Pursuing a life of XS

‘Hard XS’, the long-awaited ‘total climbing’ film from the House of Slackjaw, has just been released to critical acclaim. It’s proved well worth the wait, for it depicts nothing less than the Complete British climbing experience – viewed from the point of view of its elite practitioners. Rich Heap, one of its creators, talks about the pain and the pressure of trying to make a film to live up to the legacy of the much-admired ‘Hard Grit’.

‘I really must get out a bit more’, he tells Colin Wells.

Rich, many congratulations on the film, which many critics feel is the first to capture the spirit of virtually the whole of British climbing in all its eclectic lunacy. Did you and Ben Pritchard initially set out with this intention, or did this vision evolve over time? How long did you actually spend on the project?

Hard XS started and stalled over about three years. It also went through various incarnations. It started with Ben going out and filming James Pearson and Toby Benham on the Grit. Grit is easy to film because it’s close to Sheffield (where I live), it’s inherently exciting and we both have a love for the climbing on it.

As far as I was concerned however, I’d obviously filmed a lot of the stuff for Hard Grit and this had had a twofold effect:

1.I was scared that if I carried on filming it there would be an accident

2. I felt I’d already ‘done it’.

Stall one…

That said, I was keen, following the sort of poor reception for One Winter (a Slackjaw documentary that shadowed Sheffield rock and ice diva Airlee Anderson for a winter season in the US and Alps) to do one last climbing film, so I would leave the genre on a high note. So when Dave Thomas talked about doing Breakaway (the desperately loose and serious Mick Fowler shale route on Henna Cliff, Devon) I thought it would be cool to film and off we went. Even though it wasn’t edited straight away we kind of knew we had caught something exciting, genuine and different, and then I was like, “Great! Let’s make a whole Hard XS film’. Then along came my daughter Jessie and a BMC contract.

Stall two…

For a while (in my mind) I was trying to become a ‘proper’ film maker, trying to find subtext in stuff, and I thought we should be making ‘serious’ films. In a sense ‘One Winter’ was low point in this; for various reasons it didn’t pan out because of poor weather in the Alps and Lucy (Creamer) not coming on this part of the trip. The meaning of it became forced. Also things, particularly Stonelove (the 2001 Slackjaw bouldering film featuring the UK bouldering bratpack) were starting to have a dark edge. It seemed right to do some thing celebratory again. I guess I’d taken the long route to come round to the realisation that for most people climbing is just fun, an escape from the day to day, and the films they would want to see should reflect this. As a consequence the more I thought about Hard XS (that is, the traditional ‘Hard XS of gnarliness’) the more I slowly realised we were going in to dark territory again and hence the idea of looking at the full British climbing experience came about, with a short film about each climbing genre. It then took till last year to really get going again because I refused to get too involved until we had cleared the backlog of editing that had built up – specifically ‘Suffering Andy’ (a documentary about Andy Kirkpatrick which is bundled with the Hard XS DVD) and Kilimanjaro (a film featuring Paul Pritchard, Jamie Andrew and other disabled climbers battling to reach the iconic African summit).

Stall three…

It was only after we had shot the ‘Esoterica’, ‘Snow’, ‘Extinction’, ‘Grit’ and ‘Choss’ chapters, that we started realise how many different facets to British climbing there were. We were only half way through then and trying to make something complete in the end became a bit of a millstone round our necks, but we stuck at it.

Hard XS features an impressive range of different climbers, most of whom seem to be natural performers in front of the camera - you must have one of the most impressive contacts books in climbing! How did you go about orchestrating such a stellar cast – are they all mates or are people just generally mad keen to be involved in a Slackjaw production?

Me and Ben have been climbing for twenty years apiece and both of us have spent time bumming around as full-time climbers. You just meet a lot of people and if you go to the right crags, some of these are pretty decent climbers. I found that after having kids I dropped off the pulse a bit but Ben was still in touch with a lot of people and knew a bit of what was going on.

(We still missed some people though. I regret not getting Mark Katz in because he is such a wonderful climber to watch, and I also regret not getting James McCaffie in because he has a real edge to his climbing.)

When you think of people being natural performers in front of camera I imagine presenters and TV. We don’t make TV in a sense, we make films of people being themselves. That is the art (and while we are not so great cinematically or visually I do think we this is the one bit we excel at). I learnt so much watching through 70 tapes of rushes for the Salathé film (Slackjaw’s 2000 film, Blood, Sweat and Bagels, documenting an ascent of the Salathé Wall on El Cap in Yosemite). I learnt that if you film enough everything of a person’s character (good and bad) is there and when something is genuine it jumps out at you. You know when something is a performance, fake, and we strive to make the atmosphere when we are filming to be utterly normal. It helps if you know the climber already.

