'Affinity with Water', it chronicled these times in the early eighties, with Ray Rowe and Franco Ferrero. Malcolm Griffiths then went on to apply some serious street fighting techniques to the new sport of waterfall kayaking, by wrapping a karrimat round his waist to lessen the rib crushing impacts. The culmination of all this was 'Waterfall Kayak', 12 minutes, which was the first film I sold to National Geographic, it won several awards at international film festivals, and it was sold to many international TV broadcasters. It was extreme before extreme was part of broadcast terminology and it launched Shaun Baker's career in television. As a consequence, I feel it fits neatly into the concept of 'Birth of Extreme' and appears on the new DVD.

In view of the great reception Stone Monkey garnered second-time round - any plans to team up with Johnny and make Stone Monkey 2? (Or is making one film with Johnny enough?!)

I tried hard to get Johnny interested in another film. For years. We had some good ideas but nothing happened.

What are you working on at the moment?

I'm still producing programmes for S4C. I have done several adventure travel series for S4C recently, and also started producing nature programmes involving an element of adventure to get closer to the nature, such as a wildlife crime series called 'Illegal Nature' which went out on S4C.

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