Uruca II – Bugaboos Editions is a climbing film from the Vancouver, BC based animator Erik Grigorovski of Brazil.  Jam packed with many moments that any climber will instantly relate to, it’s a pleasure to watch.  However we were very curious as to who this Erik was.  Is he Lipe or Hugo in the film? Had he climbed in the Bugaboos?

We were able to get a hold of Erik and with his help answer some of these questions.  But before that, enjoy the film!

 

Hey Erik!  We loved your film, sounds like a lot of audiences and festivals sure have as well.  It’s very well done and also uses comedy in such a great way to capture a very relatable moment to many alpine and sport climbers alike.  How long have you been animating and how long have you been climbing?

First of all… I’m really happy you guys enjoyed the movie! Thanks a lot!

I work with animation and motion graphics since 2000, my last year on Graphic Design graduation, and I started to climb with my good friend Caio Braga (who created the music and worked on the sound design of all my climbing movies) back in 2003, spending the last 16 years trying to become a badass climber, but I still get scared a lot and my speciality are “Elvis legs”.

 

Have you spent time climbing in the Bugaboos?  Which routes and did you ever whip onto a well spaced cam like Lipe?

I had only one tiny experience on the Bugs… a short three days trip with my good friends, Chad Brown (who dubbed Lipe in English), Christopher Campbell (Who dubbed Hugo) and Jack Hithy, the Dudes!!! And since three of us had no experience on alpine environment, we were pretty happy just to reach the first “summit” of the Pigeon Spire, through the West ridge. We decided to climb down after finding lots of snow past that point.

The situation that Lipe lives during Uruca II, where the gear just popped out, one after the other, I saw it happens to another climber beside me, as we were climbing parallel routes in Sugar Loaf, Rio de Janeiro. The climber ended up falling something like 25 -30 metres, and luckly the first cam held him! I remember seeing his hat flying slowly down and my legs shaking a lot until I got up to set up a station.

 

Where did you draw inspiration for the characters Lipe and Hugo?  

Lipe is actually a good friend, Felipe Assad, real strong Brazilian climber from Rio and a super funny character, knowing his personality, he was the perfect choice for the first Uruca, as a motivator belayer, for whom climbing, exposure, run out pitches are not a big deal, and Hugo  represent us, normal, scared climbers.

For Uruca II their parts kind of switched… Lipe represents our mind set when we are committed to a climb and how focus is important to send it.

On those movies, I am always trying to bring that feeling, that deep inside feeling, we (normal, scared climbers) have when we are dealing with adversity on the rock.

 

Have you ever lead a pitch like that with a belayer like Hugo on the other end?

Nope!!! Hell no!!! I’m just starting to deal with traditional climb, I am a total newbie to it, so I only tried routes way below my comfort zone, although I got out of a route’s line a few times in my life, and that was terrifying!!!

And regarding belayers like Hugo… once I saw a belayer falling and dragging the climber down! Pretty weird situation!!!

 

It’s titled the “Bugaboos Edition” do you have any more of these in the works?

Well, Uruca is so close to my heart, that every time I finish one, I have ideas and I want to start another one, but currently, I am focusing on a small animated web series (something like a 20 to 30 seconds long episodes) using different characters to tell jokes about all the types of rock climbing and their respective tribes.