Adrian Moat Shoots Death-Defying 'Stunts' For Pirelli

Picture the scene: Two skiers stand atop a steep, snow-capped cliff face. They shoot down a dangerous corridor of jagged rock formations, darting from side-to-side to manage their descent. Suddenly, the wintery floor below them ends, plunging them into an immediate and deadly fall to the earth. What's more, a thundering 4x4 is revealed to be behind them, itself launched towards the ground in a terminal plummet. As if by magic, parachutes are pulled on men and vehicle alike, allowing for a gentle landing and continuation of their journey. Phew! It may sound like the thrilling climax of a Hollywood blockbuster, but instead the thrill ride described can be found in the exhilarating, award-winning film 'Stunts' for Pirelli.

Directed by RSA's Adrian Moat, and shot through Filmmaster Milan, the film was the culmination of an extraordinary 14-day shoot, the lion's share of which took place in Baffin Island, Sam Ford Fjord, Nunavut, Canada – a location around 9hr (by sledge!) from the nearest town, Clyde River. Drafting in the talents of Camp4Collective, the production facility for the filming unit, locations and stunt team, the shoot had to incorporate extraordinary feats (including a triple ski base jump) in extraordinary conditions. Indeed, due to adverse weather conditions everywhere, the helicopter booked to ferry crew to the base camp and to fly stunt team to the top of the mountain never made it to location, meaning the stunt and climbing crew had to scale for 7-8 hours per day to get to the lofty location in order to film the descent that took minutes!

We were dazzled by the film as it picked up a Gold during last week's British Arrows Awards, so sat down with director Adrian Moat to discuss the complications of the shoot, the audacity of the idea and the execution of the stunts.



How did you get involved with the project? Did you have much control over the creative concept.

The project came to me through RSA Films and our Italian connections, Filmmaster Milan and M&C Saatchi. The script was there right from the start; the fact that we never see the car until it goes over the edge, and that it should be authentic on a level that could compete with the extreme sports communities. We had all seen these amazing base jumps on You Tube that people like JT Holmes and co. were capable of and we wanted to make a film that had that genuine sense of experience at the heart of it. The script was always about a very realistic set up then an immersion in speed before the reveal of the idea. My immediate feeling was that this was going to be an event not just a commercial and that it needed to be as real as we could make it. When we then spotted a location so perfect for our story and a team that could actually pull off a stunt like this, everyone clients and all got very excited at the prospect.

Where was the shoot? How did you source the location?

At the time of year we wanted to shoot and for such a specific activity demanding a particular kind of landscape, 'Baffin Island', Nunavut, Canada, out in the first reaches of the Arctic Circle, was not only a ski base jumpers dream but a landscape beyond imagination. Of all places to be right this looked amazing; it had the couloirs for the opening sequence, the glaciers for the run up, and the one-mile drop to the vast frozen ocean as our landing floor, we all knew that if we were to make it happen there then it would be spectacular.



What was the team you put together for the shoot? Had you worked with them before?

Jimmy Chin and' Camp 4 Collective' had recently been in the office of Scott Free talking to Tony himself about what they were up to, about Jimmy's amazing expeditionary films and photography with National Geographic and North Face etc. So we were introduced and Jimmy then put together an expert group of people to pull this off. A three-way ski base jump was something that had never been done before, so even amongst the extreme communities this was a very attractive challenge, even more so to get to do it in the Mecca of all, Baffin Island. So I think we attracted, through Jimmy's expertise, a very tough fibred crew and talent that were highly capable and willing to give their all, high on the spirits of just doing what they love most.

Did you encounter any major problems on the shoot? Are taxing issues anticipated at such an extreme location, or did it anything come as a nasty surprise?

My biggest fear was Polar bears, it took me more than a few nights on the ice to be able to put that out of my head. Especially as they had paid a visit to a couple of Swiss Expeditioneers we had met on our way out to the location that were camping not so far away from us. Then the local Inuit guys showed me footprints less than half a mile from our camp and I lost a lot of sleep over that those first few nights. The toilet was interesting, aroma-less as everything is frozen almost as quick as it comes out. But no nasty surprises as it were, our biggest problem was the lack of helicopter not just to shoot from but as an access platform and major mechanic of planning and executing the jump.



You shot the film on a variety of different cameras (GoPro, Red, etc) and in a few different stages. Were you ever worried about if the footage would cut together? Was the change in look between cameras part of the aesthetic?

