As time goes by, you realize that it’s okay to change things within yourself to achieve life fulfillment. Let’s listen to a story of a normal kid who grew up in a small town that ended up on television gaining popularity. Chris Raab admits that it was surreal and intoxicating in some ways. It instantly made him popular. Then he was introduced to cinematography earlier in his career, even before his appearance in Jackass. He also started filming with people in West Chester, just skateboarding and doing some random stuff. These films began to add up where the Jackass was conceptualized. But now, he does not appear on television anymore and is just working behind the camera. Listen as another story unfolds.

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Chris Raab – From Jackass To Behind The Camera

I’m here with our guest, Chris Raab. How are you, Chris?

I’m good. Thanks for having me on.

Some of you may know Chris as Raab Himself from the Jackass show and CKY. You’ve done the Jackass movie. You were in the show on MTV, Viva La Bam.

I’m like an MTV whore. I’m doing everything or whatever they’ve got this week. I’ll be on Sixteen and Pregnant in the minute. Thanks for having me on. It’s cool and good to be chatting with you. It was good to meet you and how we got together from shooting some stuff for your company. It’s crazy where the camera has taken me, in all the different worlds that I get to enter from doing camera work and stuff like that.

I got my start when I was younger, being in front of the camera and then I drifted into doing the camera work myself, being an operator, cinematographer, and all different types. I did focus pulling and I slapped slates and all that stuff as I worked my way through the camera department. I joined IATSE Local 600 Camera Union out in LA and worked a lot on narrative shows and feature films, but I got my start in reality television as far as in the camera department. I did docu-series and those things. When I was young, I grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, not too far from where you grew up and we started out.

Doing dumb shit?

It was highbrow stuff that we were doing.

Trust me, I was highly sophisticated back in that day watching you guys execute to perfection to entertain, to use the pun, jackasses like myself and everyone else. We’re around the same age. People reading this, most people know about Jackass, Viva La Bam, and all these crazy spinoff shows that they came out with.

For those of us that are hyper-local that are reading, twenty minutes from West Chester, so it was even more of the buzz. You’re like, “So-and-so saw Raab and Bam out in West Chester.” It was hyper-local. With my crew, we started to at least get into Napster. I don’t even know where the fuck you found videos back in the day. Wherever you found file sharing and we would grab the CKY videos before Jackass and a little bit less polished when you guys started messing around. We found all the crazy CKY videos. It was pretty wild stuff.

One of the things, Chris and I have gotten to know each other from his company, where we shoot video and all kinds of productions for my company and that’s Green Gate Films. Chris and I are shooting footage and making this awesome show that we’re shooting for CNBC. It’s a unique name, and we’re in the same area. I’m like, “Were you the guy,” and we start talking. I’m like, “Holy shit, this is Raab Himself.”

It’s so funny too because it’s been a while since I’ve been on TV. I’ve been behind the camera for a long time now. Sometimes, when you bump into people, they’ll go, “How do I know you? Did we work together?” You’re like, “No, I’ve never met you before.” It’s always such a weird thing because you’re not going to go right out there and be like, “I was on TV.”

When you’re 20 years old, it’s hard to figure out if you should be investing in your future.

Someone will go, “Did you go to West Chester? What college did you go to?” In a roundabout, it finally gets out there. “I did do this stuff.” It’s always funny because especially when you’re in a professional setting with you. You’re a mortgage broker and it’s a legit professional thing. “Here’s the guy that they crapped all over himself running down the street.” It’s like, “Nice to meet you.”

We had done a couple of shoots and started making small talk and figured it out. It was cool to get to talk about your experience and go through everything with the show and everybody’s taking their own path. There were a lot of challenges that went with partying your ass off, doing drugs, having a shitload of money thrown at you to go act like an idiot.

Especially when you’re twenty years old, it’s hard to figure, “I should be investing in my future.” I should be investing in this pile of cocaine that’s in front of me right now. That’s the world I lived in when I was young.

It was encouraged. The dumber shit that you did, the more wild and crazy it was. You had people on the other end that were like, “Cool. Do more of that.” Not that any of those people were looking out for your well-being.

I was going to say, it’s such the cliché story in terms of any rock band, any actor, whoever, or in our case, dipshit gets attention like that, they want you to be drunk and high, and all those things because it’s easier to manipulate and control you. You learn that later as you get a little older, but in the time, you’re like, “Whatever, I’m some kid from a small town and I ended up on TV.” All of a sudden, I’m the popular kid that’s getting asked to the dance. When we were kids, no one was going to homecoming with me. Now, everyone wants to know what you’re doing and happening in your world. It’s intoxicating in more ways than one.

