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Meet the Man Leading Hollywood’s Charge Outdoors

jversteegh — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Robin Mounsey is the guy who keeps Hollywood survival movies honest. As a location manager, he finds remote settings for film shoots, safely shepherds everyone into and out of extreme conditions via helicopter, and then helps ensure everything looks realistic in postproduction. For decades, Mounsey has guided 100-person film crews around the Arctic and countless mountain ranges for blockbusters like and .

But none of the films he’s worked on received more buzz than , which pitted Leonardo DiCaprio against a hungry grizzly in the 19th-century wilds of the Missouri Territory. “The film was amazing because of the visuals,” Mounsey says. “I was specifically instructed to not end my search at the end of the road, but to look beyond.”

With 12 Academy Award nominations and three wins in 2016, The Revenant augured a new wave of survival movies. Since then, Mounsey has led crews into British Columbia for the plane-crash survival romance , starring Idris Elba and Kate Winslet, and to the Canadian Rockies for the filming of Alpha, an ice-age epic about an abandoned boy and a wolf. Premiering August 17, Alpha might be the most compelling wilderness adventure to come out of Hollywood since The Revenant—if the production company, the new billion-dollar-backed Studio 8, can deliver.

(Courtesy Robin Mounsey)

Mounsey, a 63-year-old native of B.C., is so in demand because he is one of the few people in the business who can find the perfect location for a film and then help you survive it. “Studios put me in a box as a location manager,” says the former Outward Bound instructor. “Really, I’m a hired gun. They hire me, and I just figure it all out.” Mounsey’s outdoor feats began during his teenage years in the 1970s. He started rock climbing in Yosemite when he was 15—buying old-school oval carabiners from Yvon Chouinard—and eventually became to do a four-pitch chimney chute up Mount Grimface, a granite wall near his childhood home in B.C. After stints as a rafting and climbing guide, park system employee, and avalanche-control consultant across North and South America, Mounsey got invited to assist on small movie projects seasonally. A much more lucrative outdoor career soon followed as Mounsey worked his way up to location scout and manager on outdoor classics like .

These days, he travels ten months out of the year to the farthest reaches, working on three or four projects at a time. “[Mounsey’s] not just a guy who brings a lot of trailers and knows how to winterize them,” says Frank Marshall, the Oscar-nominated producer of and director of Alive, which he and Mounsey worked on together in the Canadian Rockies in the early 1990s. “I can talk to him creatively, and he’ll figure out the way to do it. But when he says we have to get off the mountain, I don’t say, ‘Just one more shot!’”

Director Hany Abu-Assad had a similar experience on location for The Mountain Between Us. “Robin cares about humans,” he says. “His crew, safety, the movie, and art—he is a full human being.”

(Courtesy Robin Mounsey)

The job has changed substantially with the advent of digital camera technology. Filming digitally allows for flexibility in lower-light situations, for example. “A lot of directors of photography are choosing not to light exterior work, whereas in the past a lot of them chose to light it,” Mounsey says. Advancements in outdoor apparel have also made it easier to suit up for more extreme climes. “On everything from location scouts to shoots, I have crews who make sure that everybody dresses right. We didn’t used to have a lot of that light, compact stuff. It’s been a huge benefit.”

Still, even the best gear hasn’t made the job any easier, which Abu-Assad learned on his recent high-altitude experience with Mounsey. “When you visit for the first time, you think, ‘Oh my god, this is stunning.’ But when you later have to stand a whole day in the cold on a shoot, it’s devastating. One of the characters cries in the shower in The Mountain Between Us—that’s me, too; I did that.” Like many of the directors Mounsey works with, Abu-Assad eventually came around on the outdoors. “We do it for the beauty,” he says. “When I see the results, I don’t feel the pain anymore or the harshness, just the beauty.”

Indeed, the success of on-location filming in The Revenant and other blockbusters like Star Wars seems to have emboldened the white-shoed slicks running Tinseltown, who before might have balked at the myriad variables and unpredictable costs involved in wilderness productions. “We’re heading into more and more extreme places,” says fellow location scout Per-Henry Borch, who recently assisted a shoot in western Norway’s fjords for the newest Mission Impossible movie. “Directors and producers want locations that people haven’t seen before. The Revenant helped open their eyes to that value.”

