The Foursite Film Festival has become a fixture among Ogden events as it enters its eighth year. The four-day festival opens on Thursday.
And the festival continues to evolve as filmmakers evolve.
"One of the big differences between this year and previous years is (that) probably about half the festival are documentaries," said Scott Halford, director of the festival. "We haven't had that many documentaries in the past."
This year's festival has 55 selections, 24 of them in the documentary category.
The move toward featuring more documentaries was not a deliberate one -- Halford said the documentary submissions were simply more compelling than the fictional stories this year.
Mountain Green filmmaker Christopher Morgan, who has two films in this year's festival and two in last year's film festival, said there has been a resurgence of documentaries by independent directors in the last five years.
Reality television might actually be helping audiences find entertainment in the real world.
"They're opening it up to an audience that is now more receptive," said Morgan. "Quite honestly, our video generation is more open to watching things that are made in a documentary format."
With the increase in documentaries at Foursite comes a diverse selection of topics. One of the featured documentaries, "One Revolution," follows Chris Waddell, a paralympic from Park City, who attempts to scale Mount Kilimanjaro. He has a specialized wheelchair built to help him negotiate the steep climb.
Halford said an entire series of documentaries from Africa was accepted.
And there are also two films with war themes. A Utah film, "We Were the Vanquished," showcases stories of World War II. "The Triangle of Death" follows the harrowing work that troops endure in a deadly, hostile region in Iraq.
The topics delve into areas with a lot of emotion, including the film "Last Days of Extraordinary Lives," which deals with death among a diversity of age groups.
"A documentary about death, with a bunch of interviews from people at the tail end of their lives -- that one's pretty compelling," Halford said.
'Riding the Ragged Edge'
One newcomer to the film festival is Ron Kirby, of Roy. His video production company typically provides services to businesses and does commercial work.
But he got a phone call in 2004 that put him on a six-year journey that culminates in the 30-minute film "Riding the Ragged Edge."
"These guys needed to have some video of a motorcycle (at the Bonneville Salt Flats)," Kirby said. "They were trying to break the land speed record. I jumped at the chance to go do that."
The California streamliner motorcycle crew, Ack Attack, was attempting to break a 322-mile-per-hour world record. The mark had stood for 16 years.
Kirby got his video equipment and headed out on his first-ever trip to the Salt Flats.
"You can see the streamliner coming up over the horizon. He was cooking. Just as he came through about the middle of the measured mile, the bike began to fishtail ... and crashed," Kirby said.
"I saw this crash at 300 miles, the first time I have ever been out there videotaping. I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I just recorded a fatality. It terrified me.' "
The driver was not hurt, and the crew started rebuilding the motorcycle to take another run at the record. Kirby stayed with them, documenting every attempt.
Eventually, the squad broke the long-held record in 2006. Then, as Kirby portrayed in the film, they lost it 48 hours later to another motorcycle.
Year after year, Kirby found himself with a great story that had no ending.
"I knew it wasn't complete," Kirby said, "because they always ended with a crash or they had their record taken from them that same year."
The project also provided challenges for Kirby beyond spending days on top of tough salt pavement in hot temperatures.
"One of the challenges that I found, especially for me, is that the course is roughly 12 miles in length. I found it very challenging as a single camera operator to capture that whole story. Because I needed to be at a lot of places at a lot of different times," Kirby said.
But the video goes beyond race footage. Kirby wanted to portray why these racers thrive on speed.
Finally, his story got the appropriate ending when the Ack Attack motorcycle captured the record last September.
Kirby is now working on documentaries about other racers on the Salt Flats.
"Everyone on the Bonneville Salt Flats has a story to tell," Kirby said.
"It's just a matter of being at the right place at the right time."
'For the Love of Dance'
Morgan, a former Air Force fighter pilot, has been coming down from a banner year in 2010.
He made his first appearance in the Foursite Film Festival last year with two short stories. His short film "Jack and Jen" is up for the Best Utah Short Film at the Utah Arts Festival this month.
This year at Foursite, he decided to go in a different direction.
"I was kind of burned out, quite honestly. Because professionally, productions like that are a big affair. There are a lot of people," Morgan said. "So I was looking for something a little bit quieter to do."
It was his wife who suggested following the Imagine Ballet Theatre youth company in Ogden, in which his daughter is a dancer.
Morgan knew the dedication it took to be in the productions and wanted to show the behind-the-scenes work.
The documentary's final act portrays the annual performances of "The Nutcracker" at Peery's Egyptian Theater -- the main event of the year for the company.
"The American audience bonds with that piece of work. So they tend to go out and support that," Morgan said. "So even if you are not a ballet aficionado, people still bring their kids to watch that every year as sort of an annual event. So it ends up being the big thing every year and it's one of their big moneymakers because of that."
The first step was to convince Raymond Van Mason, the ballet director.
