All smiles in Vermont.

One year after the first Tough Mudder New England, I was back Mount Snow, Vermont, for  the latest event. The slightly sadistic course designers over at Tough Mudder know how to get the best out of an array of ski slopes. Difficult course.

On Saturday I was pulling double duty – covering the event as a whole, as usual, and also following and photographing “Team Frado” – a team of around 20 reality TV stars running the course for charity. Mostly people from Biggest Loser, Big Brother, some others. The only person I’d heard of (but wouldn’t have recognized) was Richard Hatch, winner of the first season of Survivor. Unfortunately I can’t show those pictures now, but hopefully they’ll end up somewhere and I’ll link to it.

As I was photographing the 8:00AM start wave (the first of the day), I saw a familiar face in the front.

It was Junyong Pak, the winner of the first-ever World’s Toughest Mudder competition in late last year. Pak beat out around 1,000 other racers by completing 7 laps of a Tough Mudder course over a 24-hour period in New Jersey. In December.

Later on I heard over the walkie that Pak was leading the heat, and eventually that he was the top finisher, completing the course in just under 2 hours. About an hour later I was photographing the 11AM start wave. Normally I’m deep into the course by this time, but the reality people were starting at this hour. A familiar face caught my eye again.

Yep, there was Pak, one hour after finishing a grueling Tough Mudder in record time, about to run it again, wearing a wig, a dress, and his World’s Toughest Mudder bib. Don’t know he did his second time around, but I did see him lose his wig to the Arctic Enema obstacle (dumpster-full-of-ice).

I was pretty happy to “catch” Pak, so I couldn’t resist doing this time-stamped diptych when I was culling for the Facebook gallery:

Without further ado, here are a few more highlights from the weekend.

Saturday was Cinco de Mayo, a fact that I remembered about 2 hours into the day. During those 2 hours, I kept thinking, “why are New Englanders so obsessed with sombreros”?
Those climbs were brutal. I’ve found it’s kind of difficult to capture apparent steepness on camera. I will keep trying.I liked this part of the course. I don’t think it was even officially an obstacle, but this steep, slippery descent through rocky woods was very treacherous.I think this man was 50 years old.Another proposal!From the Facebook photos, it came out that these 4 ladies are the man’s daughters.

I’ve seen Mudders carry talismans through the course before, but this was magical.

I don’t know how he and the Hoff got on, but I hear that framed picture inspired many a Mudder out in those woods.

On a day that started at 28 degrees, jumping into blue ice water seemed an especially bad idea. Especially if it makes you look like a blueberry. Or a smurf?

There was an overzealous Marine on Walk The Plank (“Get off my obstacle!”). Can’t fault his efficiency, though. He cleared the hell out of that platform.

The electricity was most certainly “on.”

Nacho Libre was in the house.

As was Princess Peach. Superman just looked on, doing nothing.

I think this captures the claustrophobic re-entry into Boa Constrictor nicely.

Another first: some sort of piggyback IT department made it through the entire course.

Re-imagined acronyms.

As ever, the hardest-earned headband anywhere.

Post-faceplant headshot.

And, finally, A PROPOSAL AT THE FINISH LINE.

She said yes!!

Many more of my photos from today’s event are on Tough Mudder’s Facebook page.

Until tomorrow.

The rope method didn’t work.

“Old Nasty” tried several times, unsuccessfully, to sprint up the incline and leap to grab the hands extended down to him. Each time he missed, smashed into the wall, and slid down.

Old Nasty didn’t give up. And finally he was able to reach a helping hand. And then this happened.

Old Nasty, you made my day.

Arctic Enema was up to its usual, florescent-colored, ice-watery tricks.

Ohioans have some swagger. This is swagger, right?

The quarry! It’s actually kind of beautiful.

The quarry also allowed for the highest Walk The Plank I’ve ever seen. I don’t love heights, and I loved this less than usual. One of these days a Mudder will push me in, I know it.

There were a couple of honey badgers.Did I mention it used to be a quarry? The parking lot was miles away at the old Ford plant.

Probably my favorite shot of the day.

Everest.

I love that you can see the look in his eyes. A look that says “why the hell did I just flip over please don’t drop me ok”.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Oh yeah, it rained a bunch.

In fact, I spent a large part of the day looking like a garden gnome:

Back to the Mudders. They’re graceful!

These kids were asking for it. Literally, they stood next to a mud puddle and yelled “Dive!” every time someone ran by.

