West Post Digital Press
Skiing Everest uses West Post as base camp for all finishing
Skiing Everest uses West Post as base camp for all finishing
Award-winning producer Les Guthman, renowned ski mountaineer Mike Marolt and West Post Digital team produce movie that changes Global perspective of ski mountaineering
Santa Monica, CA – 16th March 2009 – West Post Digital has announced completion of finishing on a jointly produced film that turned 50 hours of DV and HDV footage captured by ski mountaineers over the last decade (1998—2008) into the full-length Adventure feature Skiing Everest. The movie co-produced with veteran ski mountaineer Mike Marolt and acclaimed producer Les Guthman (Farther than the Eye Can See) previewed January 22nd at Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House where it was back by demand and screened to a packed house March 1.
Mike Marolt, ski mountaineer and co-producer of Everest comments, “West Post was not fazed by the technical issues on this project and was able to do things in the post process that other post houses had said could not be done. The overall work experience has been great and the images on screen show what CAN be done in a boutique facility with great talent.”
Skiing Everest is a feature-length HD production that takes Adventure to a new level; bringing audiences onto the pristine slopes of Mt. Everest, Shishapangma and Cho Oyu in the Himalayas; Mustagh Ata on the China-Pakistan border and Mt. Cotopaxi in Ecuador—one of the highest volcanoes in the world. The movie documents a small elite fraternity of high-altitude ski mountaineers challenging the most dangerous slopes in the world under perilous weather conditions; facing hidden crevasses and 10,000 ft. sheer face drops—carrying their skis and declining to use supplemental oxygen. Simultaneously it chronicles Aspen’s growth since 1898 and the role the Marolt family played in developing its status as a center for sports. Skiing Everest will be screened at The Explorers Club April 20, 2009 followed by a discussion with Guthman and Marolt.
“It was particularly challenging combining the recent HD footage with DV images from more than 10 years ago,” Marolt continues, “The movie audience must also consider that the images came from an extremely hostile shooting environment; some footage is from altitudes as high as 8000M making the quality of the images all the more significant.”
West Post Partner, Kenny Fields was co-editor on Skiing Everest and explains, “We took all the SD, DV and HDV footage shot by Mike (Marolt) and converted it into DVCPRO 1080 using the Apple FCP system; this allowed us to view the material in the delivery format all the way through the post process. Our Da Vinci 2K color corrector was instrumental in matching the shots from 10 year old DV cameras and current HDV cameras. The final part of the process was to output to Sony HDCAM SR tape for delivery and distribution.”
As co-producers on Skiing Everest, Fields and his West Post team were in close collaboration with Les Guthman: writer, producer, director and co-editor of the project throughout the finishing process. Guthman, a two-time Emmy nominee, has been recognized as producer of three of the “20 Best Adventure Films of All Time.”
About West Post Digital
West Post Digital is a Santa Monica, CA based post facility specializing in high def, high end finishing for television and other tape based workflow projects. www.westpostdigital.com