By Ron Evans
When local filmmaker Charley Voorhis was 17 years old he suffered a life altering snowboard accident. He likely couldn’t imagine at the time that 22 years later this incident would help spark his first feature film, Project Pivot, a documentary that follows three fully proficient athletes (a skateboarder, a mountain biker and a rock climber) as they switch sports with one another for the first time. What connects the accident to this switcharoo experiment is really what’s at the heart of Project Pivot. And even the director wasn’t initially sure what the story elements would be exactly, but after sifting through 56 hours of footage, things began to unfold. I spoke with Voorhis to learn more about the inspiration and production of this unique project.
Take us back to the first inception of the concept of Project Pivot.
When I was describing this concept to people, even a year or two before it was made, the concept was always coming from this place for me that there’s a lot of intellectual things that I don’t understand. And I asked myself, why do I feel comfortable in these situations, versus other situations? I can very quickly go back to my history with skateboarding and mountain biking and rock climbing. Aside from learning in the academic space, I’ve learned so much about myself and about the world from navigating these things. There are these fears that come about that are very physical and tactile, and real. But with dual awareness you can start learning about how to be a better parent, for example - how do you handle yourself at heights? How do you handle yourself at speed? And how do you handle yourself in these different situations, by subjecting yourself to stressful situations? These activities create resilience, and it creates stress tests.
Growing up there was always a kind of segregation around what you were good at. These are all the basketball players and the football players are over there. And these are the skaters and these are the whatevers - and then when you boil it down, they’re literally all processing the exact same things. They’re addressing fear, they’re addressing balance, they’re addressing speed, they’re addressing impact. And you very quickly realize that being a human is the same for everybody.
These spiraling thoughts made me realize - oh, I didn’t waste my time skateboarding all those years. I got something deeper out of it. I beat my body to hell but I was also building mental resilience, going through the accidents that I’ve been in. And then it comes to the snowboard crash… and to have an experience where I was mentally and emotionally broken from one of these sports that I felt I had such a firm grasp on was a huge life changing event. A breaking point. Do I abort? Do I forge ahead?
The calm before the storm at the skate park. Mitchell Bryan, Sean Davis, Jessica Campbell and director Charley Voorhis.
When I first had the conversation with Mitch (Bryan), who’s the mountain biker in the film, we were kind of just kicking around ideas of how fun it would be to invite people on a bike ride that had never ridden a mountain bike. Not teach them from the ground up, but just throw them into a really advanced trail and watch them more or less squirm their way through it. We just joked about that concept. And then that started kind of planting seeds.
But I didn’t know exactly who would be the rock climber, just yet. I had been friends with Jessica (Campbell) for many years, but I hadn’t really spoken with her in a personal way. And then in 2019 I did a shoot with her with Tamron lenses. And I just realized how sensitive and profound and grounded she was just as a person. And right then and there I was like, well…if I ever make this film, I want her to be the rock climber. And then it wasn’t until either later 2019 or early 2020, right before COVID, I met Sean Davis at a skateboard photography workshop I was teaching in Chicago. He was just a stellar skater that was super consistent, which is good for a workshop because you want someone who can perform accurately, consistently and you know…he’s a handsome dude. So he just sort of fit what I needed for the workshop. And then when I met him he was straight out of a movie. He’s a character. And he was introspective and sensitive and he’s so inspired by life that you can’t help but be inspired by his inspiration. And he kind of was on the other side of the spectrum of Jessica just in terms of sensibility and intensity.
So you had your cast of characters, obviously they all agreed to be in the project - their stories and the journeys they go on have a powerful arc in the movie that works really well. Did you have a sense of how things would unfold or were you finding the whole picture as you went along?
I want to give a nod to the gods of luck, or whatever it is, because there were definitely some fortunes that came to the story that were out of my control. And it could have gone any one way or another. But I knew that skating had to be first and then mountain biking, and then rock climbing had to be last. Which was a pain, schedule wise, but I knew it had to be in that order which means shooting it in that order. Most movies are not shot in a linear order. But in this case, we otherwise would have not had that sort of “hero moment” aspect that we ended up with. So I’m glad I fought for that. The three are all strangers building relationships together and working things out. And at times working through some pretty intense things in their own minds and it culminates in a way that I couldn’t have predicted but it feels perfect. The story really comes full circle from where it starts.
I was at your sneak preview/screener a couple months back at Liberty Theater. I’ve been to quite a few screeners, I’ve never seen 100 people show up. Talk about the feedback you got from that - was there a clear consensus with that many test viewers?
I think it was really good that there were a lot of people there, because I got to feel the full house experience. And you could just feel the energy shift after the apex and you could kind of see people getting a little bit more restless on the back end. I realized it was probably 10 minutes too long, because that’s right about when everyone was like, okay, now we got to go to the bathroom.
I kept trying to figure out how to make it shorter. And then one of my filmmaker friends ultimately said, when it comes down to it, you just need to make it for yourself, don’t try to please other people. And don’t try to hit a quota. Just make the version of the film that you would appreciate seeing for yourself or at least make the version of the film that makes the most sense to yourself.
Before the screener I would watch it in the office with a few people, and it would feel good. And mostly because I just knew what to expect - the smaller audiences seemed to appreciate the way it was laid out. But screening it for a larger audience told me - just from the energy in the room - that telling the story 100% linear is not very palatable for a large audience. What it came down to is that the final quarter of the film was a very slow kind of resolution to everything.
So did you end up trimming it by 10 minutes?
We cut 11 minutes out, it didn’t really change the narrative - we took some of the banter out. It was good stuff but it wasn’t needed you know?