Mounsey says that after The Revenant, he started receiving more calls about similarly ambitious projects set in the wilderness. While he had to soothe some concerns about rumors surrounding the film’s chaotic production (which he maintains are “bullshit”), the interest has made Mounsey optimistic about the future of survival films in Hollywood. Frank Marshall, for example, recently signed on to produce a film called The Longest Night, about the largest Coast Guard rescue in history. “I am drawn to stories about ordinary people in extraordinary situations,” Marshall says. And he will make sure it’s shot outside. “The movies are always magic, but the more realism you’re working with, the more magical they can be.”

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A Survival Expert Critiques Idris Elba and Kate Winslet

jversteegh — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Hollywood has a sadistic streak when it comes to the wilderness. If the industry sends its biggest stars into the woods, it usually submits them to the most horrific, bone-crunching, organ-twisting experience possible, including amputation (), bear mauling (), cannibalism (), insanity (), and poisoning (). For the silver screen, the conscience-clearing, horizon-gazing moments of Zen that most of us associate with outdoor recreation seem to be the exception (), not the rule.

This is the canon that The Mountain Between Us will join when it hits theaters on Friday. The part-survival, part-romance film was directed by and features two massive stars—Idris Elba and Kate Winslet—making it this year’s most-hyped addition to the genre. It was filmed mostly on location above 10,000 feet in British Columbia’s Purcell Mountains. The extreme environment, just west of the Canadian Rockies, made for what Abu-Assad told ��ԹϺ�� was one of the most harrowing film shoots of his career. He had a team of wilderness experts and a helicopter on hand to help him keep the cast and crew alive. But the characters’ actions on camera didn’t always adhere to best survival practices. After all, playing it safe often doesn’t make for the most riveting drama.

And riveting the movie is, if a little predictable. It opens with Winslet’s character, a hyperactive journalist, rushing home to her wedding, and Elba’s character, a stern-faced brain surgeon, headed to perform a life-saving operation. After finding out their flight from an Idaho airport is canceled, the strangers agree to split commission on a two-seater plane to get them across the Rockies to their connections. Midway through their trip, the pilot dies from a stroke, and they find themselves surviving a heart-stopping crash into Utah’s Uinta Mountains. Suddenly, they are stranded alone on a snowy peak, bruised and shaken up, fashionably if not practically garbed, and with only a few almonds and a lot of snow to suck on.

Kate Winslet and Idris Elba star in The Mountain Between Us as Dr. Ben Bass and Alex Martin, who survive a plane crash. (Kimberley French)

This is where the survival fun begins. In the interest of keeping our unlucky protagonists honest, we took a search-and-rescue expert to a screener of the film to spot-check their wilderness decision-making. Art Fortini is vice president of the and a former president of the in the San Gabriel Mountains outside Los Angeles. Here’s what he has to say about how Winslet and Elba fared. (Spoiler Alert: the movie's plot is discussed in depth below.)

Formulate a Plan

After surviving the crash, our two heroes start smart. “You want to formulate a plan. Don’t just run off,” says Fortini. “Take stock of your situation, the equipment you have, and where you are.” It’s no surprise that Elba’s steely surgeon character knows this. He immediately and ably tends to an unconscious Winslet’s busted leg, assesses their bleak surroundings, and stays sheltered in the hull of the plane. What then? He keeps busy by organizing supplies and checking injuries, which likely helped keep his stress at bay. Nice work, doctor.

Make Yourself Visible from the Sky

“You want to make yourself big from the air,” Fortini says, noting that Elba wisely spelled out “S.O.S.” in the snow after making sure Winslet was in stable condition. “You should make the letters as big as possible. They’ll be coming in helicopters or a small fixed-wing; they’ll see it.”

Build a Fire (But Be Careful)

Elba builds a small fire in the hull of the plane—something worth doing, Fortini says, but very cautiously: “Depends how much of a draft you have. If you have a yellow flame, you’re creating a lot of carbon monoxide, and even if you don't, you still have to make sure there’s enough airflow.” We’ll give Elba the benefit of the doubt and assume there was enough fresh air coming into the hull.

