Meet a Creative: Jon Riley

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY | AERIAL GIMBAL OPERATOR | DRONE PILOT | PRODUCTION COMPANY FOUNDER

Home Base / Jackson, Wyoming

Activities / Mountain biking, skiing, adventure and action sports, natural history and wildlife.

Why Jon:

Busing tables, detailing private jets, selling ski photos to tourists—as he worked through what turned out to be an eight month unpaid internship with the production company TGR in Jackson Hole, Jon Riley got to know the service industry to pay the bills.

It was worth it. The internship, which started in the fall of 2014, got Jon editing, and once he proved his worth there, he found full time work with TGR, bouncing from title to title as he soaked up knowledge and skills, from operating cameras, testing and troubleshooting gimbals and new camera technology, to working on master interviews in HBO documentaries. Todd Jones, TGR’s co-founder, was his mentor. It was a learning curve as steep as the Tetons. From 2015 to 2021 Jon was on staff with the action sports filmmaking company, and it was as a staffer that opportunity again presented itself.

GSS, the global leader in gyro-stabilized camera systems—the big units you mount to a helicopter or a vehicle for steady, cinema-quality action and aerial footage that was impossible to capture before GSS—had launched its business with a TGR partnership in 2012. In 2015, they needed to train someone up. Jon, who had been flying drones for years at that point, got tagged. Within a short time, he was running TGR’s GSS work on 90 percent of their big mountain shoots in Alaska and again as the company moved into the mountain biking space.

While at TGR, Jon worked on two HBO projects, documentaries, and commercial projects that helped push his skillset beyond action sports and specialty camera work. In the years since, he expanded into working with National Geographic, the BBC, and other natural history productions. His GSS footage following elk in Grand Teton National Park and wolves in Yellowstone is outstanding. But Jon’s skills also include more intimate sets: “I am so grateful for the time I’ve spent on projects with legendary DP, Mike Ozier,” says Jon. “The skills I’ve learned from him have given me a strong reputation as an interview DP specialist and aren’t standard among action sports cinematographers. Interviews are truly one of my favorite things to shoot now.”

Ever wonder how they got that footage? This short video is a primer on exactly that. Out In Space Studios’ action reel.

When he left TGR in 2021, Jon thought he would parlay his aerial camerawork skills into a business, and he did, running the GSS he purchased and a small fleet of drones for a range of clients. What he didn’t know at the time was that he would also start a production company to pursue the type of work he wanted to secure.

Today, Jon’s Out In Space Studios is a community of creatives and business strategists from Jackson and Bozeman. It’s more collective than company. Like Jon, everyone in the group has their own area of expertise and a personal business to support it, but they know that when they work together they can pursue more meaningful work. “The teams can shrink or expand as projects demand,” says Jon, “but you can’t discount how important it is to be working with people you know and trust on bigger projects. That gives us an advantage when logistically challenging and risky projects come up.”

GSS work is famous with helicopters, but image stabilization doesn't end there. Out In Space Studios uses their GSS system in conjunction with a pursuit arm vehicle on the production of ENSŌ.

Specialized Skills:

Like most filmmakers in action sports, Jon has range, but working as an interview DP, GSS Operator, and drone pilot are his calling cards. “The moment Jon Riley and Out in Space Studios hopped on board my project ENSŌ,” says Dylan Wineland, Director of ENSŌ, “I knew I had an opportunity to take the cinematography to an entirely new level that I’d only ever dreamed of. The ability to chase a motorcycle at upwards of 75mph at a focal length of 300mm and have total stabilization with a tack-sharp focus should not be possible. Jon Riley and the Out in Space Studios GSS system made it possible. It was truly an incredible experience.”

Jon on location in Kyrgyzstan for HBO's "Edge of the Earth." 2021. Photo: Austin Hopkins courtesy Jon Riley

The first time Jon and I worked together, he was able to find two helicopters plus pilots and guides during a prime time heli-skiing window in Alaska … with roughly five days of lead time. For anyone who isn’t familiar with ski films, that’s about as close to working a miracle as you can get. In the years since, we’ve continued to work together and I can confidently say he is one of the most dialed and versatile DP’s I know. He has a massive knowledge base about every part of filmmaking and the operator skill set to match. In rapidly changing situations, he’s calm and has the ability to re-evaluate execution and pivot quickly.

Shannon Corsi Director & Producer

What's Next:

Look for big, but as of yet undisclosed, projects coming out of Out in Space Studios. In between shoots, Jon and the team are working through creative development and fundraising on some impending projects.