The classic kill your darlings scenario.
Yeah but honestly, it was a pretty easy decision at that point and once we made it we felt it was…not a better film per se but a more palatable film. This really made it clear to me why there are director’s cuts of so many films. Sometimes the director just has a relationship with the movie that doesn’t quite work in the theater.
Well, I’d imagine it’d be extra hard because you’re actually in the movie. It’s your story as much as it is the other subjects’.
Yeah, starting out, I didn’t plan on being as involved in the story. But I essentially ended up narrating portions of the film, which was definitely something that came in after the fact. What I ended up doing was reflecting on everything that inspired me to make the story to begin with, and translated that into a narrative script that just kind of helps move the story along and makes it applicable to some of the topics and themes that I wanted to explore.
You set the story up with a major snowboarding accident you had many years back, was that not originally part of the plan?
I think early on I did know that I was going to at least open the film and explain this is who I am and this is why I’m making this film. Ready, set, go. And then I would chime in again at the very end. But then as the film started coming together, I realized that I needed to kind of bridge a few scenes throughout the middle. So I ended up making a narration appearance several times throughout the film. But I resisted that for a long time, I didn’t want to be part of the film, and I didn’t want to make it about me. Frankly, I just didn’t want to share that much about myself. I didn’t want to go where the story took me. And I still don’t know if I want to be there. I don’t know that I’m entirely ready to take on that persona for the public.
I feel what you’re saying from a creator standpoint of not wanting to put the spotlight on yourself with your documentary - I can tell you that from a viewer standpoint, I really appreciated that element of the film. I think it does tie the whole thing together and gives it a personal touch that you wouldn’t otherwise have.
I’m happy to hear that it works. I’m getting used to it more and more.
Talk about the use of Lemolo’s music for the soundtrack/score of the film.
And has she seen it?
She has seen it, yes. So, Lemolo used to come to Wenatchee and play Mela and when I was teaching at the Tech Center, my students and I filmed her. And she played a song called “We Felt The Fall.” There’s only maybe one other band in the whole year of bands that I filmed at Mela where I was more or less brought to tears. And so I fell in love with her music kind of from day one. So then over the years, when I’d have opportunities to do projects with Darren (Reynolds, founder of Caffè Mela), I would always pitch the idea of trying to get Lemolo involved somehow. And there was one project that I did at Mela for Darren that was basically a big experiment. I wanted to do a 13 hour one-take that captured a day in the life of Caffè Mela. And we invited Lemolo to come out and play so it was her song all the way throughout. And so that was one of the first times that we got to kind of collaborate on something that wasn’t one of her live shows.
I’d always been waiting for an opportunity to figure out how to thrust her music into this emotionally gritty space. And so I reached out to her early on wanting to license three of her songs - I basically wanted to highlight one song per day. At the wrap party for the shoot I invited Lemolo to come play at the studio. I built a stage and a little venue space behind the Voortex offices and she came to play and it was amazing. She was excited and flattered to be part of the project. Meagan (Grandall of Lemolo) and I worked it out to use her music for the entire score for the film. We ended up using portions of 22 songs in total. We had all this music that I think built an entire culture and atmosphere into the movie that I never could have found anywhere else.
When the song “Swansea” makes an appearance it couldn’t fit more perfectly.
That’s one of my favorite songs of all time and yeah that was one I had in mind specifically for that moment.
Talk about your inclusion of the mental health professionals as part of the narrative.
Initially, I wanted them to basically just be along for the ride and talk to me while they witnessed things happening more or less in real time. So I had an opportunity to make sense of things - to then shine light on that throughout the story. That was my original plan. And then as I sat on it longer, I decided I don’t want to try to keep them out of the scenes, I’d rather actually have them take part. And if I could find two mental health professionals (Lori Andre-Van Lith, Jennifer Beauvais) that would be willing to try all three of these sports for the first time as well, that could be an interesting component.
I know that they are faced with a lot of problems and struggles that people bring to the table that they might not have any first hand experience in. And I thought, how interesting would it be to subject them to something scary, and subject them to something that they’ve never done before and have to navigate in real time under that pressure. So I guess they were kind of like the primer that brought it to interpreting the whole story in a more psychological fashion, and not so much an extreme sports edit. Because I grew up watching snowboard films and skate films, and it’s all about how rad can you get? And what’s the gnarliest thing you can do? How can you shock people with your performance? That wasn’t what I really wanted to do here, there’s a different kind of scary at play - vulnerability. And it’s about showing the importance of having a good support system.
Vulnerability is definitely a running theme in the film and for me, it was a good reminder of not getting stuck in your ruts. But to push yourself to try new things. And that’s different for everyone.
I’m glad that that comes through in the film because that’s really the inspiration for the title of the movie. It’s about trying to break out of those comfort zones which is often where the fear is - you know, to try something that scares the hell out of you. You will never conquer those fears if you don’t at some point face them head on. And again, that’s where having a good team - a strong support system comes in. It’s all one big trust fall.
What would you call the rating of this film for anyone looking to maybe watch with their runts?
Well, it would really be PG because we bleep all the swearing out - but I personally would put it at PG-13 simply because of some of the themes that come up from the athletes that they’ve dealt with in their personal lives. There’s some heaviness that comes up for sure. But what I love is that those moments will likely, hopefully, lead to more conversations and openness concerning those subjects.
Project Pivot premieres in Wenatchee at Numerica PAC - Friday, January 20th at 6pm and doors open at 5:30. Runtime: 100 minutes. After the film there will be a discussion panel with the cast, prize giveaways and an after party.