In two words: Good Times. Two more? As Expected. The premiere of Reel Rock 7 was held at the Chautauqua Theater in Boulder, a lovely wooden auditorium at the base of the Flatirons. The sold-out crowd of about 1,300 people struggled for seats, as many sections had large wooden support beams obstructing the view. Many ended up sitting in the aisles or standing in the back. The show opened with the usual thanks to the sponsors, and with Peter Mortimer asking everyone to stand up for a Facebook photo. On another cool note, Peter also asked everyone who’s birthday it was to join him up on stage. It happened to be his daughter’s second birthday, and also Vikki’s 26th, and the entire crowd sang Happy Birthday to the dozen or so people. Pretty cool. Then the films. The first bit was La Dura Dura, about Chris Sharma and Adam Ondra vying to establish the first 5.15c sport climb in Spain. The footage was, as per the usual, spectacular. I believe it was the Lowell brothers’ work filming, and they used a perpendicular version of the NFL’s above-the-field-on-cables camera to smoothly follow the climbers up steep terrain. The result is unbelievably smooth, and so much better than the previous generation of climbing film’s prodigious use of shaky hand-held footage shot by someone on rappel. Sasha DiGiulian and Daila Ojeda were also featured, leading the charge of female climbers knocking on the door of 5.15. The film was as much about the route as…
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