You were hanging out with all of these guys. Everybody was going through their own journey at 20, 25 like Bam, Knoxville, and Steve-O.

The story of CKY was a bunch of people from West Chester and Bam was the ringleader of that and putting together a video. The way it happened naturally was that his dad had bought a video camera when we were young because Bam was a real good skateboarder. He stuck on it at an early age. When we were ten years old, he was jumping off the roof into the halfpipe and doing crazy stuff. His dad had a video camera to film like a Sponsor Me Tape because back in the day, you’d submit a Sponsor Me Tape to different companies and stuff.

He started getting flow, as they call it, from the local skate shop, Fairman’s, and was getting free skate decks, shirts, shoes, and things so that he could skate because you’re going to rip through a board, rip through your shoes, and then all of a sudden, you’re not going to skate because you don’t have a board or whatever.

Dave Fairman was huge to all the local skaters and everything. He was amazing. He was the guy that made it happen so that kids could have an opportunity to improve and nourish their abilities. Dave Fairman was huge on that. There’s no coincidence that there were multiple professional skaters that came out of the West Chester area because of that. Also, because of that, Bam had the video camera and we would start filming stupid things aside from skateboarding.

That stuff started to add up and it was one of his sponsors, Landspeed, that wanted to put out a skate video. He was like, “I have my skatepark, Maldonado’s skatepark, Kerry Getz’s skatepark, and some stuff from Tim O’Connor,” and other things. He’s like, “I can do that and I have a whole bunch of random nonsense.” He put that together and added in all the funny prank calls Brandon was doing, the stupid stuff I was doing, knocking stuff off the shelves at the grocery store, and dumb precursor to Jackass stuff.

He put that video together for Landspeed. That’s what ended up being put out in a skate shop and started generating some buzz. Simultaneously, the Big Brother skate magazine, which was the Bible for the kooks, all the outliers and skaters that were freaks, and into like crazy things aside from skating too. That was Jeff Tremaine, Rick Kosick, and Dave England worked there. Knoxville started working there as one of the contributing editors, one of the guys writing the stories and stuff.

 

Big Brother skate magazine had done a video as well. I remember seeing it, there was a guy, and they bet him to eat a pile of dog shit for some free trucks for his skateboard, and he did it. They would do stuff like that. Knoxville went out and did that whole self-defense, like shoot yourself with Mace and stun gun. He shot himself with a .38 gun with a bulletproof vest on, which was gnarly. You can see it in the Big Brother documentary that they did called Dumb. It’s on Hulu or whatever.

That explains the other half of what Jackass was. It was the CKY and the Big Brother guys joined together that were all masterminded by Jeff Tremaine and Knoxville, and also Spike Jonze. Those three guys made Jackass happen, but it was a collaboration of the CKY and the Big Brother guys they brought together to make that happen. It started to get all this recognition and it kept building up and you never knew that the stupid stuff we were filming on the weekends. We would skip school and film in high school.

Who knew that stuff we were doing to make each other laugh would end up turning into what it is? I was one of the camera operators on the new Jackass Forever movie and came out at number one at the box office and it crushed. It was awesome to be a part of that and to see that. They threw me in the end there for a little nod to me from being there from the beginning and that stuff. It was cool. It was super funny. All these years later, having success again at the box office, it’s pretty neat to have been a part of that ride.

That ride has taken people down some different paths. Not everybody was at the premiere and part of the group. That journey in life, for lack of a better word, sends some people off the fucking rails.

I was one of them. It’s really easy to look back and then tell you the highlight reel and say how great and wonderful it was, but it took me to some dark places. I’ve been sober for many years. I had some drug and alcohol issues. I got help from 12-Step Program and continue to do that work and I continue to help stuff others get sober and do that because it’s very important to me. I am someone who struggles with that stuff and I have to keep treating that disease of alcoholism. That’s what I do, but I’m one of the fortunate stories that made it out alive and did the work that I do to continue to have a good life afterward.