Don’t worry—she doesn’t eat the dog. (Kimberley French)

Stay Put

By far, the most important rule for when you’re stranded in the wilderness—whether on broken skis or in a crashed plane—is staying put. It’s a tactic Winslet and Elba completely botch. Winslet wakes up panicked and immediately insists on leaving the mountaintop to find a road. “They had shelter; they left it. Not a smart move,” says Fortini. “They definitely had people waiting on the other end. The authorities will get notified, and a search will ensue. We usually find you.” Even if the emergency transmitter on your plane is disabled in the crash, the aircraft will be on some airport’s radar in the lower 48. And that radar will have recorded where they went dark—even if there’s no mayday transmission and the plane veers far off its flight plan. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it takes only around seven hours on average to find a downed plane with a functioning electronic locator transmitter (plenty of time before dehydration kicks in), and 40 hours with a busted one (a little sketchier, but if you have water, you’ll still be okay).

Don’t Walk on Ice

Another big, technical challenge the pair face is hypothermia. At one point, they unwittingly walk onto a sheet of ice covering a river that is hidden beneath snow. Winslet falls through, and then Elba tries to step out onto the same ice that failed to support his willowy companion. There are a number of things to keep in mind in this situation, Fortini says: “It is a profoundly bad idea for Elba to walk out onto the ice to try to rescue her because in real life he’d end up in the water, too. If you must, you want to crawl out, so your weight is more evenly dispersed, and move carefully. Tie yourself to an anchor on land, if possible.” Winslet, to her credit, actually got dunked into a frozen British Columbia river, according to Abu-Assad—with a wetsuit and temporary barriers protecting her from the cold current, that is. Still, she one-upped her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio’s icy death in an .

Stay Warm

Elba gets absurdly MacGyver-y when treating Winslet for hypothermia, fashioning a saline IV out of household items he finds in an abandoned cabin. (Which they eventually leave, again violating the “stay put” dictum.) An IV in the backcountry is a medically dubious strategy, and maybe not advisable for anyone who isn’t a brain surgeon like Elba’s character, but something like it could plausibly have saved Winslet’s life in a real-world version of the same scenario. If you’re not a medical expert with an IV, stick to stripping off wet clothes, getting in a sleeping bag, and placing bladders or bottles filled with hot water on the major arteries in your neck, armpits, and groin.

“You get dehydrated from hypothermia. If you heat up too quickly, especially in the arms and legs, which aren’t critical to survival, your blood vessels dilate, you’re short on fluids, and the blood you need in your core goes to your arms and legs,” says Fortini. “Elba may have avoided that by injecting enough fluid into Winslet's arm, but there still might not have been enough to sustain the vital organs. The other key is you want the IV fluid to be isotonic—the same amount of salt as in your blood. If it’s just freshwater, you might just pee it right out. You could lose sodium and get hypernatremia, and then you’re in a world of hurt.” (While careful to note that he is not a doctor, Fortini is a rocket scientist by day, when not doing volunteer SAR, so he’s still smarter than you.)

Stick Together

Do the pair eventually get rescued? We won’t spoil it. But we will say that Fortini thinks in real life after leaving the crash site they would have had a sliver of a chance to beat hypothermia and starvation and make it out alive. The best survival choice they made in the entire movie, he adds, was to stick together.

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L.A.’s Marathon Crash Race Hits an Obstacle

sperkins-pom — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Since it first ran in March 2010, Los Angeles’ Wolfpack Hustle Marathon Crash Race has grown into one of the most popular unsanctioned, unpermitted, and uninsured cycling events in the country.

At 4 a.m. on the morning of the L.A. Marathon, thousands of riders hammer along the city’s recently-closed streets. Racers from as far away as Japan have ridden the 26 car-free miles along what are usually the most famously gridlocked streets in the world. The event has grown exponentially each year, and in 2013 4,000 cyclists showed up in pursuit of the military-style dog tags awarded to the winners.

But five days before this year’s race, the head of the Wolfpack Hustle bicycle crew and organizer of the Marathon Crash, warning him that he could face up to a year in jail and potentially tens of thousands of dollars in fines and fees if he didn’t secure the proper permits, the costs of which can run into the six figures.

Ward told city officials that even if the race were officially canceled, people would still show up “and race like they did before we brought organization and police cooperation to it.” Nevertheless, by nightfall Ward blasted out cancellation notices on social media. Outrage quickly took hold within the cycling community; some participants had traveled from out of state for the event, others trained for a year with the dog tags in mind (they lend serious street cred and even more tangible benefits like sponsorship deals for the unknowns who have won in the past). Bike activists in Washington, D.C. even started a #SaveMarathonCrash photo campaign on social media.

