El-Paradiso One Year Close to Heaven Film

Recently I completed a huge year long project with the El-Paradiso mountain hut. The film is called: "One Year close to Heaven"

The project was overwhelming in many ways. I filmed at El-Paradiso for about sixteen times over the period of one year and accumulated a confusing amount of footage. The script changed so many times and it caused a huge headache. But it was not only the script that changed, also the objectives of the film changed in the course of the production.

Although it is a very interesting topic for the employees and owners of the hut the rest of the world is not really interested. The challenge was to do the magic in the editing. It took five weeks to cut this monster together. A complete overkill, but I believe the edge was found. Watch the film for now from my homepage at http://xaverwalser.subgraviti.com/ or a big quicktime download at this link.

My sincere thanks to Hans-Jörg Zingg and El-Paradiso for the opportunity to make it happen and trusting me to go all the way with the film.

Making a difference

I felt strong in my heart to make something useful for the sake of humanity. I have all the tools to my exposure and it was just a matter of time to find the right cause where I was going to spend some of my valuable time on. The thing is, the older you get the more hectic your life becomes. First, there was just yourself and wondering how many sessions a day I can be in the water surfing. Then the girlfriend came around to worry about and you thought how simple your life was before. Then she became your wife. Then the business started. Then the little Noah monster turned up taking up the last little bit of time that we had. So to have a balanced life spending enough time with the family, running a successful business, try to keep fit and spending time with friends not to become a complete isolated freak takes a fair bit of planning. Ooo yes, not to mention... you need to find some time to sleep as well.

I once learned that one should get yourself in a position where you are not just earning money to pay the bills and eat. If you can get just above that breadline to give yourself a little bit of room to move you could find so much more creativity and it could be an opportunity to give to someone in need. How cool would that be, I thought.

So finally my opportunity came along to give and this short film is the result of it. I truly hope that I could even in the smallest margin make a difference. Even if it could just touch one persons heart on the planet it was worth it. Shofar_Film

Speeding down the white faces of the Alps

Now it’s not often that I get asked to film this type of work, but when it comes around I am always up for the challenge. The job at hand was to film for a ski school on the St. Moritz mountain that will be used to market their Freestyle department via an internet commercial campaign.

It was really great fun with a full on high-speed chase following the riders down the mountain. The level of skiing was super intense and a great experience concentrating not to trash your equipment or crash into someone else as we were speeding down the white faces of the Alps. I am well pleased with the results and looking forward to start cutting it together.