We lost Ryan from drinking and driving and stuff like that. Bam is struggling pretty hard with this stuff that he’s doing. It’s hard to watch. Steve-O struggled for a good long while and the same with Novak. Fortunately, for Steve-O, Novak, and myself, we’re all sober and living a good life. What was always funny to me is Knoxville, Aaron, or whoever could party hard or whatever at that period of time and then naturally grow up as most people do. I will always be forever jealous of that because I couldn’t. I have that addiction. I keep going harder and then take it all the way under the ground. They were like, “We had a blast. Get it together.”

I’m like, “I don’t have that off switch that they seem to have.” Fortunately, though, there are only a few of us that do struggle with addiction issues. Others were able to have a good time, enjoy it, and then naturally grow up. I won’t say necessarily grow up, but you know what I mean. They were progressing and evolving into the next stages of life. For me, I got stuck there in a bit of arrested development for a while and had to work through that.

We always talk about it. It is the specific behind the music or true Hollywood story. It’s a pretty cliché in that sense that our one buddy died. There are big issues, fights, and arguments about all these things. There are financial issues. Some people get more than others and there’s all that if you want to explore it. We’re no different than anybody else that got some notoriety.

If you think about people that do succeed in the entertainment business are regular people from small towns usually, they’ll live in LA or claim LA, but it’s like, “I’m from like so-and-so Nebraska and I ended up getting this.” It’s a hard adjustment to then all of a sudden have people know who you are, want a piece of what you’re doing, and all that stuff. It’s hard to adjust to that.

Some people don’t do it too well. I know myself. I didn’t do it so well and that’s why I shied away. It was like when there’s an opportunity for more notoriety in these things, I started to get paranoid, weird, and want to be out of that. I don’t want to be known anymore. I don’t want to be a part of this. I started to get that late in my twenties. I want to go back to being the kid from a small town. I don’t want to do this anymore.

I imagine it’s hard to do. To give some perspective for those that are reading, West Chester is a small suburb like any other suburban middle-class or upper-middle-class, maybe depending on where you are, but it’s not LA. It’s not even anything close. Take that and give us the experience you had that was like, “Holy shit, I’m doing this. We’re driving in a Ferrari, and we’re doing this. I’m out here with these people.” What did that look like?

Being on TV is a success because some people really want to build a popular name.

My story is I got kicked out of public high school and I ended up going to Church Farm School, which was a small private school. I graduated with 21 kids. My senior year was 21 kids and you go from an area where you got your class of 21 and you’re in a small little suburban town, and then all of a sudden, you’re thrust into in front of everybody in their living rooms on television every Sunday. You’re on a bus and traveling around doing promotional tours with rock bands and things like that. All of these random people in small-town America everywhere know who you are.

It’s a strange feeling because you’re like, “I went from this nobody in a small town to then all of a sudden people recognize you and know you do those things.” It’s strange in a sense that it can create some paranoia and like, “Why do you want to talk to me?” Now, all of a sudden, you come interested. There are all those kinds of aspects of it too.

It’s weird, though. For me, I blindly went into it and those thoughts and all that stuff came later down the road, but in the very beginning, it was like, “This is the greatest thing in the world. I want more. I get to go to this bar, and they’re giving me all these free drinks, and then this girl that I’d never had a shot with is interested. These guys that were always too cool for me, they want to show me the coolest thing that their town has to offer.”

I became like the prom king. That was exciting and fun in the beginning. I cannot sit here and look at it like it’s all negative things. It was such an amazing thing to be given the keys to the city anywhere you went. People were like, “We love Jackass. We love Viva La Bam.” It reminds me of our group of friends and all these other things and these nice things to hear. People are telling you to like, “You inspired me to get a camera and you inspire this and that.” You’re like, “I’m pretty awesome.”

Puffing that ego up a little more.

Part of it is trying to keep that in check and there are times where it’s out of check because you’re like, “I’m so amazing.” Life has a funny way of showing you that you’re not and leveling the playing field in a lot of ways. It was such an experience growing up as a person too. You get to experience all of those things. I got to travel the world multiple times as a direct result of Jackass.

I had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for Jackass when the new one came out. As I said, I worked on it as a camera operator and then went and watched it. I had to miss the premiere out in LA because I’m here in Philly now. I had a couple of shoots that weekend. It was going to be too much to try to go out and do it, but I was missing it because I saw everybody having a great time there.

I talked to my one buddy, Lance Bangs. He was like, “It was so COVID restricted and all this. It looks great on the photos, but it wasn’t like the other ones that we’ve done.” I was like, “Cool.” That made me feel better for a moment because I went to the other ones and had a great time. Bad Grandpa was the last one that I was at with a whole group of people.

