He’s known professionally as Devin Super Tramp and he is the action sports community’s Michael Moore.
Devin Graham is a documentarian of the extreme.
The 30-year-old cinematographer has filmed wingsuit racers and BASE jumpers, cliff divers and water flyboarders. He has shot from Africa to New Zealand and everywhere in between and when he uploads his videos, they are guaranteed to go viral.
The Salt Lake City-based Graham spent a sun-soaked late September day filming at Ohio Dreams Action Sports Camp in the rolling hills outside of Butler. The 12-plus hour shoot resulted in two minutes and 47 seconds of 24-karat YouTube gold. In the week-and-a-half since its release, the video has attracted more than 1.8 million viewers.
Evidently, massive slip ’n slides are a hit among Red Bull-fueled adrenaline junkies.
“I got the idea after a friend posted a photo on Instagram,” said Graham, whose YouTube channel (devinsupertramp) has more than 1.5 million subscribers. “It was an amazing shoot. I had no idea a place like that existed in Ohio.”
Graham’s Ohio Dreams shoot was sponsored by Mountain Dew. The video features several costumed performers launching themselves off the water ramp and into the 400,000-gallon aerated pool.
One of the stars of the video is Ohio Dreams CEO Chris Ashcraft, a 1997 Lexington graduate.
“One of our camp counselors is Dakota Schuetz, who is a scooter pro. Dakota and Devin worked together on a video and Dakota told Devin about us,” Ashcraft said. “So Devin called us on a Tuesday and came to shoot the following Friday.
“The pool had been closed for almost two months, so we had to scramble around to get it back up and running. But it was amazing to have Devin and his crew come out.”
Cinematographer Brice Milleson released an Ohio Dreams slip ’n slide video a few weeks before Graham came to town. That video has been viewed more than 2.8 million times on YouTube.
“It goes to show you the power and reach of social media,” Ashcraft said. “We have had almost five million views in three weeks. It has been a real eye opener.”
So what does all the extra attention mean to the extreme sports camp in southern Richland County?
“We’re not really sure yet, but we’ll tell you when registration opens in November,” program director Justin Travis said. “One thing is for sure: a lot more people know about us. Any press is good press.”
The 35-year-old Ashcraft opened the camp in 2007 and Travis, a former BMX pro and western New York native who now calls Ohio home, came on board the following year. The 30-year-old Travis became program director in 2010 and also serves as USA BMX coaching director.
“We’ve gotten a lot of attention recently,” Travis said. “The Travel Channel was just out here filming a segment on the entire camp that they said will air in May.”
Ohio Dreams offers programs in BMX racing and freestyle, skateboarding, scootering, skiing and snowboarding. In addition to the pool, the 66-acre complex features trampolines for learning tricks, indoor and outdoor skate parks and an international level BMX track.
Programs are designed for campers age 7 to 17 of all skill levels.
“We have continued to grow and expand,” said Ashcraft, a skiing enthusiast who attended college in Colorado and spent time at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. “I can only imagine this summer is going to be bigger and better.”
Not too big, Travis said.
“What makes us attractive to a lot of campers is our small class size,” Travis said. “We can offer a lot more one-on-one attention to our campers.
“Other companies out there are running 1,000 kids a week through their camps. We do about 100 kids a week with a lot more individual time with world class instructors.”
Registration for the summer of 2014 begins in late-November. Weekly sessions run from mid-June through late-August.
In the meantime, Ohio Dreams offers open skate sessions throughout the fall and winter.
Ashcraft is looking forward to the upcoming season.
“With the virality of these videos and what has happened these last couple of weeks,” he said, “who knows what’s going to come of all this craziness.”
Click here for behind the scenes footage.
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
The preview image to the left is a screenshot of the viral video, it will not play when clicked. To see the full video scroll to the bottom of this article.
