‘Sufferfest’ climber-filmmaker dusts off for National Geographic Live
Cedar Wright is bringing his uncomfortable relationship with climbing and film-making to Spokane.
The man of questionable judgment behind the popular “Sufferfest” films is the next featured presenter in the National Geographic Live series at the INB Performing Arts Theater.
From the unlikely background of an English major, Wright got hooked on rock climbing as a 20-year-old and advanced his obsession to fit into the Yosemite Search and Rescue for five years.
He free-climbed El Capitan in a day, established first ascents around the world, and returned with embellished and outlandishly tall tales of his exploits, many of which are true.
He fits well if not elegantly into the speaker series featuring award-winning photographers, filmmakers, scientists and explorers who take on assignments for National Geographic’s popular TV channel and magazines.
While sharing their personal stories of adventure, the instructive presentations include video and photography on a 55-foot wide on-stage screen.
Wright plans to do all of that, maybe.
“What am I going to do for the program?’ he said, repeating the question and confirming that his life is no less spontaneous now that he’s 40 years old. “That’s a good question.
“I’m going to give people a little background on how I got into adventure sports, tell some of the crazy stories from my dirtbag days living in a truck and how that led to becoming a professional climber and filmmaker.”
Moments later during the telephone interview from his home base in Boulder, Colorado, he came back to topic of the Spokane show: “I don’t know exactly what I’ll do, but it will blow your (blanking) mind. I promise.”
Earlier this year, Wright finished his latest movie based on his new passion – paragliding.
“It’s called ‘Fledglings,’ and I might give the audience a sneak peek of me making my first big jump: It’s off the highest peak in Mexico,” he said nonchalantly.
Wright emerged from the crowd of adventure filmmakers in 2013 with “Sufferfest,” featuring himself and Alex Honnold, a hilariously low-key friend and arguably the best rock climber in the world.
The seed for “Sufferfest” sprouted on a climbing trip.
“Alex was reading ‘The Story of Stuff’ and I was reading ‘End of Oil,’” Wright recalled. “We realized we were both on an environmental kick. Alex is obsessed with saving the earth, which is pretty darned cool.”
Inspired by their greenness, they brainstormed a muscle-powered adventure close to home yet something no one had done: scaling the 14,000-foot peaks in the Sierra-Nevada Range during a California bicycle tour.
“It was a terrible idea” that made a great film, he said.
“That trip was so agonizing and horrendous, we decided to do another,” he said. “Alex actually likes to suffer.”
Sufferfest 2 followed suit in 2014 with a 700-mile body-buster of cycling and climbing through Mexico, Utah and Arizona as they summited 45 rock towers and rappelled more than 12,000 vertical feet of walls and cliffs.
Counterpointing the film’s pain and humor, Wright rivets the audience with moments of intensity and melts hearts along the way with the unexpected adoption of an abandoned puppy.
That was the recipe that captured the Banff Film Festival’s Radical Reels People’ Choice Award.
“Luckily we pulled it off, and here we are in 2016 still talking about it,” Wright said.
While Wright has superb camera and editing skills, some of his features look raw and unplanned, because they are.
“On ‘Sufferfest 2,’ we had smartphones and a general idea of climbing as many towers as possible,” he said. “We had varying degrees of success following maps. We’re both not planners.
“The idea was to be spontaneous. The essence of adventure is to not have a plan. It was by the seat of our pants, for sure.
“Instead of a real film crew, we showed some friends how to use a camera and took off.”
Wright downplays the climbing skill and video talent required to make the film: “It was a miracle,” he said.
It’s hard to believe, but a fair amount of suffering didn’t make the finished film.
“One of the things I regret is not capturing the last day, when we had to bicycle into 50 mph headwinds and freezing rain for 30 or 40 miles,” he said. “It was absolutely miserable.
“The camera crew went on ahead of us because we were all hurting, including them. We missed that classic moment.
“Usually when you don’t want to pull out the camera is when you should pull out the camera.
“On the other hand, we filmed plenty of other miserable stuff.”
Packing cameras and getting the shots doesn’t detract from Wright’s adventure experience.
“For me it’s all part of the fun,” he said. “I try to keep it fluent. Filmmaking is a team sport.
“The prime directive is to have an awesome adventure and capture it along the way. It changes the product when you try to set up and get a specific action.
“When it becomes a chore and huge effort, that’s when you lose the magic.”