Free Flyers is a new 60-minute film featuring some of Utah’s most iconic flying sites. Starring some local and international hang gliding legends, it was made by pro filmmaker Tony Ritter. A hang gliding road movie, it also features the battle to save Point of the Mountain, one of the best free flight sites in the USA. Tony Ritter explains how he came to make Free Flyers:
If you asked me that one day I would be standing on a cliff in Moab filming a hang gliding movie, I would have laughed. This crazy adventure started two years ago when I was making a Western movie and a fellow researcher sent me a link to a video of a guy BASE jumping from a gondola in the foggy mountains of China.
My friend’s email read “Avatar has nothing on these guys” and he was right. When I saw that video I knew that’s what I wanted to do, fly.
I contacted the wing suit pilot from the video and we met at a dingy bar in Southern California. As we talked, I discovered that he made a film about Base jumping and wanted to sell it. I had some leads though my business dealings with Hollywood executives so we gave it a shot through them.
We both quickly found out that Hollywood doesn’t like sports but rather caters to exploited stupidity, so we both abandoned that idea and my new friend took his movie to a smaller distributor himself.
That movie is called, Birdmen: The Original Dream of Flight and my new friend was Matt Gerdes who eventually co-founded Squirrel.
I now had a great mentor but I had some issues, I’m way out of shape and climbing mountains all day was not an option right now. I asked if there was a way I could fly up the mountain instead.
Matt told me to try paragliding or hang gliding to use thermals for lift so I looked up my nearest instructor. I found a guy named John Heiney and started my hang glider training.
I was now under the guidance of two top pilots from the free flying community and ready to take on anything.
Being a film maker first, my instinct was to attach a camera so I can film from the air as well as the ground. I wanted to get a new perspective of BASE jumping from another camera angle.
Designing a new hand controlled camera mount was next but that all stopped when my instructor took a trip to Utah for a month. Before John left, he told me I should bring a tent and come along to train at the famous “South Side” of the Point of the Mountain in Draper, Utah. I grabbed my camera gear and sleeping bag then embarked on a journey with no expectations.
The first day we arrived in Salt Lake City, Nightline News was shooting a segment about a mining company removing the Point of Mountain flying site. ABC eventually used some of my video I shot that day and I now had a story arc for my own video or short movie if I wanted.
We eventually toured central Utah and I didn’t set my camera down for the next 24 days. When the trip ended, I had over 50 hours of footage to edit and a full movie with a range of pilots making cameo appearances. I released my movie January 2014 called Free Flyers. Flying and filming was now becoming a reality thanks to my new friends of a feather.
Watch a preview and download online ($2.75 to rent)
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