If you love something enough, you’ll suffer for it—that’s what Filipe DeAndrade took away from AFS.  But of course, when it’s filmmaking you love, it makes suffering through brutal conditions or lack of sleep simply part of the love affair.

“If you don’t love it, you’re not going to be able to do it,” he says. “Getting up early for the sunrise, making that hike. You shoot in conditions you would not normally shoot in just because you’re passionate about it.” The stoke he ignited during the 2012 Colorado Backcountry course inspires him to push past discomfort to capture the shots he wants to get.

DeAndrade knew a thing or two about suffering and perseverance before he took an AFS course, having recently through-hiked the Appalachian Trail. “It was a hell of a time,” he says. But the Colorado Backcountry course took the east coaster out of his element and into the elements—literally. “To go out west, it taught me that you’re always getting introduced to new circumstances and having resilience for elements and difficulties only come with a passion for it.”

Filipe DeAndrade’s film from Colorado Backcountry 2012

Recently launching out on his own as a freelancer, DeAndrade is currently shooting the best scenery, what to do, eat and drink in Los Angeles and a few other different cities for “taste of the town” documentaries for Direct TV. He’s also steeped in celebrity, filming interviews with Paul Simon, Bill Clinton, Hulk Hogan and others for a documentary about Madison Square Garden.

But what gets him going more than anything else? The shots that scare the hell out of people who see it—wildlife, elements, riskiness,” he says. “I love capturing things that make people want to get off their couch, or look at an animal in an intimate way. Even if it’s a sandhill crane stalking a lizard, it’s much more interesting than a celebrity.”