High Country Magazine
December Issue
& Visitor Guide
Now Available Online!
Click On The Corresponding
Cover To View The Latest Issue
Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05
July 31, 2008 issue
Escape to the Peak
New Nature Video Captures the Scenes and Seasons of the High Country
Story by Kathleen McFadden
During a business creativity class a couple of semesters ago, Dr. Mark Pruett showed his students a relaxation video that consisted of images of waves washing the shore at the beach. “It was nothing special,” Justin Goff said, “and when Mark said, ‘I don’t know why somebody doesn’t do that in this area,’ I raised my hand and said I would.”
And so began a full-fledged odyssey that has culminated in the creation of Peak Escape, a High Country nature video that spans the seasons and captures unparalleled images of Goff’s favorite places in the region.
When he began the project, however, Goff had no idea where it would take him. “Video had been a hobby of mine for three years,” Goff said, “and I had just purchased an HD camera, so I thought the project would be a good way to get more experience.”
Goff originally conceived the video as simply a collection of images from late summer, but the project soon expanded. “It was getting closer to fall and I wasn’t finished [with the editing],” he said, “so I thought, ‘Why not just put fall in it?’”
A big part of the reason Goff wasn’t finished by the end of the summer was his meticulous attention to image selection and editing. “I was trying to do it professionally,” he explained, “and it was taking some time and I needed more equipment.”
Pruett stepped in as producer, supplying the additional equipment and software Goff needed to turn out a first-class video.
Goff, a management and computer information systems major, graduated from Appalachian in December 2007, and subsequently devoted all his time to the video project. He faced a steep learning curve with the professional quality, industry standard Final Cut Studio 2 editing suite. “This is the same software used to edit No Country For Old Men,” Goff said. “I had to learn eight programs [in the suite].”
As Goff’s editing work ate up more and more time, the seasons moved along with him and he decided to “go ahead and get winter” to add to the video. Then the project expanded again. “I still wasn’t finished at the end of winter,” he said, “so I thought I might as well go ahead and get spring.”
Most of the video footage is from the immediate area. “This is definitely a very local thing,” Goff said. “I’ve always been interested in hiking and I’ve been to tons of places around here. I would go hiking every weekend anyway and had done music videos of people jumping off waterfalls.” But like the seasons, Goff’s geographical range expanded too, and his footage is from a variety of sites within a 130-mile radius of Boone.
Along with the challenges of the editing suite, shooting the video involved a number of challenges as well.
“During the fall peak, I would run around like a chicken with my head cut off to capture the peak colors. There are only certain times of the day—two hours per day—to get decent video when the light is right: one hour after sunrise and one hour before sunset. Most of it I did by myself because I was out in the early morning when nobody wanted to go with me,” Goff said.
Some of his excursions were unexpectedly dangerous. “The most intense was the winter section,” Goff said. “I was camping on Grandfather Mountain in a blizzard. The temperature was minus 10 degrees and the wind chill was minus 50 to 60 degrees. It was a six-mile hike to the shelter. I got lost a few times because it was dark and I couldn’t see the trail. I finally got to the shelter and it took an hour to get my little stove lit. All my food and water froze. On the second day, I ate some peanuts and ate snow; my raisins were frozen. I almost had frostbite on my feet. My cameras stopped working it was so cold. I only used three seconds of video from that trip. But that shot became a theme—the black mountain with clouds above it. If I hadn’t been up there, I wouldn’t have gotten that shot.”
During another outing, Goff went creek walking to get some shots. When he was walking back along a 25-foot high cliff, the ground gave way and he found himself freefalling with his tripod in one hand. “I didn’t think,” Goff said. “By instinct my hand automatically grabbed a tree that I didn’t know was there and I was holding my weight with one hand. I didn’t know I could do that.” Twelve feet below, Goff could see a ledge with jagged rocks and another 12 to 15 feet below that was the riverbed. “I threw my tripod up and pulled myself back up on the bank,” he said.
“It was definitely an experience making this video,” Goff laughed.
Now with four seasons of footage, Goff was working 90 hours a week in the studio with 1,500 minutes of video that he eventually edited down to an 84-minute video. “Everything you see was done on purpose. The video’s very choreographed,” he explained.
The final product includes 63 minutes of nature scenes with ambient outdoor sounds and 21 minutes of transitional music sections. Goff licensed the instrumental tracks from multiple artists and closely synched each to the video presentation. The video is shot entirely in high definition and presented in wide screen format.
With footage from dozens of locations in and around the Blue Ridge, Goff’s production is the most comprehensive video of the scenery of the western North Carolina mountain region.
Within the next week, the video will be available in a number of local stores, including Footsloggers, Appalachian Tees, Dancing Moon and the ASU bookstore. Goff is also updating his website—www.yourpeakescape.com—to offer online purchases. The cost of the video is $19.99, and Goff will donate a portion of the profits to conservation organizations.
The video will premiere at the Music on the Mountain festival on Saturday, August 23, at High Country Fairgrounds where it will be projected on a screen behind the stage.
Pruett is proud of Goff’s achievement and his role in helping the project not only get off the ground, but also to exceed everyone’s expectations, including the producer’s.
“I think it’s good for ASU and good for the community,” Pruett said, “for a student to come out of college with a business that benefits the region.”