This summer has stretched our Hoptocopter™ Films team in a hundred different directions. We turned into an international firm when Will spent a month working remotely from Norway. Our staff has stretched its knowledge and resources—sometimes working outside of our comfort zones. I should point the finger directly at myself here; on several different occasions, I had to sojourn to work to our home base in Colorado before the sun came up in order to turn on “The Mac” for our “Norway office” so Will could start editing. It might sound easy to simply flip a switch, but our office is strewn with Apple products, and any one of them could be described as “The Mac.”

Brian played a fly fishing actor for a project near Silver Jack Reservoir (he doesn’t fly fish...very well). Jeff and Seth captured nature’s beauty practically hanging off of cliffs up on Yankee Boy Basin. At one point, half our team was underground in the mines of Grants, New Mexico listening and learning from Jack Farley, a uranium miner of 43 years and an expert in evading death over and over again.

Our film crew took turns driving lifted trucks on red dirt roads outside Moab, Utah and then dodging cows in cattle drives outside Montrose, Colorado a few days later. It’s one of the things we love about this job—sometimes it’s being nerdy in front of a computer, and sometimes it’s being nerdy while evading getting trampled by livestock. Never a dull moment.

We have been meeting some of our nations great heroes, seeing the beauty of our state and those surrounding us. We have a ton of behind the scenes images we want to share with you, and I hope you enjoy them as much as we have. Each one has a special story that we’ll let you in on once we put the finishing touches on the projects. Until then, get outside!