A Mountain to Climb
The guys release a new film with adidas TERREX and they think you might just be into it.
It’s always nice to see a film come to life. Like Dr. Frankenstein, we’ve animated a lifeless corpse made up of hard drives, Google Docs, and complimentary Biscoff cookies to make something.
What we’ve conjured up this time is called “A Mountain to Climb” and it’s a short film on Abby Hall — one of the best trail runners in the world who suffered a severe knee injury in 2023 right before she was getting ready to go tackle the most prestigious ultra trail race in the world: The UTMB.
We captured Abby’s return to sport and the start line of the 2024 UTMB through several visits to Arizona and some really raw, authentic self-captured footage from Abby. It all came together like jazz.
Stephen: Hello Ryan. Welcome to another week of our newsletter.
Ryan: Our hit newsletter. Some of you freaks can't get enough of this stuff.
SK: We’ve become a Wednesday tradition to a lot of folks and now we are beholden to them. We owe them a weekly diary of us making fools of ourselves.
RS: It does feel like the dumber we sound or more self-conscious we get about how we go about our lives, the more people will text me "this week's newsletter was great." And I suppose that says something about the Collective Human Experience: we are stupid and don't really know what we're doing. I've derailed the newsletter again. We're here to talk about something else.
SK: That’s right. We’re here to talk about the film we’ve made with Friend of the Newsletter Abby Hall. This one was a long time comin’! What should we talk about with regards to the film? What does anyone actually care about knowing?
RS: Hmm. Well. Maybe we can talk a little about patience? Or we can talk about how many people it took to make the film? We can talk about both.
SK: Patience. A virtue, no? Abby had patience with her comeback, we had patience with making this film.
RS: I think we knew we were going to make this film starting sometime in 2023. Then we started filming in February of 2024. From there we did some regular check-ins. I think it was February, May, July, August? And then the edit process took a few months. Waiting is not easy. File organization is not easy. Making sure I didn't lose all of the footage we shot and were sent was a task in itself. I suppose this is a nice time to talk about our editor.
SK: MATT CODDAIRE. I think before we dive into him specifically, I’d love to wax on something that is not really related to this film at all but more just a fun perk of our industry. We get to work with so many rad, talented people on almost every project we do and that’s the best. We saw a few of Matt’s films that really spoke to us, wrote him an email, and BANG — we’re working with him. It is something I’ve been MEDITATING on, I guess. It’s one of my favorite parts of this gig, getting to meet and work with people who make us better. You know?
RS: 100%. One thing we've really learned this year is the importance of working with people whose work you like and respect. If you're feeling stuck creatively, finding people who offer a different perspective to the work you're making will unstuck you very quickly. I don't want to speak for both of us, but heading into 2024 I think we were plagued more than usual with the question of what it is we're doing. Has our work stagnated? Have we gotten better? Have we somehow gotten worse? But working with people who are better than us, smarter than us, whatever it is, has been refreshing.
SK: It got us out of a rut. Which is just a grave with both ends kicked out.
So, back to Matt. What a guy.
RS: Matt took a year of footage, shot by 100 different people, and turned it into what you're seeing today. A miracle worker.
SK: The humble editor is underrated and underappreciated in my opinion. When you’re working with a total pro, the whole story is so clearly thought out. There’s no extra bits of fluff. This film is one of my favorites. Hang it from the rafters.
RS: Mine too, Steve. Mine too.
The other person we should talk about is Abby. A real delight to work with, and if we're speaking strictly from a filmmaking perspective, she's very good on camera. Extremely thoughtful and open, which are two things you want from the subject of a film.
SK: Usually when I speak, I’m filled with immediate regret. And almost always if I am filmed speaking and then have to watch it, I’m filled with horror. Abby is the exact opposite. She brought it every interview and her interviews aged like a fine beaujolais. She is a huge part, and I suppose the only part (?), of why this came out the way it did.
RS: Shout out to Abby. Shout out to Matt. Please watch our film.
SK: We might do this again next week but we might not because of the holidays. Just a heads up for your planning purposes 👍