It’s fun, but when I went and watched the movie, I did have that feeling of gratitude of, “Here we are 22 years later.” The adventure that Jackass has sent me out on many years ago and everything that I’ve gotten to experience is a direct result of the success of that show and that movie had. As I said, it took me around the world a bunch of times and showed me all these new things in life. I’m a kid from West Chester, so I always felt like, “I’ll grow up and be a businessman like my dad did,” and whatever. That’s what you do.

I went to college for Business Finance. That’s what I went in my freshman year and I guess that’s what you do. Jackass happened and it opened up my whole world to be like, “No, you can do this creative thing for a living.” It was like, “What?” It was mind-blowing and eye-opening to know that you could do that. In a sense, I was always thinking like, “We stepped in shit. We had no idea that something like this was going to be successful.” There’s a lot of luck involved in that and the right place and time, and those things. They are being prepared for an opportunity and we were prepared for an opportunity.

We had filmed a bunch of this stuff. This was our wheelhouse, the world we were creating, and MTV was interested in something like that. I always take my hat off to Tom Green because I feel like he paved the way. Even prior to that, Buzzkill with Dave Sheridan was a show on MTV and they did amazing stuff and were the precursor to what Jackass was. MTV had a taste in their mouth for that stuff. We happened to be there at the right time for that to happen. I feel grateful for all and then it did that, and then it showed me like, “You can do this.”

 

More than like, “It’s so easy to go be a guy on TV and whatever.” It was more like, “I saw the camera guy. He was doing this too. He was traveling the world with me as I was on a show, but he was enjoying it and experiencing all that too.” That’s an actual job that doesn’t depend on some network saying, “Yes, we want you. No, we don’t.” That’s the nature of a job where you can work that job.

A little bit healthier and safer lifestyle too.

I’ve learned because even on the new one, I’ll try not to disclose, but there was a bit where they were doing musical chairs and Knoxville kept faking about not hitting the button and so Dave England got super relaxed. In the main thing, what stuck out was that Wee-Man got thrown and flipped upside down off of the recliner chair. It was almost like airbags exploding and throwing me out of the chair. He was the best looking because it flipped him out of the chair and he went and landed in the middle. It was gnarly.

I felt like he didn’t get enough attention because Wee-Man’s was so big and crazy. Dave relaxed because Knoxville faked them out so bad many times that he thought he wasn’t going to hit it and that time he hit it and he relaxed and got like such bad whiplash. He threw off the thing, his neck whipped back so hard. I remember Kosick looking in his eyepiece and I’m in mine. Kosick steps out and looks at me and goes, “Aren’t you so glad you’re behind the camera?” I was like, “Yes. I am way happier being back here.”

Not for nothing, but bodies are a little different. Years later, you could take something like that and you’re like, “Whiplash. What the hell is that? Let’s go and do it again.” Now, you’re on your back for a week.

“I don’t know. My spine is not working right.”

That’s what this show is all about. We explore the foundations under extraordinary lives. Your journey in life is certainly extraordinary. Not everybody has the opportunity to be on a TV show to have that fame and all of the things that go with that at such a young age. Understanding that everybody’s journey leads them to where they are and it builds a foundation that you don’t recognize at the moment. You didn’t start making crazy-ass videos to say, “Years from now, I’m going to be behind the camera and I’m going to do all this cool stuff and have my own company,” as you said, “This is what I’m doing.”

You follow the journey that life took you on and that’s now why I want it to have you on. To be able to recognize, too, you could get the idea of somebody that’s in that environment that’s given money at a young age and partying like a rockstar. We’ve all seen the behind-the-scenes. It does take awareness. Even now, I commend you because you could still tap into that. You could have been more involved in the other movies and scenes and still respected your decision to stay sober and to do all of that.

It takes a lot to be able to step back and say, “I don’t even want to be in the spotlight. I’m in control of not being able to drink or do whatever because I’ve made this decision,” but even more so than that, “I don’t even want to be in front of a camera.” I would think for most people, to be removed from that would have to be a tough decision because it’s so intoxicating, to use your word. It takes a lot, I would think, to make that decision.

It’s partly made for you at times too. I had gone and shopped shows, gotten into development, and tried to push on in front of the camera stuff. When I was very young at twenty, everything that I was a part of or involved with, I was lucky that it had so many different elements of it. Johnny Knoxville is a hot stud. Girls were all into him and it pushed the show and made it happen. I happened to be a part of that thing. There were so many cool elements to the show and it worked out, same thing to Viva La Bam. The collective of all of us helped things go and it worked, and we got great ratings and all that stuff.

