The Making of LTF Volume 1 - Flatland, Rails, & Jibbing
Learn to Freeride was developed over the space of about two years. Brandon Moore, owner of
Moore Digital Ideas, llc., got the idea from one of the other freeride coaches at Monarch
Mountain (local ski area in Salida, Colorado). He and Scott McFarland were heading up
the Monarch Freeride Team and looking for ways of doing some fundraising. Scott came up with
the idea to make a "how-to-huck" video and sell it. This idea got pushed around and
then thrown under the rug.
After seeing that the idea wasn't going anywhere, Brandon picked it up and started to run with
it. He has a love for snowboarding and computers combined with a knack for teaching. Making
an instructional CD-ROM for snowboarding was right up his alley. He chose Learn To Freeride as
the company name because it was open-ended and had room to grow. Besides snowboarding,
Brandon dreamed of making instuctional CD-ROM's for skiing, kayaking, skateboarding and more.
The Internet domain name, learntofreeride.com, was purchased in April of 2004. Over a year and a
half later it was launched as an actual website.
Next came the identity or logo phase. The idea for the LTF logo came from another project
Brandon was working on. The project was a Flash animation that went behind a set of windows
and you could only see the animation as it passed behind one of the windows. After consulting
with friends and making several tweaks, the LTF Classic logo was born.
About this time, Brandon started recruiting help from some of his ski and snowboard friends. He
sought out Ty Shelton and Thomas Schneider for their creative expertise as the LTF Interns. They
had some great computer skills and some amazing ideas that they brought to the project.
These young men lived about 30 miles away from Brandon's house and would come in once a week for
training sessions and to work on the project. Hours were spent not only in brainstorming, writing
code, designing, and other important skills such as hacky sack and skateboarding. Ty and Thomas
contributed huge amounts of time in making the trip to Brandon's house about 20 times to finish
up the internship. For each session they would bring in their computers and set them up in
Brandon's front room. Ty took on the task of developing the Retro Skin, logo, and interface.
Thomas took on the task of developing the Punk Skin, logo, and interface.
Brandon, Ty, and Thomas started out by creating the LTF Skateboard Demo. This was a
full-blown Flash application with video clips of kids doing skateboard ollies in the city
park. The demo was made for practice in using slow motion with video and for getting an idea
of how everything would flow together. It was a huge stepping stone and later proved to be
the thing that allowed them to get funding for the main LTF project.
Erika Scott, a rider and snowboard instructor at Monarch took on the assignment of doing
market research and helping Brandon and his wife, Heather, start a business plan. She
had to walk them through every step of the way and showed some great patience.
One of the crucial steps to creating the CD-ROM was to get some good video footage of
freestyle snowboarding. A two week time slot was chosen and Wayne Moore, Brandon's dad, was
called in to be the main videographer. Wayne came in from Logan, UT with a van and trailer
full of video equipment and toys. He set up a temporary office/studio in a small building next
to Brandon's house. Wayne also brought several family members to help out and to enjoy the
great snowboarding in beautiful Colorado. Their help was pivotal to the success of the
project. The family members who came to help were Wayne, Cheryl, Brigham, Jared, and MaKell
Moore.
Of the fourteen days that the film crew were staying at Brandon's house, ten of those days were
spent at Monarch Mountain
www.skimonarch.com, one day
at Copper Mountain
www.coppercolorado.com, and one
day at Vail (unable to do any video due to resort regulations). Over 50 athletes showed up on
the different days to help with the filming. There was a lot of hiking, riding, and wrecking
for two weeks straight. Every night, after shooting video and riding all day, they would watch
the footage from the day on a make-shift big screen projector. By the last couple of days, a
few of the riders could barely hike any more. "It's fun to look back at it now, but at
the time we all thought we were going to die." - Brandon Moore.
After the filming was done and all of the wounds were starting to heal, the next phase of
cataloging and categorizing video clips began. LTF had thousands and thousands of video
clips and there were 21 full video tapes (over 17 hours of uncut footage). Each trick ran
anywhere from 2 to 5 seconds in length. If you do the math, that is between 10,000 and 12,000
tricks that needed to be cataloged. This was a huge project in and of itself. Once the clips were
organized, the real editing process began. This was a fun phase because the project started
to come alive as Brandon combined the video with the different skins.
As the video started to be produced, some of the other final assets were getting finished.
The focus turned back to the different skins or visual wrappers. Brandon was trying to stay
one step ahead on the Classic Skin in order to help Ty and Thomas with their skins.
Multiple one-on-one sessions were spent between Brandon, Ty, and Thomas to finalize the skins.
After each session, new ideas would surface and they began to feed off of each other's
creativity. Ty created a cool 1950's diner scene with tons of hidden buttons and cool sliding
navigation in the Retro Skin. Thomas used barbed wire, chains, graffiti, bricks, and ghost images
to create an alley scene for the Punk Skin.
Once the skins were finished, the job of editing all the text still remained. Two
individuals stepped forward to help with that process. One was Scott Hughes, a local pizza
guy, raft guide, ski tech, and computer guy. Scott did more copying and pasting than
any other person who helped on the LTF project. The other individual that helped with the
text was Heather Moore, Brandon's wife. Brandon could misspell his own name and it would look
fine to him. Heather spent countless hours pouring over text, tips, cautions, credits, and
verbage. At the same time, she maintained a home and cared for their three children, Abby,
Aspen, and Tanner.
The final step to completing the CD-ROM was to create a great looking CD label and mailer. Corey
Jackson, fellow snowboarder and graphic designer, came to the rescue and created the LTF CD
mailer and label within one week. Once completed, the artwork was sent to the production house
for mass duplication of 5,000 CD's. The master CD was turned over to the duplication house
during December 2005. Product arrived at Brandon's house in January 2006. By February 2006, the
LTF products where available for sale on the Internet.