When we edit we are looking for genuine moments all the time. It’s the gold.

The range of climbing styles depicted in the film is staggering – I take it you and Ben weren’t completely familiar with all types to start with (after all, how many of us are aficionados of the dark art of levitating up chalk cliffs or friable Culm shales for example)? How did you cope with the challenge of filming and editing outside your normal climbing comfort zone? (Or are you and Ben in fact secret Jedi Masters of all climbing?)

In many ways your experience of the crags and climbing is very limited in that you’re attached to an abseil rope or seconding a route. That said you do have to feel comfortable in the environment of rope work and be physically fit (jugging up Malham is pretty exhausting) but I’d like to think it isn’t anywhere near as bad as doing the climbing. Filming ‘Esoterica’ (the Hard XS chapter dealing with ‘character building’ Peakland routes) was a bit bonkers because there was only me and it was a race against time, so to get angles I had to be pretty up for wondering around the crags solo. In Cheedale I got in to a horrible situation where I couldn’t reverse some of the climbing I’d done and had to climb further and further up (this is why there is a nice shot of Shane [Ohly] at the top belay, I literally had to get up there with him so I could abb off).

I always treat Scotland with a lot of respect because I’m so skinny and know I can’t take the cold which is why Ben nearly got hypothermia because I made sure I did the filming in the lee of the wind.

In general though Ben makes sure we look after ourselves.

The film is very much a joint production between you and Ben Pritchard. How did you split the workload and the creative direction? Are you still speaking after finishing such a stressful task? What was the best experience about tackling a film like this – and the worst?

I think in lots of ways I’m the more forceful character of the two of us. (Hard XS would have been ‘Hard Grit 2’ if I hadn’t said no (but that was because I’d already done Grit) but it can work both ways. Because there is only the two of us, saying no is like having a veto. But you have to be aware of that power. In many cases in this collection one of us has been the driving force of a particular short while the other is supportive in the background. Ben didn’t really want to go to Scotland but came regardless, likewise I’ve not been into the grit [recently] but helped get another angle on ‘The Zone’. Ben didn’t want to do ‘Esoterica’ but I did it anyway. It’s give and take - or fall apart.

In the past I have done the bulk of the editing and carrying the production to the finishing line. It couldn’t happen with this, I would have resented it, so Ben had to take on four films and do the editing. And I think he’s done a good job. The most stressful part is saying ‘there, that’s it, done’, because it is the moment when all your insecurities come to a head. Is it really any good? Will anyone like it? It was important that Ben shared that burden on this one. That said, Ben is a bit more ‘techie’ than me and so has been doing the DVD build and compressions and generally pushing the standard of the final look - while I’m more focused on ‘stories’ (if you can call them that).

One of the distinctive things about Hard XS compared to many recent climbing films is the way incidental music is used in a much less obtrusive way and clearly for a specific purpose, to enhance a mood or to build tension. There is a noticeable emphasis on natural background noise. In addition you’ve eschewed the use of a narrator and simply let the climbers tell their stories, explain their emotions and motivations. This seems like a deliberate attempt to inject more ‘authenticity’ into climbing film, or am I reading too much into your methods? Overall, do you think that a lot of contemporary Mountain Film has become a bit too glossy and over-produced?

With regards to the style of the finished films I think it came quite naturally out of both of us. We are in tune on that front. The ambience, atmosphere, stripped down feel of the films is a reflection of our personality and our relationship with climbing. We’re not too ‘in your face’ - so neither are our films.

We were both very keen to not have a voice over, the films were to be about the climbers and not about our interpretation or take on things. We didn’t want to hype things even if it meant viewers might have to work hard to understand the danger or difficulty on show. It does make the editing harder because voice-over is often used as a fall back to help bump the narrative along, but I like that challenge of working without it and, as you suggest, it makes it genuine.

It’s important there is as little of Ben and me in the film as possible. I absolutely hate films where reference is made to the camera and the difficulty of filming. ‘To Hell and Back’ was terrible for this (The recent Triple Echo/BBC Scotland documentary featuring Dave MacLeod’s new Cairngorm E10), so was ‘Rock Queen’ (Chris Lister and Jim Curran’s 1999 film about Catherine Destivelle). That’s really my only gripe with other climbing films (contemporary or not). I think there is room for various takes. There is a lot of good stuff around -‘Your Himalaya’ – for example, is astonishing (Alberto Iñurrategi’s Banff and Kendal award-winning film about the loss of his climbing brother and the motivation for high altitude mountaineering). I wouldn’t expect everyone to appreciate what we do, it could quite easily be viewed as laboured and dull.

