Magazine summer 2022

FROM SEASONAL WORKER TO AVIATION PIONEER
As a teenager, Jack Mullner cleaned holiday apartments
in Saas-Fee in the evenings so that he could
go skiing during the day. The ‘Chalet Boy’ of yesteryear
is one of the most talented drone pilots on the
action sports scene today.
Text: Patrick Gasser
Images: Puzzle Media
It is already late in the day. Only the bars on the village street
still have their lights on. And in the Puzzle Media office, too.
Here, Jack Mullner (29) has fulfilled a dream together with
his brother Jamie (31). Between Chinese instant noodle dishes
and beer, Jack cuts the printed analogue photos to size. It
won’t be long before the first photo exhibition takes centre
stage at the Puzzle Media House. Six professionals are working
together here. Self-employed copywriters, consultants
and, in the evening, tattoo artists. Time and again, holiday
guests also rent workspaces in the co-working space for days
at a time. Zoom calls after skiing. Working to meet deadlines
after the climbing tour.
2010. The ski trousers were wide, the jackets colourful.
Jack Mullner has just finished school. ‘I just wanted to go skiing’,
he recalls. At 17, he came to Saas-Fee from Kent, a town
in the south-east of England. And he went skiing. Every single
day. He earned his money as a ‘Chalet Boy’: Jack cleaned
holiday apartments. Twice he left Saas-Fee in spring. Then he
went on to stay here, and the seasonal worker became more
and more of a mountain man.
First DJ, then entrepreneur
When GoPro released its first action camera, Jack bought
one of these compact devices. He filmed his friends skiing,
and edited his first videos. Jack established his first contacts
through his DJ gigs in the village bars. This led to his being
commissioned for jobs for the first time – promo clips for holiday
apartments and hotels. ‘I thought,’ Jack tells me, ‘maybe I
can do this professionally.’ And that marked the birth of Puzzle
Media.
Today, companies such as RedBull, Samsung and the
ski manufacturer Faction count among Puzzle Media’s clientele.
Jack still puts his friends from Saas-Fee in front of his
lens from time to time. Along with Olympic champions like
Ayumu Hirano. When the Japanese skier performed his first
triple cork in the halfpipe on the Fee glacier in autumn 2021,
Jack was there with his drone.
Fredi K, the perfectionist
Jack’s collaboration with Frederik Kalbermatten (41) opened
the door to the world of snowboarders and freeskiers. For over
two decades, the exceptional talent from Saas-Fee dazzled
the scene with all his tricks. At some point, Jack and Jamie
Mullner were also out and about with Fredi in the glacier world
of Saas-Fee. Fredi still spends days building his ski jumps. For
example, over huge crevasses or through séracs. Fredi always
finds something new: ‘That’s what makes working with him so
exciting. He is a perfectionist. He puts a lot of time and work
into the preparation.’, says Jack.
There is also little of the film crew’s strenuous work to be seen
There are limits to freedom. Always further,
always cheaper, always better: drones have
gained significantly in terms of their popularity
in recent years. However, anyone who
has bought a flying machine for the first
time should be aware that their neighbour
will not necessarily be happy if the flying
machine – complete with camera – flies over
their hedge. In mountainous regions such
as the Saas Valley, drones can also become
a problem for helicopters or paragliders.
Therefore, the aircraft are only operated
by laymen without special training on
a Visual Flight Rules (VFR) basis only.
In addition, minimum distances must be
maintained for cable cars, for example.
in the finished clips. Jack remembers a shoot that took him to
the summit of the Strahlhorn. Jack spent ten hours on the road
with his camera equipment. ‘The tripod alone weighed 15 kilograms.
I didn’t use it’, he says and laughs. A single shot resulted
from this ten-hour feat. ‘Still, it was a great day’, says Jack.
The photos for the exhibition are cropped. He still
wants to touch up the lighting for the picture frames the next
day. For the layman, it is impossible to see what bothers Jack.
Like the athletes he captures on camera, Jack is also
a perfectionist. ‘The equipment is getting ever cheaper. What
remains crucial in what we do is creativity and quality’, says
Jack. ‘So, you’re forced to keep evolving. And that’s what excites
me.’
Right at the heart of the action, and not just on the edge
There is a small drone on the table in front of the large shopwindow.
The aircraft weighs just 1.5 kilograms. Jack soldered
them together himself with components from the internet. It
can fly up to 130 kilometres per hour. But the highlight is sat
right next to this nimble flying machine: FPV goggles. Through
this, Jack sees the images from the mounted GoPro camera
in real time and can control the aircraft with absolute precision.
FPV stands for ‘First-person view’. ‘It’s like I’m in the air
myself’, says Jack. This technology has revolutionised drone
photography in recent years. ‘It used to be just a toy. At some
point, someone must have come up with the idea of using
these drones with the appropriate cameras for action sports
footage’, says Jack. ‘That was a real game changer.’ Jack is one
of the first people to fly through the glacier world of Saas-Fee
with an FPV drone.
Jack Mullner (left) captures the Saas Valley from above with his drone.
Drone video Indian Summer
Thanks to the FPV drone, the spectators also feel as if they are
right in the middle of the action. For example, when freeriders
descend steep mountain slopes on the Freeride World Tour. Or
when Jack tracks the best freestylers with his drone in October
during the Stomping Grounds Camp on the Fee glacier. But
Jack also loves the nature that makes up Saas-Fee: ‘My favourite
places to fly are the glaciers of the Fee glacier or along the
Mischabel chain.’ His drone reaches up to the 4,545-metre-high
‘Dom’, the massif’s main summit. The device can also fly into deep
glacier caves. ‘Sometimes, I get a bit nervous’, says Jack. “But
I have to stay calm: because I cannot afford to make mistakes.
If the drone crashes, I’ll never see it again.’
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