“Off the Water” is a short film released by Sovran Media, a collaboration of Will Jenkins and T.C. Worley. It features Ashley Peters and her thoughts on her journey and experience fly fishing. We got a chance to ask Will, who produced and directed the film a few questions.
What inspired you to make this film?
I’ve gotten to know Ashley over the last few years through both being active members for Backcountry Hunter & Anglers and some other projects we’ve worked on. We both ended up on a trip to D.C. to meet with legislators about some public land issues and that’s where I really go to hear her story. She’s well spoken and a great advocate for the outdoors plus she has a great story and perspective.
How did you and T.C. Worley end up working together?
I’ve known T.C. for years as we tend to gravitate to the same things around the outdoors. We’ve had previous opportunities to work together on both what I would call passion projects and we’ve worked together professionally on some client work and it was just a natural fit.
The scenery in the film is great, where was the film shot?
It was important to us to show fly fishing in a very real and authentic way and the film was shot on our local waters here around the Twin Cities. The river is in West Central Wisconsin not far form the state line with Minnesota. We got really lucky on the shoot day. The weather was great, almost too sunny!
What’s the message you hope to leave people with this film?
We really just wanted to show the reality of fly fishing. Some days are amazing and you feel every cast is great but it seems a good portion of days aren’t as easy as a lot of the media around Fly Fishing make it look. As Ashley says in the film “It’s never effortless, but it’s always rewarding”. And those lessons learned on the water are easily translated to life off the water.
Will you and T.C. be releasing any future films under Sovran Media?
We hope to! We have a lot of great ideas but as with anything they take time to develop. You can follow along with Sovran Media on Instagram to keep up with our latest projects.
