Three years in the making — Mountains of the Moon is a night-lit, Dead-charged odyssey proving light hits hardest in the darkest places. It took a brilliant (and equally unhinged) crew to make this magic real — grateful for the team wild enough to chase the glow through every shadow. Check out Chrisbenchetler.com for more details. @chrisbenchetler #mountainsofthemoon
Leavenworth! 🎬
This Friday (March 13) catch @chrisbenchetler “Mountains of the Moon.” at @iciclecreekcenterforthearts
Full film + behind-the-scenes look.
✨ All proceeds benefit @skileavenworth
Let’s pack the room and help them out after a tough snow year. 🧗🏂🏄♂️🚴🎿
Mountains of the Moon just landed in @regalmovies Cinemas for one night only on January 14. Check chrisbenchetler.com/mountains-of-the-moon for listings.
The theatrical cut dives deep into the threads of creation, hosted by the legendary selema, exploring all the layers within @chrisbenchetler mind.
With special appearances from @lemieuxdavid1108 and @mickeyhart honoring the legacy and rhythm of the @gratefuldead
Without darkness, there is no light.
Enjoy the show! 🎟️💀🌹
@monkeywrenchfilms #MountainsoftheMoon
One of my favorite parts of working on Mountains of the Moon was getting the chance to really play (I’ll save the jam band references because we might have already overdone it a little) Director @chrisbenchetler editor @codemangram and DP @tylerjhamlet encouraged the crew to not be afraid to take creative risks and do as much as possible in camera: we had crazy lighting rigs on jet skis and cables, lasers, projection mapping, cameras on vertical sliders a hundred feet up, dip cameras under drones, avalanche crash boxes…the whole grab-bag of weird stuff.
Somewhere in the chaos I had this idea: What if I made my own aperture shapes?
One of my vintage Zeiss lenses already gave the out-of-focus areas this wild saw-blade look (see pic), so I wondered if I could lean into that and create custom bokeh shapes. A couple hours later with an exacto knife and construction paper what ended up being called “Jeff’s Art Project” was born.
We tried it on the next shoot (the climbing sequence) and, to my complete shock, it actually worked. If you watch the film you’ll catch the weird little Easter eggs all over the place: Dancing Bears, Steal Your Faces, Dead lightning bolts all created for about ten bucks and some late-night tinkering.
When @chrisbenchetler mentioned to me he was going to make a follow up to the 2019 fire on the mountain production I immediately said, the only good movie that’s come after its predecessor is the Godfather Part II.
Fortunately, Chris has an unfathomable amount of creativity flowing out his brain and transferring it to an open canvas, like Mother Nature.
Enjoy the build up to the unveiling of the full movie this fall with —Ship of Fools a mini series. It will give you a behind the scenes look at the making of mountains of the moon. Check out all the episodes for the next 32 weeks on YouTube. Link in bio.
🌒 💀 ⚡️
#mountainsofthemoon
Mountains of the Moon an immersive experience with music from the @gratefuldead produced in partnership with @arcteryx releasing in the fall of 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣5️⃣🏔️ 🌖 ⚡️— @chrisbenchetler is at again and is assembling a band of many talented individuals to help bring to life his creative and artistic vision through the portal of dynamic and natural environments worldwide. Having worked on the first Fire on the Mountain with Chris if I’ve learned anything- it’s that the impossible becomes possible with him and I’m excited to help push the limits on this with Chris and the amazing team assembled.