"To him, it's a show, and he didn't want people to see the nuts and bolts of it," Morgan said. "He granted me that access that previously nobody had really been able to get to."
The access Morgan got allowed him to display the work that goes into the practices, as well as the company battling financial issues. Imagine Ballet Theatre is a nonprofit organization, and Morgan said it's always a struggle to raise funds and sell enough tickets.
Yet the facet that surprised Morgan during filming was meeting the dancers when they are not onstage.
"One of the things that struck me during the interviews ... is when you see them onstage, they look very poised," Morgan said. "But when you talk to them, it's only then that you realize that they're so young."
Morgan also has a short film in the festival, "Adler's Bus Stop," and he is developing new fictional films as well as another documentary.
No matter what the theme is, Northern Utah will always be well-represented.
"If I have a story to tell, I want to make it take place here, and I am always looking out on the documentary side for stories that highlight people and places right here in Utah," Morgan said.
"Because you don't have to look very far, and there are a lot of great stories to tell."
THE FILMSThe Foursite Film Festival takes place over four days in four different venues in Ogden. Events are free unless otherwise noted.
Wildcat Theater
Weber State University, 3848 Harrison Blvd.
Thursday
- 6 p.m. -- opening reception. $6.
- 8 p.m. -- opening night films "For the Love of Dance," "Riding the Ragged Edge," "Soaring With Eagles." $5.
Treehouse
347 22nd St.
June 10
- 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. -- children's film blocks.
Union Station
Browning Theater and Old Timers Room, 2501 Wall Ave.
June 10
- 8 p.m. -- "One Revolution," 84 minutes, documentary on Chris Waddell, a Utah paralympic skier who became the first paralyzed person to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Q&A with Waddell and director Amanda Stoddard follows. Browning Theater.
June 11
- 10 a.m. -- "The Triangle of Death," 70 minutes, documentary on U.S. soldiers stationed in a hostile region of Iraq known as the Triangle of Death. Browning Theater.
- 10:30 a.m. -- Animated shorts. Old Timers Room.
- 11:15 a.m. -- "The Last Days of Extraordinary Lives," 87 minutes, a documentary that focuses on several individuals who are in their final days of life. Browning Theater.
- 11:30 a.m. -- Foreign film shorts. Old Timers Room.
- 12:15 p.m. -- Children's film shorts. Old Timers Room.
- 12:45 p.m. SEmD "Conquests of High Passes," documentary about three physically handicapped cyclists who travel along the Himalayas. Browning Theater.
- 1:15 p.m. -- "History of Space Flight," a film in which some children attempt to reach their attic. Old Timers Room.
- 1:30 p.m. -- Music and dance films. Old Timers Room.
- 1:45 p.m. -- "Hijab"/"A New Song," Salt Lake City's Laela Omar examines the meaning of the Muslim head covering in "Hijab." "A New Song" depicts Daniel Pimentel's love of music. Browning Theater.
- 2 p.m. -- "We Were the Vanquished," Joshua Samson of Salt Lake City documents his grandfather telling his World War II stories. Browning Theater.
- 2 p.m. -- "The Cleaning Lady," a story centers around a cleaning woman following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Old Timers Room.
- 2:15 p.m. -- "The_Signal.exe," teenagers react to an Internet signal. Old Timers Room.
- 2:30 p.m. -- "Adler's Bus Stop," Mountain Green's Christopher Morgan's film on an elderly man who tells his story while waiting for a bus. Old Timers Room.
- 3 p.m. -- Animations. Old Timers Room.
- 3:15 p.m. -- African films. Browning Theater.
- 3:45 p.m. -- "Shudder House," a boy learns about the blues. Old Timers Room.
- 4 p.m. -- "The Visions of Dylan Bradley," story of a young girl who tempts her boyfriend. Old Timers Room.
- 4:15 p.m. -- "Strong Bodies Fight," documentary about a charity boxing event with the Notre Dame Boxing Team. Browning Theater.
- 4:15 p.m. -- "Conversations," documentary from Mike Langer of Alpine. Old Timers Room.
- 5 p.m. -- "Ground Zero"/"Cutting Seams," Channing Lowe of Sandy created a horror film in which zombies attack in a warehouse in "Ground Zero." The second selection follows a woman who finds herself trapped in her own dreams. Old Timers Room.
- 5:15 p.m. -- "Bringing the Riding to the People," a look at municipal mountain bike parks. Browning Theater.
- 6 p.m. -- "Beatboxing: The Fifth Element of Hip-Hop," a documentary about the history of beatboxing. Browning Theater.
- 7:30 p.m. -- short films "An Evening With My Comatose Mother"/"In the Company of Friends"/"Reue/ Reco." Browning Theater. $5.
Peery's Egyptian
2415 Washington Blvd.
June 12
- 7 p.m. -- closing night films "Chloe and the Great Fish"/"Neighbours." $5.