backcountry safety and demand for rowdy footage

Kodak Courage: Balancing Backcountry Safety and the Demand for Rowdy Footage

January 15, 2018

Awe-inspiring and impressive, or sketchy and scary? After being buried in an avalanche, he didnt want to film skiing or push it for the camera. But he managed to change course.

By Right On Brothers Films

Film and photography are a double-edged sword for skiers and snowboarders. On one hand, it pushes them to do crazy stunts they would never have tried otherwise, and on the other, it can make their wildest dreams come true.

Kodak Courage follows the story of a few brothers and their lifelong conflicts about risk vs. reward. What is truly right about this film is the focus the Giffin brothers have put on avalanche safety and how to ensure safe backcountry travel when cameras push people into avalanche terrain.

We're especially excited about these guys because they're from our hood: Boulder County, CO. In fact, we might have been one of their first sponsors nearly 20 years ago when they started making videos as restless teens (they were stoked just to get a pro deal).

Watch Kodak Courage: Chapter One and see how the Giffin brothers are exposing big mountain stunts with backcountry safety in avalanche terrain.

This first chapter of the Kodak Courage film series sets the stage. Director and snowboarder Sam Giffin say:

Videos are one of the things that get us hooked on backcountry riding. It's these moments when we're watching in the summertime, or we're back home and cannot ski or ride, that we just really get hooked on the sport.

When you're skiing for a film, you're strictly skiing in sunny pow and that's where the all glory is and its also where the problems lie. There's a way that you can go and keep yourself on the side of relative safety. When you go into avalanche terrain, and you're doing it while someone is taking a photo, you've got to think: Is it worth risking all future experiences, just for this one shoot?

There's a kinda crazy situation here. There's an opportunity here for me to go on the trip to Alaska and film my brother skiing. I can be part of the crew and be paid to be part of this trip. I don't want to be in the position to encourage my brother to take risks on skis. I don't really want to encourage it.

But to spend time with his brother professionally filming, skiing, and snowboarding doing all the favorite things he loves to do was something Sam couldn't turn down. The resulting film production is visually awe-inspiring and impressive.

Kodak Courage is filmed in Haines, Alaska on tour with Alaska Heliskiing.


Right On Brother Films is Zack and Sam Giffin, two best friends with a mission to make narrative films everyone will cherish. Their award-winning films have appeared in mountain film and documentary film festivals worldwide, including the Coldsmoke Film Festival, Mountain Film Festival, Steamboat Mountain Film Fest, Banff Mountain Film Fest, Telluride Mountain Film Fest, Graz Mountain Film Fest, Best of Kendal World Tour, and Moondance International Film Festival.