As time went, my thought was, “I’m going to try to get a show.” Ryan went and got a show after Viva La Bam and did Homewrecker, and then he did a Proving Ground. I had shows in development and there were talks of me being the host or the main guy of it. For whatever reason, they didn’t go. There were two at that period in 2006. In 2009 or 2010, I had another show in development and it didn’t go.

Helping others get sober is very important for some people.

How does that feel? When you were on top of the world, no matter what you did, because you were involved with the right people and there was such a buzz, you’re almost invincible. “I got my show,” and then you throw it out there and it doesn’t go. What was that a reality check at all?

I went deeper into my drugs and alcohol at that point. I got dark and there was a lot of depression. It was a hard fall in terms of everything you do, people love and then all of a sudden, you are yesterday’s news. That’s what I’ve learned over the course of all the years I’ve worked in the entertainment industry. That’s par for the course. You’re the flavor of the week this week and then not next week, and then maybe the week after. It’s that peaks and valleys thing. It’s whether you can weather that storm. For me, I’m sensitive. It was hard to weather that storm.

When you do get a show into development, everyone’s still stroking your ego. They’re telling you how great you are the whole way that they’re setting you up to say no, but they’re telling you, “You’re so great.” It’s not like, “Get out of here, kid. You’re no good for us.” It’s more like, “You’re the greatest,” and this and that. You’re still believing that. It’s so hard to navigate and understand, especially when you’re in your twenties. Even in your 40s, you’re like, “I don’t know, but I might know a little more, but maybe not,” but then when you’re in your twenties, you think you know it all, but you don’t know shit.

In your 40s, you’re like, “I don’t know shit.” It’s tough navigating that. You get to these deep thoughts of like, “It’s the universe telling me it’s over and it’s time to move on.” It’s coincidentally at a similar time where I was feeling that as well. There were parts of me looking back now where you feel like, “Maybe when I was selling shows, they felt that.” I was having that not a come-to-Jesus moment, but that epiphany in my life of like, “I’m not sure this is the direction I want to go.”

It helped make that decision for you.

In a way, you’re like, “Maybe they sense that energy of being not fully there.” I was drinking, drugging, and stuff. I’m so hard to get ahold of. We were trying to film a pilot for one thing and I was so wasted. Other people were like, “This is Raab.” I remember the one producer being like, “No, this is annoying. This sucks. He’s a mess.” There were those kinds of things that were a part of the whole decision, but once I did end up getting sober, it cleared up things for me in terms of what my interests were. It was to get behind the camera and start going in that direction and still getting to be creative, but not necessarily having that pressure of, “Looks like you’re getting a little fat,” or whatever.

It was difficult. You get all these body image things and issues with whatever. I feel, in a sense, I made that decision, but I was also helped by the universe or whatever it was that was shifting me in that direction. It helped me make the right decisions that were more healthy and better decisions. Ultimately, it put me back in a spot where I got behind the camera and I got to experience the same life and I got to be the dude I’m talking about that was on our show.

“I got to experience this life from this perspective. It’s much more of a healthy thing, but I’m still traveling and doing cool projects and being involved.” I was then involved in the new Jackass but behind the camera, and that was fun. I got to experience all that just as much, but not the price that comes along with giving away your anonymity.

It was fun when we went and saw the movie here in the West Chester area. There were some kids that were like, “Raab?” It was fun for me because I don’t get that much anymore. It was like, “It’s cool and neat.” They were excited about it. I also liked to go back to being the dude who walks in the grocery store and nobody knows who he is, and whatever. I liked that.

I was a big fan of the show. Growing up, we watched all that and the MTV stuff. It didn’t click for me until 3 or 4 of our shoots. I was like, “Raab?” I looked at your face again, I was like, “Holy shit.”

I fade into the masses there. It’s good to fade into the crowd. What’s been neat is working in the business behind the camera. I lived in Los Angeles for a long time. When I moved back to this area, my decision was like, “There’s not enough work happening here to be doing camera work.” I had this thinking in terms of how do I expand that. What I did recognize is there’s a lot of work for corporate video, real estate stuff, and then one-off shoots here and there. I can do those, but I can also do this. That’s what inspired me to start my little production company, Green Gate Entertainment and that has been cool.

