Reverence Movie Pt.1 : Matt MacDuff
It’s always great to get the call to work with video production companies. It’s something that I really enjoy doing. So when I got the call to shoot stills for two segments of the upcoming Clever Bears production Reverence: A Journey Into Fear I was really stoked.
The first segment they had me out to shoot was Matt MacDuff’s segment which was being filmed in Errington, one of four small towns that make up the area where I live. I had met Matt before but only once; we crossed paths at Woodward West in Tehachapi, California a number of years ago. I was there on a winter respite photo trip with some friends and he was there living off of ramen noodle and sweeping floors to earn his riding time. At that point I think most people in the Mountain Bike world has heard of Matt but his celebrity certainly hadn’t risen to the post-pure-darkness level that we all know him as now.
One of the major challenges on film shoots (movies) is timing the weather. There’s always a lot of moving parts; filmers, athletes, equipment, are all arriving and available at different times. So when you get all of those elements aligned often times the weather is the last factor to connect the pieces. On this particular shoot we had a lofty goal, to help Matt get his vengeance on a double back flip out of an open loop; a trick that Matt had broken hi back trying just two years earlier. The trouble was, the weather was not part of the team. Was not helping. Was not doing its part. In fact it was doing everything it could to hold us up.
Claw had built a massive open loop takeoff ramp and an equally massive landing at his property, only, it had rained so much that there was no way it could be ridden. So we packed up the ramp, rented an air bag and Claw called in a favour to a local business who lent us their yard so Matt could practice. Once we got down there and got set up we managed to sneak in a short window when the rain wasn’t torrential and a serious practice session was had.
Because time is always tight on these shoots and deadlines are always looming after we managed a whole 24 hrs without rain it was time to get back to Darrens, set up the loop, dry out the run up and try our best to get the jump running well enough for Matt to carry enough speed to actually be able to get two rotations out of the ramp.
An amazing crew worked their tails off to get this thing going and once Matt was happy it was finally time to get some tires to dirt. Even Claw jumped in and learned flip no handers out of the loop, because, you know, that’s what 36 year old retired free riders do…
Eleven tries. Eleven crashes. Eleven landing fix ups. Countless yells of frustration…And then this;
Success! The worlds first double backflip out of an open loop and Matt had his revenge on a trick that broke his back. All of the hard work, all of the frustration, location changes, weather delays, run in issues, all fade away. Definitely a day of ‘work’ that I won’t soon forget. Being on hand, to help share this moment with Matt and the team was just an amazing honour. And to top it all off Matt got back up there, on the roof roll in from hell and stomped a huge flip-whip out of the ramp so that I could create what has become one of my all time favourite action sports images.
An incredible experience working on the film with these guys. I can’t say enough about how dedicated the whole team was to seeing this thing through with Matt. If you’re interested in seeing the movie have a click through the link below.