Many obliged.I loves me a good Mudder headshot.

And I will leave you with these 2 gentlemen.

Looking forward to Sunday!

The full set of photos is on Tough Mudder’s Facebook page. Lots more good stuff.

First off, San Francisco Magazine ran a story about the group trend in fitness that used four of my photos from Tough Mudder NorCal, including the double-page spread that opens the piece.

Next, I shot another portrait for the Bike Style section of Momentum Magazine. This time the subject was Susi Wunsch, who runs the cycling blog Velojoy.

Finally, last year I did a shoot for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, in the middle of cherry blossom season. We shot all kinds of scenes depicting real visitors enjoying the garden. They’re now using one of the photos in their brochures and mailers. I got one last week:

That’s it for now. Hopefully more are on the way…

By day 5 I was more into the swing of things. One constant in my Sundance experience is that I usually had no prior knowledge of what I would be shooting from day to day. Once you know this, you accept it, and it doesn’t stress you out anymore. The first assignment of day 5 was to follow my already familiar video crew on another “My Premiere” shoot – this time with brother directing team of David and Nathan Zellner. The Austin-based brothers were premiering their new movie KID-THING (their second at Sundance), starring first-timer 12-year-old actress Sydney Aguirre. Instead of meeting the directors at a restaurant or a condo, this time the filmmakers came to the Sundance Channel HQ to do some interviews before we would give them a ride to the premiere. Just that morning, the New York Times ran a piece on the brothers, and they were both excited and nervous to present their new feature at the festival. In many ways, they personify what Sundance is meant to be about – even after some initial success they didn’t head off to Hollywood but instead chose to stay in their native Austin and keep producing shorts and features locally, often with the help of their father, who provided garage space and set construction skills.

The directors David Zellner (left), Nathan Zellner, and their star, Sydney Aguirre

Yep, she's a kid

By this time I’d met my share of actors/filmmakers who’d been on the film festival ride a few times – a little jaded, a little too cool for school. So it was refreshing to meet Sydney, a kid who not only attending a film festival for the first time, but acting in a feature for the first time – a film that features her pretty exclusively. She was enjoying everything  – the travel, the celebrities, the interviews, the swag — in a wide-eyed way. She’s also just getting into photography, so I let her try out my Fuji X100. And struck a flattering pose:

Mac and cheese was for lunch.

There was some time to kill before we would head off to the premiere, so I went next door to see what was up in the studio. Oh, it was just Kirsten Dunst and Lizzy Caplan, talking about their Sundance feature, The Bachelorette.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAADIES.

Before too long it was time to head to the premiere, at the Prospetor Square Theater.

David and Nathan’s dad was there to greet us with tickets.

It’s a funny transition – hanging out with people for an hour and getting to know them in a rather casual environment, taking some candid photos, and then a few minutes later getting to the theater and suddenly doing the whole red carpet thing.

Sydney, who has a Hispanic background but doesn’t speak much Spanish, was interviewed by a hilarious mugging Univision reporter who asked every question in a rapid-fire way, first in Spanish then immediately in English.

Once again, I would have loved to stay and watch the film but as usual the theater was completely sold out. So we headed back to HQ for a quick break before returning to cover the aftermath. The film seemed pretty well-received, and even the the Q and A was enjoyable, largely because it was unexpectedly dominated by a 6 year-old boy in the audience who kept asking about the character’s motivations, with many follow-ups.

Here’s the final My Premiere video piece from this day:

Back to HQ, which was hosting it’s daily happy hour.

And, for some reason, David Blaine was doing card tricks at the bar.

I was a foot away and still didn’t see when he stole a woman’s watch. Seriously amazing.

So by early evening, it had already been a pretty solid day. Then I got my next assignment – covering the premiere party for the cast and producers of “Sleepwalk With Me”, the film version of the one man show by Mike Birbiglia, whom I’d heard many times on This American Life. The party was being held at Bing Bar, a Main St locale distinguished by having about 10 burly bouncers outside seemingly at all times. For the first time in my life, I was “on the list.” Joining me at the party was Celia, a Sundance web producer who normally didn’t get to venture out on these events, who tonight was tasked with grabbing a video interview with Birbiglia. After breaching the phalanx of bouncers, we were pleased to find Bing Bar to be pleasant, non-douchey, and rather empty.

