Hey.

So we're backstage, at the Lookout World Film Festival with, Dave and Ian, the filmmakers behind, Trash Panda.

So how did you all get connected to this story?

I've been climbing at sand Rock for about four years now.

I had friends who outdoor climbed a lot, and that was the closest crag to where we live in North Florida.

And so they brought me up there a while ago, and I fell in love with immediately.

I've probably been over like, 30 times or.

No, that cant be right go like 10 or 15 times.

Did that math so bad.

And I fell in love with it.

And spending time there.

We got excited to make a project, and I had known Dave for a couple of years.

And then about a year ago, we just kind of met Adair in the woods and fell in love with his story and saw a really good opportunity to make something good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll elaborate a bit from my perspective.

I mean, I've been doing filmmaking since I was in high school, so like for ten years.

Honestly, I'm 2 and I get to say for ten years I've been making films like I feel like that's pretty cool.

But, I started climbing right after I graduated from Florida State University, going to the indoor gym in Tallahassee and I knew Ian.

Ian showed me sand Rock Alabama, Cherokee Rock village, and it was my first time climbing outdoors.

Also fell in love with that place and, Ian said, hey, let's try to make a film about Sand Rock, because when you look online there's some vlogs, there's some YouTube videos, but, nothing that fully captures the space in a cinematic way, in a storytelling way.

And I was so on board.

So we started filming, going out, climbing with friends.

They had me on repel with the camera for the first time and jus dangling there with my camera.

I mean, I've been doing filmmaking for a while, but that was a completely new way to do filmmaking.

And after a couple months of doing that, we sat down with the footage o like, let's start to edit this.

And, you know, we had some drone shots.

We had some interviews with our friends.

Yeah, the story just wasn't there, though.

We were making a video about a place where we wanted to tell a story about it, and we just kep that on the back burner and kept that in the back of our heads and took a break from the project.

And when I say we took a break talking abou we started in October of 2022.

No.

2023.

Yeah.

Yes.

And then took a break in January of last year.

Yeah.

And then it was about six months before we had any.

It was September of 24.

It was when we really like try it again and like went back to it.

And that was when we met Adair was September like that was when we met Adair has the potential for a character was in like September of 2024.

Yeah.

And started the project kind of again renewed with a better idea to person and like, yeah,a story you could really tell.

And that really speaks to like the, the the storytelling you can you can describe a place.

You can watch, you can you know, watch people climbing.

But if you, you know, attach this story to a character, I mean, it has to have a character.

I mean, that's storytelling.

So I mean, but, like, yeah, I wanted to tell the story while I was film the way that you all wanted to tell this story.

Well, I guess the, like, smal background was two summers ago, we went to Red River Gorge for the first time together, and I had been watchin some climbing films of the area and thought to be really cool.

And I like jokingly pitched to Dave like, let's make a movie about Red River Gorge.

We looked at it and we're like, oh my God, this place has 100 years of history.

We've never done this before.

We shouldn't do it.

And I knew tha Dave was an incredible filmmaker that seemed like shorts he'd made before, and he's helped me on projects that I've done with the othe AV things that I do in my life.

And so then we kind of looked at Sandrock.

I like, oh, here's a small area.

There's no content at all except for one article that was posted on climbing.com.

Yeah.

You'll find and I knew that Dave could d a film, and I knew that I loved watching climbing films.

So yeah, we could probably figure this out and like, get something that people would like and would like tell a story that was impactful.

Yeah.

Starting with something achievable.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

I mean, and then and it's award winner, your first time out for, for, climbing film.

Garnered two awards, which were super stoked about it.

Best southeastern.

And Graybeard has the Stoney Award for the most inspirational person.

Yeah, the perseverance award.

Only one person every year gets it.

Mike Adair won the award.

Yeah.

So cool.

Yeah, yeah.

It's awesome.

I mean it is a story of perseverance.

I mean, whether it's, you know, Adairs personal story or just him sticking to, you know, making sure that he builds this new run and all the challenges that come with that.

So, I mean, you found it, right?

You found you found your story.

It worked out.

Yeah.

I think that break that we took let us just go to sand Rock, interact with the people there, you know, the locals.

And we started to hear from somebody we met there, Micah, who is on the SCC board.

Hes the SCC Representative for Sand Rock.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was like you got to talk to Mike Adair.

Yeah.

And there were a couple people around Sandrock that were just kind of legends of the area.

Yeah, some people weren't willing to be on camera but Mike was totally on board.

Yeah.

I think one of the biggest reasons that it settled with him was he was like excited to do the project, and he loved the idea of being filmed he felt like he thought it was so fu to have us around that he like, he's a storyteller at heart.

Yeah.

And anytime we sat dow with him, like we probably have like 50 or 60 hours of him just talking like he just he just loves his stories.