We wanted an authentic view and to make an experiential film, that meant using different formats for different kinds of access to the action: we used the immersive views of the gopros that 'put the viewer in the picture' while the quality and detail of the RED with a nice long lens optic nails the opening of the Pirelli parachute with some cinematic power, then there are all the composite elements, shot with the RED, for the end sequence and the car itself in the air. We brought all formats together in the grading with a singular and slightly de-saturated look and gave everything the same texture to hold it all together, with the Gopro feel at the heart of the drama to make the audience truly believe in the action. In terms of aesthetic it was never the idea to shoot slow motion or to glamorise the opening sequences but we wanted a slight change in feeling after the experience of the jump itself, where we use the Red and our Optimo lens at 120 fps to give some grace to the opening of the Pirelli parachute and that amazing detail on JT Holmes in flight.

How did you plan for the reveal of the car in the film? Did you always see that as the 'money shot', as it were? Was there ever an idea to reveal it earlier?

There was never a plan to see the car before it left the edge, although if you look very carefully you can see a wheel buried in the early part of the cut and a windscreen wiper foreground to one of the POV's. The 'money shot' was always the leap and we all saw that as the POV of the car rather than a some kind of "Thelma and Louise' classic. The plan was to set up what felt like a YouTube clip of two guys dropping off a mountain followed by a third, then revealing the third view as that of a car once over the edge, for the drama to come from the surprising leap into the vast abyss, for a massive pregnant pause where you just go 'Oh My God!" … and then reveal the car as the third man. This was the plan right from the start, but what we didn't imagine was the amount of time these guys were going to stay in the air. The boys were in flight for 21 seconds before they popped their chutes and the dramatic roll that Timy Dutton made inches underneath JT Holmes was breath-taking. That aspect of the narrative developed as we saw how much action potential we had in the sky and we were able to then choreograph the car to play into the fall itself, extending the story and further endorsing the Pirelli notion that 'Power is Nothing…without Control' with such sharp and articulate aerobatics.



The moment of the ski-base-jump… how anxious were you? We can anticipate a few squeaky-bum moments.

I can honestly say I said prayers and wondered for a moment whether it was all worth it. It was quite a surreal afternoon for me as I was tethered to my binoculars and my radio a mile below on the ice while the crew spent 23 hours climbing the back of the mountain accessing by skis up a glacier to the ledge, then setting up and then executing the leap. Meanwhile the local Inuit guys, 'Levi' and his boys, whipped me up an Igloo as my radio headquarters and I waited there for hours with Jimmy keeping me informed of progress. The Inuit guys are fascinated with the whole base-jumping scene and are well accustomed to it with their binoculars and hot tea, arctic char and biscuits, we watched together into the daylight-night from our igloo as the boys built the ramp and set the jump.

As the chopper never arrived this was always going to be a one off event, so this was it … in the perfect eternal dawn light … the countdown came from 6 minutes, then 2 minutes, then 30 seconds then…from my view I completely missed them coming off the top they were so far away. I only realised they had gone when I heard them shrieking and saw their parachutes popping, so I ran with my 5D and caught the landing and the spirit of the end sequence, I was breathing so heavy I just landed the camera on the ice, focussed, and left it running. I hardly knew what to say to Timy and Jesse and JT Holmes, they were fully wired and I had a gushing sense of relief.

Tell me you had the opening scene of 'The Spy Who Loved Me' in your head whilst prepping the film.

Yes exactly! And that jump was also made in Baffin Island all those years ago. Not quite in our exact location but very close nearby.



Would you do anything differently if you were to do a shoot like this again?

Not to ask my talent for "Maximum Impact" on a job like this! Learn to ski and to climb so I can access areas that were otherwise inaccessible without proper experience. There is newer technology now; octocopters, the Hero3 and little cameras that shoot HD with mountable prime lenses for example that could combine very nicely with the Gopro that is restricted by its lens. There is the question of the helicopter of course, which never made it to our shoot: we envisaged during pre-production that the helicopter was an essential mechanic in the whole exercise, for scouting the location, for ferrying in the jumpers from the bottom to the top, for taking the gear up the mountain and as our cineflex shooting platform in the air. None of that happened, although we had near perfect conditions on Sam Ford Fjord the helicopter was bound in by weather nearly 1000 kms away, distances are vast out in the final reaches of civilisation and nothing was guaranteed, it had taken us several flights north and a 10 hour skidoo ride to get to our camp so we were very isolated.

