The Grind: Boardercross, Olympic Dreams, a 30 minute documentary now streaming globally on Amazon Prime.

This past year, I completed production on The Grind, a 30-minute feature profile of USA boardercross athlete and Olympian Jake Vedder. What began as a branded digital series evolved into a cinematic, character-driven documentary capturing the physical, mental, and emotional demands of competing at the highest level of snowboard cross while pursuing a return to the Olympic stage in 2026.

Produced in collaboration with Milk Means More, the United Dairy Industry of Michigan, and Brandfly Studios, the original concept was to document Jake’s training camp in New Hampshire and offer a snapshot of the preparation required for the FIS World Cup season. As production unfolded, it became clear there was a deeper story to tell, one rooted not just in performance, but in perseverance.

Filming at Waterville Valley Resort in New Hampshire presented immediate challenges. Over three days, our small crew battled frozen rain, brutal winds, and subzero temperatures. Each morning meant hiking the mountain with camera gear through ice and deep snow to capture Jake training in unforgiving conditions. The environment tested both the athlete and the filmmakers alike. The resulting footage, however, delivered raw, cinematic visuals that grounded the film in authenticity and grit.

Following New Hampshire, production shifted to Jake’s hometown of Pinckney, Michigan. There, we explored the foundation of his journey from small-town athlete to Olympian. We filmed in his high school, documented his training regimen, and spent time with the community that helped shape his competitive mindset. These sequences provide emotional depth and context, contrasting the isolation of the mountain with the support system behind his pursuit of excellence.

Working closely with Brandfly Studios, we crafted a narrative arc that moves from the physical grind of climbing the mountain to the psychological resilience required to chase an Olympic dream. While the partnership with Milk Means More remains integral to the story, the film stands as a broader meditation on discipline, sacrifice, and belief.

Released in fall 2025, the project launched in the USA, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Mexico, Poland, and India on Amazon Prime. Be sure to watch, and please write a review if you get a chance. 

Links to regions:

United Kingdom (Prime & TVOD): https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B0GN2JV26L/ref=atv_sr_fle_c_sr08ff8a_1_1_1?sr=1-1&pageTypeIdSource=ASIN&pageTypeId=B0GN2YGLQV&qid=1771824319855

United States: (TVOD): https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0GN2XK2DK/ref=atv_sr_fle_c_sr52cdbe_1_1_1?sr=1-1&pageTypeIdSource=ASIN&pageTypeId=B0GN2YZNXP&qid=1771824337000

France: (Prime): https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_fr_xx_s

Italy: (Prime): https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_it_xx_s

Spain: (Prime): https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_es_xx_s

Japan: (TVOD): https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/gp/video/detail/B0GN2M78VZ/ref=atv_sr_fle_c_Tn74RA_1_1_1?sr=1-1&pageTypeIdSource=ASIN&pageTypeId=B0GN2PZ91S&qid=1771824391814

Canada: https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_ca_xx_s

Australia: https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_au_xx_s

Netherlands: https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_nl_xx_s

Germany: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/gp/video/detail/B0GN27M98Z/ref=atv_sr_fle_c_Tn74RA_1_1_1?sr=1-1&pageTypeIdSource=ASIN&pageTypeId=B0GN2DSR3L&qid=1771824400348

Sweden: https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_se_xx_s

Mexico: https://www.primevideo.com/region/eu/detail/0P6HYPP43DHJ9GA78YJ1B8SP9Z/ref=dvm_src_ret_mx_xx_s

The Bull by Eric Ebner

The Bull by Eric Ebner is a snapshot of a life most people only flirt with.

At the edge of Baja California, in a secret stretch of coastline hundreds of miles from convenience, Glen Horn has carved out a world that is entirely his own. Not a vacation. Not a sabbatical. A life.

I once brushed up against that same possibility.

I spent 30 days driving that coast, surfing its breaks, waking to wind and salt and endless horizon. There is a purity to it that feels almost mythic. You measure your days by swell direction and light. You fall asleep exhausted in the best way. You begin to wonder why anyone would choose anything else.

But I also know the other side.

The wind that never seems to stop. The sand that works its way into every zipper, every lens, every seam of your clothes. The mechanical breakdowns. The long silences. The kind of isolation that can either refine you or undo you. The romance is real, but so are the elements.

What Glen has done is different. He did not visit this life. He redirected his entire existence toward it. Through the good and the bad, he chose it fully. That commitment is what makes The Bull resonate. It is not a film about escape. It is about permanence.

There is something quietly radical about that.

As a filmmaker, I was equally struck by the intimacy captured on screen. Finding a subject like Glen is rare. Earning the trust to film him in his element is even rarer. You cannot manufacture that kind of access. It requires patience, humility, and instinct.

In digging deeper into the story behind the film, I learned how the filmmaker first encountered Glen during a long journey through Mexico. It was not a planned production. It was a moment discovered. Recognized. Documented. Then carried forward until the time was right to shape it into a finished piece.

That creative instinct is one I know well.

On two separate occasions, I have driven from the tip of Mexico into Central America. I have sailed the Baja. I have stumbled upon stories that revealed themselves slowly, almost accidentally. You feel something shift in the air. You pull out the camera. You capture what you can. You trust that one day it will find its form.

There is a deep connection there that I appreciate.

The Bull feels like a rare escape preserved on film. A season of life that most people experience briefly, if at all. Watching it brought back that same ache I felt when my own Baja chapter came to an end. The understanding that some freedoms are not meant to last forever. They shape you, then release you.

For Glen, that season continues.

