Where the action is

It was a bright day in south Florida, Miami's glass skyline rippling in heat over turquoise water, when the film crew from Minnesota walked onto the beach. Speedboats tore through the water. A wakeboarder gripped a towline, carving a turn and popping to take air off an ocean wave.

"It was all a bit surreal," said Noah Ferche, who at the time was a 21-year-old junior at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn.

The venue, a sports festival in April called BoardUp Miami, had hired Ferche and three friends, all amateur video producers and wakeboarding enthusiasts, to oversee filming for the weekend's action-sports lineup. With little more than a MySpace page, the group had caught enough attention to be contracted and flown south for the gig -- from Minnesota's frozen north to the beaches of Miami.

"BoardUp set us thinking that maybe we can make a career out of this after all," said Ferche, whose hobby as a videographer started in junior high school.

The phenomenon of YouTube and other online video websites has perpetuated a generation of amateur videographers. But rarely do hobbyists break through to make the transition from online to prime time.

In coming months, Ferche and his crew -- a group of college-age videographers from St. Cloud and Duluth who have formed HSF Films -- hope to beat the odds, finishing school while attempting to launch careers in filming action sports around the globe.

Since 2004, when Ferche and his high school friends Charlie Jude, Tom Henderson, Eric Nierengarten and Nick Lodermeier began seriously filming, they have built a foundation of short videos and five feature-length wakeboarding films.

"We'd spend all day riding and filming, and then we'd edit video at night," Ferche said.

Typical HSF videos, which are archived at www.youtube.com/wakeboardhsf, include boarders pulled behind boats spraying water on turns and jumping to spin. The editing is all fast cuts and multiple camera angles, with slow-motion segues, fades and a requisite rock 'n' roll soundtrack tying the montage together.

The group entered one production in a small film festival, making it to the finals. Then, in 2007, Ferche decided to reach out to a new national network run by Internet Access Media, a Colorado company that feeds sports content and commercials to bars and restaurants in Minneapolis and across the country.

Internet Access Media (www.i-am.tv) soon began playing HSF's clips. For this summer, the company has hired Ferche to head up production of a 12-part series on wakeboarding and other activities for the network.

Last April, taking a short break from school, the HSF crew traveled to Key Biscayne, Fla., for Board Up Miami. Their task: Create an hourlong TV show for Sun Sports, a Fox network that reaches millions of cable and satellite TV viewers.

In addition to wakeboard footage, they shot skateboarding competitions, swimming races, motorcycle stunts and even a bikini contest.

"BoardUp is a whole story in itself," Ferche said.

The group will go back to BoardUp in the spring, this year with four new high-definition cameras purchased for them by the event company.

This winter HSF is concentrating on snowboarding at Powder Ridge ski area outside St. Cloud to get footage for a feature-length snow-sports film.

In addition to i-am.tv and BoardUp, HSF is working to pitch a series to MTV and Fuel TV this summer.

In less than two years, HSF has gone from anonymity on YouTube to a rising outfit intent on pitching producers in Los Angeles and New York. Ferche, now 22, will graduate in the spring with degrees in communications and art. His résumé is already full with experience to launch his passion into a career.

Says Ferche: "Be persistent, don't give up and stay positive. Make yourself stand out; give yourself an edge that no one has done before. People are always looking for something new and exciting."