 

Over the course of the last few years, we’ve done some cool stuff. We did a feature film and it’s called Afternooner. It’s a comedy film. It’s an ode to the ’90s comedies. The story is about a guy who owns a bicycle rental shop on the beach in Santa Monica. His arch-nemesis is trying to open up a shop right next to his and put them out of business.

He’s trying to concoct a plan on how to make sure that guy doesn’t get his business open and save his business and that stuff and a bunch of stupid things. Making fun of all the stuff that’s like hot topics in terms of however you can offend somebody, that’s what we were doing. It was fun to do and that was neat. The Harrow Brothers, they’re the guys that wrote and directed it. Our company came in and helped produce it.

We’ve done some music videos throughout the year too. As you said, with your stuff, being able to also come in as a third party and shoot Financing The American Dream. It’s been neat to get into that and I have the opportunity for doing the corporate stuff, the real estate, all these other things that pay the bills. I also have the opportunity to do some of the passion projects, like films and music videos, and things.

As I keep working on it, they’ll be more and they’re happening more frequently. In the beginning, it was like real estate and corporate. There’s a high demand for that, so I’m getting more of those jobs. As a band sees some of the work that we’ve done, then they go, “We want to have you shoot our music videos.” It was funny because I wasn’t even sure there was still a market for a music video, but the people are shooting them all the time and doing it. You’re like, “I didn’t realize this was still a thing.”

Now, they put it out through a different media. That’s what’s cool. It’s awesome to see like as you get older and more mature, working together shooting real estate mortgage stuff sounds pretty lame compared to being on Jackass the movie.

Not really. We were in that tiny little plane flying around Philadelphia. I was more scared of that than any of it.

That was so awesome. If anybody’s watched the Jackass stuff, you’ve seen Chris, Bam, and Steve-O, and all these guys do totally outrageous stuff and here we are, we’re doing this corporate video thing. Chris is like, “We’re going to go up in this little four-seater plane and do this.” I’m like, “Chris, you’re cool with that, right?.” He’s like, “I don’t like those planes.”

I was like, “This is the beginning of The Buddy Holly Story.” I was like, “No.”

It was pretty funny when we did do that.

It’s amazing how your mindset changes, too, because I’m a dad now too. You’re like, “I can’t be taking these risks. I can’t be doing this.” At the same time, there’s that part of me that’s like, “Whatever. Get up in the plane, you little bitch.” Ultimately, it was a fun experience to get up there and fly around. It did feel like we were sitting on a chair in the sky.

That was the first time I was in a plane that small as well.

You have no idea that something’s going to be successful. There’s a lot of luck involved in that.

The pilot, Jonathan, was incredible. He knows his stuff so well that I felt very safe and accounted for. That was my question to you about it. I was like, “Who is this dude? How many hours?”

He sent out a homemade safety video.

His level of detail was like, “We’re good.”

It’s been awesome having you on. I know you’re doing a lot of other things too. You’ve got the Hope 4 Today nonprofit. Give a shout-out and quick plug for what you’re doing with that.

It’s a good reminder that I need to be hustling more on that. When the pandemic happened, it shut us down from travel out there, but what we were doing is at least a couple of times a year traveling out to Haiti, specifically, Montrouis, Saint-Marc, and Ransanble are the areas that we have connected closely with some of the locals and help some of the projects that are needed in those areas. It’s been such a rewarding thing to be a part of.

I always say I don’t like to be that guy that’s like, “I came down from my little life and now I got to do something.” What happened was I went down with a project to shoot a documentary in Haiti and the place captured my soul or spirit. When I met some of our friends there that have become our friends now are the sweetest people and have such positive outlooks on life in spite of some of the difficulties that have been sent their way. They have an incredible spirit and the ability to push through difficult stuff.

It inspired me to want to go down there and do some trips down. I’ve done some done multiple trips and we’ve been able to help with some major projects. With sanitation stuff, we’ve built some bathrooms and also done some irrigation stuff with them, but what I find is that their resilience in what they’re able to accomplish on their own is what’s amazing.

I look at it as, “You all come out here and raise some funds and organize some stuff, and do some things and do that,” but what happens is our local leaders in those areas head up the projects. You’ll see that with the littlest amount of resources, they can do incredible things. I remember there was one moment I came back a year after we had headed up this project for an irrigation system. When I was there the year before, it was this completely desolate field. It was all dried-up dirt. It didn’t look like it was able to be irrigated or anything.