By this point I was pretty inured to the initial shock of seeing famous people all over (having been thrown into the deep end with Redford on my frist day), but when Marc Maron and Ira Glass walked in, I had my first and only geek-out fan moment of the week.

Ira Glass arrives. I poop my pants a little.

Ira Glass, Marc Maron, and Mike Birbiglia

Marc Maron. Check the "WTF" ring!

So after doing my duty with the “red carpet” shots, I put on my fan-hat, handed my camera to Celia and got these all-important souvenirs.

Thanks to Celia, my photog-on-the-spot.

As you can see by now, this party was a public radio listener’s wet dream, attended by the kind of people who get really excited when Alia Shawkat shows up.

Paul Giamatti arrived sporting a hinterland beard

And let's not forget the coat check girls.

Day 5 was a good day.

My other Sundance posts.

I spent the weekend in Temecula, CA shooting both days of Tough Mudder SoCal (the first of two such events this year) at Vail Lake Resort. A beautiful site with beautiful California weather. The 11.5 mile course was very spread out. A golf cart would have been useful. I had something much better:

Here’s a quick video I shot while driving this bad boy along the course. You’re not on drugs – that weird distortion is YouTube’s native camera shake correction. Not sure it’s an improvement over the shaky original.

Enjoy the photos, and check out the full gallery on Google +.

I got to Sundance Channel HQ and peeked into the studio to see who was coming in for interviews. I wasn’t disappointed – the cast of the new movie Wasted were getting ready for a chat. And what a cast, including Aaron Paul (Jessie from Breaking Bad), Nick Offerman (Ron Fucking Swanson!), and Megan Mullally (Tammy Two!), among others. My colleague Matt had the pre- and post-interview photos covered, but I couldn’t resist going in a snapping a few myself. It didn’t hurt that Offerman was wearing an amazing hat.

Good people. My first real assignment of the day was another “My Premiere” piece with the video crew. This time we’d be trailing director Michael Mohan, whose film “Save the Date” was premiering that afternoon. It was his third year running at Sundance, and this film was already getting good buzz, largely thanks to the great cast. Unlike the previous day’s “My Premiere”, there was no big cast party or snowy drive to the premiere. We met Michael in a rented condo just blocks from the Library Theater. Michael was extremely sweet and welcoming, even as he was nervously trying to nail down the opening remarks he’d have to make in an hour or so. We hung around and did some taping (and I shot some stills) while he made some notes and practiced in front of our camera.

We all knew he had nothing to worry about – his badass wooden tie would carry him through any rough patches. Since we were so close to the theater, Michael and friends trudged through the snow on the way to the premiere.

 He was met by family and friends outside the theater, and then it was time to head into the press tent for some red carpet action. The cast of Save the Date turned out to be stacked with quality people like Lizzy Caplan, Alison Brie, Martin Starr, and Geoffrey Arend, among others.

It was time to head up to the premiere.

The theater was so packed, there would be no sneaking in to watch the movie this time. So we left our director and cast inside and chilled until it was time to come back for the Q&A.

Love Sundance footwear

While outside, the common man languished.

Job done, we headed back to Sundance HQ. I had a couple of hours before my next official shoot, so I hit Main Street for some more street style shots.

Hang on a sec, who’s this handsome fellow? Why, it’s Michael K. Williams, aka Omar from the Wire. Just gettin’ his shop on out on Main Street.

With that done, it was time to run to my next engagement – the after-party for Josh Radnor’s new film, “Liberal Arts”, starring himself and last year’s Sundance darling Lizzie Olsen. Another great cast which, in addition to Radnor and Olsen, included Richard Jenkins and Allison Janney. More press lines! Stand next to that wall, while I take your photo with direct flash!

Lizzie Olsen

Richard Jenkins

Allison Janney

Director and star Josh Radnor

The red carpet formalities over, it was time to head into the party. Which had some awesome food and an open bar, of course.

All kinds of deliciousness

Thanks, Chase Sapphire!

No joke, the DJ was one of the kids from “Malcolm in the Middle”

Surprise performer Jason Mraz

The evening even included a surprise set by musician Jason Mraz. Even more interestingly, I learned that Richard Jenkins seems to be one of his biggest fans. And that’s how this video came to be (my first film at Sundance!):

Vanity Fair may have gotten the story, but I got the video.

Day 4 was a good day.

But the first assignment of the day was to accompany a small film crew (field producer, cameraman, and 2 PAs) to cover the annual Directors’ Brunch, hosted by my nemesis from the previous day, Robert Redford.

