Keeping up with the Beat

Does it sometimes seem as if The Adventure Beat has lost its rhythm? Time was we used to post fairly regularly, then hard times hit and we slacked off.

Well, that's just not good enough for the world of adventure. There are mountains to climb, rivers to run, blogs to maintain. And news to share.

One of my favorite people to keep up with is Michael Brown. The Boulder-based filmmaker -- his website is Serac Adventure Films -- loves to climb those mountains and run those rivers, and come back with great footage used in films such as "Blindsight," the documentary feature now making the circuit.

Brown, one of a family of outdoor filmmakers (you may have heard the name of his father, Roger Brown, whose ski movies have been around for decades*), has taken an interesting approach to his craft: a couple years ago, he started the Serac Adventure Film School.

With Brown and other instructors, you can learn how to conceive, shoot and edit an outdoor film on video in intense hands-on classes. Some classes are held in Colorado but many are in more exotic locales -- Bhutan, Kilimanjaro, South Georgia Island and Everest Base Camp come to mind.

Upcoming is the Vail Mountain Games school, held this year in Aspen between June 3-10. We attended the Vail Mountain Games in 2006, and had a great time -- check out the complete list of blogs from back then, although there's no guarantee the links will still work. (The video showcased here was from an earlier TMG, and Brown was not on the crew, but damn it's a cool video.) Then as now, one of the best features of these outdoor games was the competition to make a movie in just 48 hours. Competition is tough; if you want a chance to win, sign up for Michael Brown's course.

Note: We're moving Adventure Beat to new online quarters soon, using another web publishing platform. If you're interested in following us over there follow this link and look forward to more adventure news with Adventure Beat.

* An earlier version of this posting misstated Michael Brown's relationship to another Brown, surf cinematographer Bruce Brown. My apologies all around.