The most remarkable thing about the job became the raw spirit in the crew to WANT to pull it off without a helicopter, to climb the mountains with all the gear (including a RED, a 24-290 Optimo lens, an fs100, legs and heads, Canon 5d's along with batteries, sustenance, safety and all manner of kit for the skiers and mountaineers!), set the jump and do it as a one time only, then pack up and get back down in one day! This became the objective very early on even when the helicopter was not yet out of the equation; after all we had 24 hours of daylight to play with? Looking at the scale of the landscape it seemed a mammoth task and it was the true pioneering spirit in these amazing people I was working with that made it happen, nothing was going to stop them. So I said at the end that I thought there was an authenticity about our film that had come from that attitude. That if the chopper had arrived we would have made the most extraordinary pictures with the cineflex and it would have made everything so easy, but perhaps it would have glorified our perspective and served only to plump up an otherwise raw feeling to our material.

How much work did you have to do in post?

We had choreographed the jump just perfectly with two skiers going off in front of a third so we had the action trajectory of the path of the car 'for real' in our footage. The car was then shot as a separate element in a parking lot in Toronto hanging off a crane against a big expanse of sky. From a rough offline edit we knew all our angles on the action and we could see where the car should be, so we just needed to take out the third man and replace him with the car. The car was hung on a hydraulic system with a wire going to each of its corners, allowing us to gimbal or 'fly' it against sky and we shot with a Technocrane to get our angles. We were able to make the car roll forwards and mimic the relevant motions of it in flight, its wheels still turning and wind and ice blowing from its wheel arches, while finding the exact angles to fit our footage. So post was mostly 2d flame-work rather than CGI.

The end sequence combines plates from Baffin Island with the landing and drive away shot in the parking lot with SFX ice, we used a forklift truck to land the car in front of the camera as it touches down; the tyres however are completely CGI, articulated in great detail at The Mill. My little 5D shot of the ending became a big picture as Timy Dutton had ended up on his back being dragged along the ice by his parachute after his landing, so we simply replaced him with the car and reattached his parachute for that wide shot as the car comes to rest, and painted 'Pirelli' over the chute.



The spot has an extensive and nicely made making-of film. Do you think there's an increased interest in additional content for idea-led practical shoots like this?

Yes I think people are always fascinated by the mechanics of things and especially with such a unique project where the experience itself is something of an adventure. The thing is, more and more people are shooters these days and especially in the community of climbers, skiers, mountaineers etc. On our shoot everyone was a shooter and we were all shooting constantly with 5d's mostly. So there was always going to be a back-story whether anyone wanted it or not.

The response to the film has been great, with a recent Gold win at the British Arrows. How pleased are you with the feedback?

It is fantastic to win a gold arrow and great that JT, Timy and Jesses leap has gotten noticed, it was a very intense moment for everyone. The feedback we are getting is always to want to see it again, which is a good sign, we've had nothing but 'holy epic' and 'woooaagh' and 'yipyawww so far.

What was the dream response you wanted from the audience?

I love it when someone asks how we got the car to drive off the cliff, in total belief that we did that! But the dream was always to set it up as a surprise and then blow everyone away with that leap off the mountain, for them to need to see it over again and again to believe it.



Do you enjoy working in this 'content' form? Throughout the making of you're referring to the 'story' of the piece – does a longer running time help for filmic storytelling?

I like working in all forms and like to look at mostly everything as a story however long or short, abstract or scripted. I guess the longer your running time the more story you've got if you have the content, look at TV these days, people are watching things like 'Breaking Bad' for 8 hour sittings!

What are you up to next?

Over the last couple of years I have made some interesting films for television, 'Gettysburg' for History Channel (awarded 4 Primetime Emmys) and most recently "Killing Lincoln" for the National Geographic Channel that achieved record viewership. So I have a nice balance of challenges that feed very well off each other right now, each inspires the other as I can apply my craft to advertising, documentaries and drama. I like to take on projects with authenticity at their roots, 'Pirelli' maybe be worlds away from "Killing Lincoln" but the objective in both cases was for authenticity. I'm not entirely sure what will be next, but I like true stories in particular and working with factual content. So I'm pitching away as ever, developing some longer projects with interesting writers and producers, while continuing to make great commercials and exploring the diversities of film making on as many levels as I can.

However, more than anything, I am always looking forward to the next great adventure in capturing something as off the charts as Pirelli. I think sadly the term "Nothing compares to Baffin Island' is becoming quite common to me!

That was a true 'one off'.