[Johnny Brown]

Fucking brilliant, well done Cheque. Lovely warm feeling at the end.

Got me thinking about the etymology - is Stonnis a mutation of stone ness as Stanage is stone edge? I guess neb is more common for jutting crags hereabouts, but ness might be appropriate for a bigger feature?

[Will Hunt]

That etymology makes perfect sense. Ness is a promontory/nose/peninsula which fits the crag very well. Well spotted, JB.

[andy popp]

Is it Norse, at some point? Widnes (which both Will and I know well) is widening in some Viking hangover.

[Will Hunt]

If you bang the word into google followed by "etymology" it gives you a rough idea. It suggests there are similar words in Old English and Old Norse

[Falling Down]

Oh man what a great film.  Thanks Mike.  Just brilliant.

[andy popp]

Magical. Best climbing film I've seen in a long time. Thanks Mike.

[andy_e]

That was absolutely stunning, well done! You should feel like it's definitely worth all those hours of effort you put in! Every route looks really hard and because you didn't put any grades on they all look like they could be cutting edge! Great use of music too, and the Hard Grit samples for Meshugah work superbly in building the tension, as does that shot of the holds around the arete with nobody on them... Mark's swearing was probably the highlight for me.

[SA Chris]

I'm still savouring it bit by bit, still got 20 mins to go, but I think it's a brilliant piece of work. All the above aside, the camerawork is excellent throughout and the lighting is brilliant (especially on the Birch Tree Variant bit?). Did you do it all with tripod and a drone? Over how long did this take you?

[steveri]

Just to add my own to the replies above. Beautiful elegaic tribute to a dark, mysterious place. You've perfectly captured the difficult relationship a lot of us have had with this odd jumble of massive lumps of rock. Almost feeling like tying on again. Love the music, love the even-handed and measured pace of the complete spread of routes and the lack of grades interrupting the flow. I'd happily watch it again without the pictures and again with the pictures. Well done

[mrjonathanr]

Excellent Cheque. Congratulations.

[lagerstarfish]

Magical. Best climbing film I've seen in a long time. Thanks Mike.

yep

thanks

[dave]

Is this on vimeo or youtube at all so I can watch it via chromecast on the proper telly?

[andyd]

You have to feel proud about that. Really moving and beautifully emotive throughout. I liked the subtle soundtrack very much. Well done dude

[Cuckoo]

Really lovely film that. Love the inclusion of original route, so I could remind the wife of the time she was spouting profanities like a sailer while stuck in the chimney while I sat belaying smiling at the families picnicking on to top trying to apologise for the colour of the language. love black rocks. Well done cheque.

[Wil]

Great to watch this again. The footage of Mark on Gaia is stunning, even on rewatching it my heart is in my mouth.

[SA Chris]

Is this on vimeo or youtube at all

I looked and couldn't find it, unfortunately.

[Hoseyb]

Cheers for that. The music was great, and set the bar for what these sort of flicks should be (made me think of Amelie, and the folky bits in Underdeveloped; the only climbing film I've ever paid for).

Really enjoyed it, and Made me wish that someone could put that passion into some of my local crags, giving light and shade, rather than just look at my balls..

[SA Chris]

wish that someone could put that passion into some of my local crags, giving light and shade, rather than just look at my balls..

I thin you would be worried if all everyone did was look at your balls.

[petejh]

Cheers for that. The music was great, and set the bar for what these sort of flicks should be (made me think of Amelie, and the folky bits in Underdeveloped; the only climbing film I've ever paid for).

Really enjoyed it, and Made me wish that someone could put that passion into some of my local trad/bouldering crags, giving light and shade, rather than just look at my balls..

Someone did - Fresh Meat. Admittedly with much more limited camera technology and editing software but the spirit of the film was the same. He focused on the local sport crags. (I know that's not what you meant)

[Paul B]

I wish someone would fund Doylo with a DSLR / Lens setup...

[tomtom]

I wish someone would fund Doylo with a DSLR / Lens setup...

Could we not crowd fund a couple of go-pro's to stick on him at all times and make some strange climbing type of Trueman show?

[Offwidth]

It's a shame no-one filmed Cheque's introduction from the launch event/premier at the Pav in Matlock.  That was class as is his film.

Its my favorite ever film premier... the crag, the climbs, the location, the audience, the intro from the filmaker and the film: all top notch. I met someone from work who had never watched a climbing film before and even they really enjoyed it. There must be a copy of Mike's intro on someones phone?

[cheque]

Thanks again everyone  , blown away by the response. My head won't fit in the chimneys next time I go to Black Rocks! 

Answers to questions-

"Stone ness" sounds more likely than the only other explanation I read, which was "Stone house".

It took 14 months from conception to completion, shooting was the middle 12 months of that- late May 2014 to late May this year.

I shot the climbing with a combination of tripod (with decent but not crazily-fancy fluid head), hanging from a rope using a faffy-but-worth-it setup to keep steady (not much of this required due to the nature of the crag layout) and my incredible (-y heavy) crane/ jib thing- an eBay bargain that I was inspired to get after realising that was what was used for the beautiful Life on Hold. All the drone shots were done by a mate in a few hours one weekday afternoon- there are a few shots of me scrambling about in the intro but no other climbing is filmed via drone as, for various reasons I didn't want to get one myself, mainly 'cos they write off the sound.

My deal with the BMC is dependent on them hosting it exclusively for a while- when that period's up I'll put it on my Vimeo page at higher quality- the file the BMC asked for is 2.5GB while the original is more like 60!

I don't know that any footage of my speech before the premiere exists I'm afraid. A big part of it was emphasising how grateful I was to the people I roped into the project though- I did a lot of persuading to get the right people to the crag then just pointing them at routes that I'd planned how to film and hoped would create good footage. It kept working better than expected! Many of the shoots were enhanced by getting anyone climbers had brought along to operate second camera, climb a routes or two etc. Quite a few of the climbers featured had input way beyond what you see them doing onscreen.  The voices on Meshuga came from Neil telling me that's what was going through his head before he climbed, for example.

Even though she wasn't directly involved, my (non-climbing) girlfriend shaped the film massively too, both by dealing with me spending all my time and money on the project but by giving feedback on every climbing film I've ever watched with her. Lots of the things people like about Stonnis were inspired as much by things she disliked in other climbing films as they were by things we both liked in films like Doylo's, Guy's, Pritch's, Slackjaw's, etc.

Really, really encouraged to make more films now- I have lots more ideas...

[fatneck]

Thoroughly brilliant Mike! I recommended it to a friend who hasn't climbed in ages but grew up near Black Rocks and he was so psyched he dusted off his gear and is heading to his mums asap  

[Wood FT]

he was so psyched he dusted off his gear and is heading to his mums asap  

That's it, right there, that's the stuff!