Each year the brunch is held at Redford’s Sundance Resort, which is in a remote and beautiful mountainside area about 45 minutes away from Park City. All filmmakers who have movies at Sundance are invited, the idea being for directors to relax and mingle away from the  pressure and dealmaking that characterize Park City during the festival.

The snow had already begun to fall when we set out, with a forecast of much more projected for the rest of the day. The filmmakers arrived from Park City in 3 separate busloads. Each group arrived with more snow on them than the last.

The last group was pretty late. When they finally arrived, we found out that all the directors had to move to the back of the bus to distribute the weight and help the bus up the mountain.

Marina Abramović, who is the subject of a documentary at Sundance

Overall it was a really nice, relaxed atmosphere. In between shooting, I got to chat with some directors and other festival attendees. Everyone seemed really happy to be there. I also made a fun discovery: directors LOVE my Fuji X100. While I did most of my shooting with my Canons, the little retro Fuji was usually around my neck for behind the scenes stuff, close-ups (like the shot of the bagels above), etc. More than a few directors made a beeline toward me when they spotted the camera. “What kind of camera is that?” “Is that a Leica?” Serious director bait. Even if I hadn’t shot a single frame with it, bringing the Fuji was worth it just for the icebreakers.

After a couple of hours, Robert Redford turned up and took the podium.

He made some interesting remarks about the history of the festival and of the Sundance Resort, where the brunch was taking place. He bought the land in 1969 for $500, and considers everything that goes on in Park City to be an important but ultimately peripheral component of the mission of Sundance, which is to find and develop new filmmaking talent. After his speech, he stuck around for a few minutes to meet and greet starry-eyed attendees.

Here’s the piece that the crew I was tagging along with produced:

It was time to drive back to Park City, but we got word that the snowstorm had forced some road closings. The roads were slowly being cleared, but there was no point in rushing. I snapped a quick photo of our crew while we awaited traffic updates:

Left to right: Cameraman Matt, PA Dane, field producer Lisa, and PA Vanessa

Finally we decided to start heading back, knowing that it would take us closer to 2 hours, and not the 45 minutes it normally takes. Fortunately our vehicle was Vanessa’s sisters Subaru. We drove slow and were treated to some breathtaking vistas as we left the Sundance Resort.

By the time we got back to Park City it was late afternoon. The city was transformed and the snow kept falling.

There wasn’t much downtime to enjoy. Our evening assignment was to produce a “My Premiere” segment — basically, a video diary piece that follows a director of a film premiering at Sundance on the day of their premiere. I’d be going with producer Lisa again to shoot stills while they shot video. Our subject was Rick Alverson, director of “The Comedy”, an un-comedic look at aging hipsters in Williamsburg starring, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (of Tim & Eric) and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem, among others.

We met up with Rick at the cast’s pre-premiere dinner. There wasn’t much to shoot, so I grabbed a few candids while the video crew got Rick talking to camera and we retired back to our two cars.

Rick Alverson

The plan was to give Rick and his girlfriend a ride to the premiere, and possibly do the same for some cast members, as the snow that blanketed Park City earlier was still falling. That’s when producer Lisa came by and told us that we’d be taking Tim and Eric to the premiere in our minivan. They piled in with their dates. It was a tight squeeze but a fun and surreal ride.

The snowstorm was only getting worse. We hurried out of the car and into the media tent for some red carpet action.

Tim Heidecker

Eric Wareheim

Tim and Eric

James Murphy

We followed the cast all the way into the theater to shoot their opening remarks, after which we were supposed to leave and await the end of the movie to go back in and shoot the Q&A. That meant an hour and a half of doing nothing or… maybe just slip into that empty seat at the back of the theater, stuff my cameras under the chair, and wait for the lights to go down. And that’s how I saw my first (and only) movie at Sundance. I really got away with one there, since I later heard first-hand stories of directors and actors being barred entry to their own premieres without a ticket. I didn’t love the movie, much of which was shot in my neighborhood of Greenpoint, but I enjoyed the experience immensely. After the credits had rolled, I got to see first-hand that most awkward of film festival spectacles: the post-movie Q&A session. And that was it. A relatively light 12 hour day, compared to the 16-hour marathon that was day 2.

Here’s the My Premiere video from that evening:

And here are my galleries from the Directors’ Brunch and The Comedy premiere on the Sundance Channel website.

Thanks for reading! You can check out my other Sundance posts here.