Yeah.

Just lived and Interesting life.

So it made it so easy.

And like, there's a famous ma at Sand Rock named Johnny Armes who has set almost every route in the crag there.

And like he would not let us film him like I think we have like 10 where he walked on here before, it felt like something else That was all he would let us do.

So I kind of made sense to go with Adair.

And yeah.

And then once we saw that he had a story of like, oh, this is, this is perfect.

Like we're not fighting for anything or trying to piece anything together.

Like.

Right.

It's there.

Cool.

Mostly for you then, Dave, why is why do you feel like the outdoors are such, like a good subject for filmmaking?

I think because of the way i makes people feel and the impact it has people, the impact it has on people's lives.

Adair said I can't go out here for less than a week before somebody is talking about how this place changed your life.

Like he hears it all the time because because he runs out there, he talks to people.

And when you go outside and you talk to people out here, they love it.

And climbing in particular has a very profound impact on people's lives.

Yeah.

Like as soon as they start doing it.

Yeah.

And that right there story, when I think of story, I think of the way I think of the change that a person goes through of transformation.

Of any type.

Yeah And so that's good filmmaking.

So cool.

What's next for y'all.

We are working on next.

There's a couple things coming, but I think the biggest is we're looking to actually go and make that feature film about Red River Gorge.

I guess we're in like, pre pre-production where we know people who have really cool stories there.

And we and we know what we want to tell you about the area.

And so I think the biggest thing for us is we did this completely out of our own pocket.

Like it was probably a year of filmmaking and super luckily like Dave had the cameras the biggest expense and it was just our time and putting it in and the gas money to drive the six hours every week.

And we had to go up.

Super cheap shoestring.

We are so fortunate that we were able to make this spending that thing.

And like we had tools and we both have full time jobs that allowed us to put extra income into it.

So yeah, kind of now we're looking at like we it was very funny to come to the festival.

It was all these beautiful films, and all of them had all these company logos that we feel like we're like, how did they do that?

Like, when, yeah, people give you money to make these films?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very honestly, trying t figure out how to get sponsor.

Yeah.

And how to get funding for our next film, whic we want to do, Red River Gorge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well I mean, that's the great thing about being connected to all the folks that you're going to run into your festival.

Super great.

Like, this was such an incredible opportunity to meet everybody.

Yeah.

Like ho you can make those connections and like, who is excited to be able to fund projects to be abl to see these things go forward.

And now they're coming and we're excited to get to tell, like, more storie like this about people who are who are not seen a lot in like, media or just in the general world and be able to talk about that and what their life is like.

And just like the beauty of the outdoors and communit is just backing up a little bit.

When we were beginning the process of making Trash Panda Ian called Chris Swofford.

He was looking at the guidebook for sand Rock and for climbing in the southeast, and all of the guidebooks were written by this one guy named Chris.

Yeah.

And his phone numbe was on the back of these books, and you could tell the rest of that story.

Yeah, I remember I was like, sitting in the parking lot after work, and we just had the idea for sand Rock and was like, we have to start somewhere.

I know Chris is still alive.

Yeah.

Post on Facebook.

So, like, I'm just going to cold call this number.

I think it's his business number.

And I called and Chris picked up and he was like, hey, this is Chris.

Like, how can I help you?

And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm I'm, you know, I don't I'm making a movie.

I think it was so just like flabbergasted.

Chris was just at this kitche cooking dinner with his family, and we had this incredible, like 45 minute conversation.

And I told him what we wanted to do and how we were excited about this area and making a movie about it.

And he the next day shipped to me, like every edition of the guidebook to be made for the area.

Yeah, and a lot of it.

Like there was a trust that Chris gave us that built the foundation because Chris sent me books where it was the last copy of this guidebook that was known to exist.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Pack them up.

Trust me.

Send them to us.

And it was the baseline we, like, did test footage with the books.

We got to read all the guidebooks to piece together that history we thought was important.

And from there, everything was kind of kept falling off, calling people and meeting climbers.

And everyone we met was like, so excited, like, oh, the place we love is going to get.

Yeah, othe people can see that and connect, like why we love Sand Rock so much.

So it rolled from there.

But definitely Chris was was the big was the big star in the bi like funny moment of like, oh.

We can do this.

Yeah.

Yeah that's awesome.

Our strategy going into Re River Gorge Right there, right.

There was you hear I started.

Did the same thing again.

Like found a guidebook for the number.

Yep.

But this time I was like, hey, I'm making a film now, right?

Confident with where.

We were going?

Yeah, I made a film before.

Yeah.

So we're filmmakers.

We?

Yeah.

Just just give us the access.

Well.

That's cool.

Well, congratulations on the win.

And, yeah we look forward to seeing what y'all come up with next and hopefully seeing it at the, lookout Wild in the future.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.