“Everyone has known for months that the race was coming up,” , chastising the city. “And no doubt an arrangement could have been reached that would have allowed it to go forward.”

Of course, with unsanctioned races on the rise, cities (and event organizers) face real logistical and liability issues. Some, such as steep insurance bills and overtime costs for municipal employees who police and maintain public spaces, are obvious. Others aren’t: before it’s cancellation the Marathon Crash race had to move it’s finish line three blocks over—it typically ended on the same ocean-front intersection as the foot race—so that Homeland Security, prompted by the Boston Marathon bombing, wouldn’t have to perform sweeps of the area twice.

At the last minute the Mayor’s office and the Los Angeles Police Department brokered a compromise between Ward, the city’s attorneys, Los Angeles Marathon organizers, the Bureau of Street Services, and Homeland Security, allowing the event to take place as a “fun ride” according to Ward, instead of the usual race.

“Hopefully the official story is that we are working together,” Ward said. “But I feel like I am being pushed into it,” he told me before the race. At the time, he said he hoped only “ten people will show up,” given the last-minute uncertainty swirling around an already unwieldy carnival. An official in the mayor’s office said that the dispute fell on their lap with little warning, days after the city’s Bureau of Street Services sent the letter to Ward—who had never before been ordered to obtain permits for the event.

Strings came with the compromise though: riders were told not to exceed 15 miles-per-hour (they did), and stay behind a police escort (they didn’t, for long). Riding a tandem with his girlfriend, Ward, in an idle monotone, urged riders passing him and the police escort to slow down. But that appeared to be the only consequence. Some took off on quick drag races along the way, and plenty lost their way as a few participants shifted barricades at key intersections.

After the 2013 event, that previously small and casual unsanctioned “street races have begun expanding into increasingly competitive and prestigious large cycling events. Lycra has replaced cut-off jeans, corporate sponsors are beginning to take notice, and the races have begun attracting some of the most competitive racers in the world—battling it out in the saddle for sometimes little more than a case of beer.”

Adding to that, every year the Crash Race’s growing numbers of participants from the upper echelons of competitive, sanctioned racing are followed by a ballooning, gonzo horde of thousands more cruising on double-decker and tandem cycles, toting flasks of whiskey or Nalgenes full of Patrón.

Although increased police presence at last week’s event and a turnout of only about 1,000 riders meant fewer crashes, after years of exponential growth, some are wondering whether the event will ever be the same.

The Marathon Crash Race’s growing pains mirror the challenges that cycling communities across the country face. The number of cyclists who want to participate in these types of races is increasing faster than cities can adapt the legal changes necessary to accommodate them. It creates an environment like last Sunday night’s. This time, the bikes won, but the chances of anarchy erupting felt much greater with the safety guidelines up in the air, barricades removed, and animosity between officials and cyclists lingering, during an event that had previously gone forward with at least a controlled, somewhat predictable level of chaos.

“Bikes are becoming more popular in cities, which are full of very creative people with skills outside of biking,” says David Trimble, organizer of the , a closed-entry, fixed-gear race that started out un-sanctioned and un-permitted on a cobble-stoned, desolate Brooklyn waterfront area, and now receives major sponsorship deals and full permitting. Trimble explained that the Red Hook Crit lucked out by attracting major sponsors by its fourth year; they could afford to move to a more formal venue just when the New York City Police Department was getting ready to crack down on an event that started as a 26^th birthday celebration (with a milk-crate podium and jar of granola for the winner) and quickly attracted thousands of spectators.

“With these kind of events, we’re not just organizing a sporting event, we’re organizing a whole atmosphere around it,” he says. “There’s a much wider range of creative people involved these days who can help promote it and legitimize it.”

This kind of support proved crucial in the Marathon Crash’s survival this year, and that’s why it’s a good bet the event will be back next year. Ward is optimistic he’ll be able to secure permitting and cooperation between the various jurisdictions and the city agencies with stakes in the matter, and the Mayor’s office and LAPD seem committed to making it happen. But can it stay true to its roots, where at no cost, anyone with two wheels and a strong cup of coffee could join in the 4 a.m. ride of a lifetime? Or will the marathon race be a crash no more?

A friend of Ward’s, Trimble added that, “It’s a miracle that it lasted as long as it did.”

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