Below, I am sharing the films of this filmmaker alongside my own work. I hope you enjoy them. And if you have ever felt the pull of an open coastline and wondered what would happen if you never turned back, this story will stay with you.

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The Bull: The Surf Legend Who Walked Away From Everything (full documentary) 

The Surf Trip that Changed My Life: Baja California, Mexico (Behind the scenes)

BROTHERS FROM BAJA: A SURF STORY (Personal story)

Citizenfour, directed by Laura Poitras

2014’s Academy Award-winning documentary Citizenfour, directed by Laura Poitras, follows Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald as they travel to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is about to expose the scope of the American national security surveillance state.

From the opening moments, Citizenfour feels dystopic, mysterious, and dark. It feels conspiratorial in tone, which is often the very atmosphere used to dismiss the credibility of stories like this. But that mood is not manufactured for drama. It reflects the very real breach of justice and abuse of power by American government agencies that Snowden is revealing and the risk he is taking by doing so.

Snowden gives us our first real look at the level of surveillance that has now become normalized. The film documents the birth of what we now call "self policing" or censoring yourself for fear of ending up “on a list,” and the growing awareness that metadata paints a detailed picture of who you are, without actually knowing who you are or having more justification for tracking you.

The film also captures the birthplace of American paranoia in the realization that we're all being watched by Big Brother. That paranoia over the past decade has put conspiracy culture on steroids. When people know they are being watched, their behavior changes. Speech changes. Thought changes. That may be one of the most lasting impacts of what Snowden revealed.

Amazing to me is the lack of public revolt. There are hearings. There is outrage for a moment. Then the world moves on. For something this massive, the response feels incredibly small.

There is also a powerful story of journalism here. Real investigative journalism. The kind we rarely see anymore. The Guardian is visibly scared of going up against the U.S. security state. Journalists are risking their own freedoms to publish this information. The enormous power and influence of global governments become impossible to ignore.

What makes Snowden’s story so heavy is what he gives up. He sacrifices his entire world for what he believes is right. His life is effectively destroyed. He cannot return to the United States, visit his family freely, or fully experience his own culture. The message to future whistleblowers is painfully clear. Speak out and lose everything.

So what protection do we actually have? That question hangs over the entire film and goes unanswered.

I am a fan of Snowden. Team USA is only great if it remains true to its ideals. Citizenfour is not just a portrait of a whistleblower. It is a mirror held up to a country that must decide whether security is worth the cost of freedom, or will it continue to be lulled to sleep by compliance and complacency.

Interview with Director Topher Cochran and Chasing Bubbles

As a documentary filmmaker, I know how hard it is to assemble thousands of hours of video and photographs into a cohesive story. It requires focus, a deep reliance on personal memory, and a commitment to finding the best moments from everything that was captured in order to drive the narrative. It also requires an enormous amount of time and emotional investment.

I also know what it means to travel with a kind of reckless abandon, living on the edge of society in search of yourself, like the hero in Chasing Bubbles. That personal connection is what made Chasing Bubbles hit especially close to home for me, and the combination of both skills turns this into a rare interview for our podcast.

The film is directed by Topher Cochran and tells the story of Alex Rust, a farm boy turned day trader from Indiana who, at just 25, walked away from his yuppie life in Chicago. He bought a modest sailboat and set out to sail around the world, learning as he went and documenting his journey with honesty, curiosity, and humor.

There is a tragic end to Alex’s story. Fortunately, I did not meet the same fate in my own adventures, but watching this film, I felt like I could have been him. I could also see myself as a documentary filmmaker who had to shape this massive archive into a meaningful story. I'd done a little of both in my film, Reaching Reality, and it is what drew me to this film project.

This interview and this film were a special moment for me. If you are drawn to stories of self-discovery, risk, and the deep personal cost and reward of choosing an unconventional path, I think you will truly enjoy Chasing Bubbles.

See film review and trailer here: Chasing Bubbles on Doc This Reviews

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, directed by Alex Gibney

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, directed by Alex Gibney, is an intriguing documentary into the mind of an inventor and what it takes to go into the unknown, find something before it exists, recruit people to invest in it, and chase after it relentlessly. It is about believing in something that might be unbelievable, unprovable, or even undoable.

The film tells the story of Theranos, a multi-billion-dollar tech company, and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, who was celebrated as the youngest self-made female billionaire. That context matters because it shows how big the belief system became around her and the company.

The intro begins to break down the mind of an inventor, establishing the inventor entrepreneur as the hero. The film frames that identity early, setting up the idea that the inventor is someone who sees what others cannot and is willing to take risks that most people will not.

By the second act, there are hints in interviews that maybe everything is not as it seems. Small cracks begin to show. The story starts to suggest that what we are being told and what is actually happening may not line up.

What I found interesting was that while this person was clearly flawed, the hunger of her followers to have a woman hero of Silicon Valley blinds them to reality. It becomes clear that identity starts to surpass competence or reality. As the science starts to come down, it becomes more and more clear that things are not as they seem, but at the core of the institution, that reality is being overlooked.

The capacity for humans to lie or manipulate reality and the lengths they will go to feels profound. It makes you wonder if geniuses are sometimes just people willing to lie to themselves so deeply that they no longer recognize it.

At its core, the film exposes the dangers of humans becoming hypnotized. We overlook things. We see what we want to see. In that space, we often want to believe something more than see it for what it is. I myself thought, maybe she can do it. Maybe she is a genius or maybe she is a sociopath?

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley becomes less about technology and more about belief, identity, and how easily people can be pulled into a story that feels bigger than the truth.