But I for one, love ‘The Real Thing’ (the 1996 Ben Moon/Jerry Moffat bouldering vehicle) which is deemed to be a prime example of what you are talking about.

Slackjaw climbing films always seem rather unique, it’s hard to pin down any influences from other Mountain Film makers. Do you take your cues from any other styles of film? What kind of movies/documentaries/TV (or other art forms) really inspire or influence the way you go about doing the business?

Because I’ve climbed and known what it feels like to climb, what there is to love about it and the people, I’ve only ever wanted our films to be honest to that. I wouldn’t say I’ve used any other films as a source or inspiration, it’s just that slowly over the years with succeeding and failing to make films I’ve realised what interests me and what feels right. So making films has become based a bit more on instinct than conventions.

I remember when we were going out to do the Salathé film we had a production meeting where I said what I wanted and we used a few films as references. The main one was Fred Pedula’s ‘El Capitan’. We set out to make that but where you also got to meet the climbers. Ben brought a lot to that film in that he said nothing just filmed and in a way that became a jumping off point to our aesthetic.

I love TV and film. I can still get blown away by stuff. Spellbound, Capturing the Friedmans, An American Movie… I wouldn’t say they were influences per se, more like styles I admire. I can’t imagine making anything as good as any of them.

You must get sick of people referring to Hard Grit - so here we go again. After Hard Grit came out it encouraged a wave of enthusiasm for Head-pointing and Grit became super-sexy once again. Despite this, amazingly, to paraphrase Steve Coogan’s swimming pool security guard character, ‘No-one died’. Do you see Hard XS having the same effect? Will hordes of people be flinging themselves at Breakaway, bracing themselves against chalk avalanches at Beachy Head, or squirming along the Ravenstones Stomach Traverse?

I strongly doubt whether Hard XS is going to have a similar effect on climbing culture. I know from my own perspective that making Hard XS has made me realise how myopic my own climbing experiences in the UK have been, that I really must get out a bit more. And I guess that is the best we can hope, that people watch the collection of films we’ve produced and feel re-energised to go and venture a little further in to what has to be one of the richest climbing cultures in the world.

I think those are some of the best climbing films, the ones that make you want to get out there and do it. I remember watching Rhys’s Winter Sessions (Rhys Crabtree’s Peak bouldering film of 2006) and instantly wanting to go out to the crag. Marvellous.

Bundled with Hard XS is Suffering Andy, a highly amusing and insightful ‘road trip’ documentary made while shadowing Andy Kirkpatrick on a slide-show and climbing tour of Scotland which successfully captures the character of the guy. This is quite a different style of film to Hard XS, more conventional in its narrative, although distinctively jammed full of the quirky humour and observation we’ve come to expect from a Slackjaw production. You also appear on camera quite a lot of the time, usually having the piss benignly taken out of you by a grinning Kirkpatrick. Do you feel comfortable on the other side of the lens, or are you an ‘observer’ at heart?

I was somewhat hoodwinked in to appearing in Suffering Andy…

I can’t remember now how it came about but we’d agreed at very short notice to go with Andy on this tour and film. He had said that he was going with someone or was meeting someone up in Scotland. About an hour before we left it became apparent that nothing like that was going to happen. There was a lot of uncertainty as to whether he would have someone to climb with at all. It was obvious that either me or Ben was going to have to climb with him and Ben was more resistant than me to being the gimp at the end of the rope.

In lots of ways this ended out working to our advantage. Quite often Ben and I don’t take on roles and things can be unfocused but in this Ben had to film so I had to direct.

I spent the whole journey to Scotland (about 7 hrs) chatting to Andy in the front about everything and anything and then over the next five or six days the challenge was to get him to repeat the most interesting things while the camera was rolling.

We suffered a bit from there being great sunny weather and not really catching Andy in full epic mode but generally I’m really pleased with the film.

Finally, you told On the Edge interviewer Alex Cox back in 2002 that Blood, Sweat and Bagels was ‘the best film I will ever make’. Do you still feel like that after Hard XS?

You’ll really have to ask me this in a few years because I have lived with Hard XS so much recently I can see little joy in it!

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