03/09/2008UpsideDown Wales, Joe Brown, Outtakes

Back in Feb, just before UpsideDown Wales premiered at the Llanberis Mountain Film Festival, DMM ran a short interview with the film's 'leading man', George Smith. Despite the accolades, huge laughs and winning the Best Film Award, it was taken away to be re-jigged. Ray Saunders, who sweated blood and tears editing the project, said: "It's very similar to the original but tightened up and polished. Be sure to listen out for the sea-cliff climber song. And subsequently with a 48 min documentary style interview with the climbing legend that is Joe Brown added, the whole thing has become a double feature DVD."

Directed and produced by Ray Saunders, George Smith and Alun Hughes, the DVD can be pre-ordered from alhughes.tv for when it comes out on October 6th: in either PAL or NTSC for the States.

Over the next week or so we'll be adding a Joe Brown trailer and some outtakes from UpsideDown Wales. First up, is DMM's very own Graham Desroy on the magnificent Jerry's Roof, Font 7c. A problem he first climbed in 2005, still suffering from his 50th birthday celebrations. But most importantly to Graham, he clinched it before his son Liam, who was also trying it at the time. I guess Liam ultimately won as he's now climbing Font 8a+ and Graham's elbows are knackered!

Graham Desroy on Jerry's Roof, Llanberis Pass from ffatcamp on Vimeo.

Ray explained how the double feature came about: "After seeing the footage from when George first spoke to Joe for UpsideDown Wales, I realised it was so interesting that it was worthy of a DVD in itself. It wasn't so much an interview as a listening session. He relives his sixty year love afair with Welsh rock, recalling how he memorised the right size pebbles for chocks on particular routes and sliding down Snowdon Mountain Railway. He was a dream to edit because he's such a good story-teller."

Here is a further outtake from UpsideDown Wales. This time it's Pete Robins taking on The Boston Struggler, a George Smith E5 near Wen Zawn, accompanied by the man himself. George's idea is for Pete to effortlessly cruise the route......or is it?

The Boston Struggler from ffatcamp on Vimeo.