We got fire hoses from the Philadelphia Fire Company, a fire company in Philadelphia, and they gave us a bunch of old hoses, got some PVC pipe, got this water pump thing, and they built this huge irrigation system down there where they poked holes into the fire hoses and that was able to put water over the whole fields and stuff. When I came back, they were like, “We want to show you.”

I walked up over the hill. The entire field was covered in tomatoes, bananas, and plantains, and all this. It choked me up because it was incredible. This little bit that we were able to pull together, they were able to turn it into something huge and to see that and to see how people come together. They also were lending the irrigation system to neighboring towns. It’s the spirit and the love.

It’s awesome and all that stuff down there has been so inspiring. That’s our little nonprofit, Hope 4 Today. It’s Hope4Today.org. We have some cool projects going down there. We’re trying to get some funds together now for building a secondary school in Ransamble because right now they have an elementary school that’s K to 5, and then after the kids are 11, 12 years old, they’re supposed to go down to the Saint-Marc for the school there, but it’s a real far walk.

 

Sometimes when it’s raining, they bail, and a lot of kids end up not going. That was the thing with buddy Wilson Louis down there. His dream is to be able to get to that school. We only got to get $30,000 together, and we can get this school put together. It’s pretty simple, but it’s something so that these kids from the age of 12 to 18 can have some education. That’s the focus that we’re focusing on now.

We’ll have to connect up and see if we can help. One of our guests, Ryan Stackhouse, who’s doing amazing things, does some trips like that down to Haiti and in different places, so maybe I’ll hook you and Ryan up too.

That’d be great to connect.

We unpacked a lot here and it’s been awesome. If people want to connect with you on the film side and want to look into your work and what you do, or connect with you otherwise, what’s the best way to find you?

Our video production company is GreenGateEntertainment.com, and then as I said, Hope4Today.org is the nonprofit. The social media stuff, @Raab_Himself on Instagram, is one that I have. That’s probably the only one that I’ll go on once in a while because I like to look at those memes. I swear to God, people are hilarious in whatever memes they put together, but that’s about as much social media as I do. I try to avoid the other stuff.

You’ve successfully faded behind the scenes, Raab. One of the other things, too, before we let you roll here is I’m going to throw a rapid-fire at you, three quick questions. What we’re going to do is you’re stuck on an island. You’re not getting off the island. We’re going to give you three fun questions. First one, we’re going to throw the disclaimer out there. We know given a choice, you’d bring your family and kids, but outside of those choices, you got one person you’re stuck on this island. Who is Raab taking with him? We’re not going to exclude friends because you got some pretty fucking cool friends. Outside of family members and your kids, and whatnot.

I feel like he’s not my friend, but wouldn’t you want to have Bear Grylls with you? I would be like, “I want to take that guy,” so he can figure out all that shit and I can go like swimming.

The second question is, what’s a book that you’ve read that’s had an impact on your life that anybody reading might take a little something away from?

In terms of a book, The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz was pretty impactful. That’s a good one. That’s the one off the top of my head.

The last question is fun, stuck on the island, what do you have to have as far as your favorite food, guilty pleasure, snack, you got to have this thing shipped in?

If I could say a genre of food on an island, it would work well because I love seafood and I’m going to say burgers. That’s like my go-to. I’m embarrassed, but I eat so many burgers.

Chris, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. For everybody reading, if you got something out of this, we ask that you share it on social. If you’re on iTunes, give us a five-star rating. On that note, we’re out.

 

Important Links

• Chris Raab
• IATSE Local 600
• Green Gate Entertainment
• Hope 4 Today
• Ryan Stackhouse – Previous episode
• Hope4Today.org
• @Raab_Himself – Instagram
• The Four Agreements
• iTunes – FUEL with Chris Swartz
• https://Vimeo.com/222136707
• https://Vimeo.com/547737314

 

About Chris Raab

Raab got his start in the entertainment industry at an early age as a member of the CKY crew, he appeared in the CKY video series, which led him to international success as a cast member of Mtv’s JACKASS. Raab went on to appear on-camera in many other projects including; spinoff series Viva La Bam, Independent Films, Radio Appearances and more. During his years of experience on set, Raab developed an interest in the camera department.

He became a member of the (ICG) International Cinematographers Guild, working on many television and film productions for major networks and studios including; NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, NatGeo, History Channel, Discovery, HBO, Mtv, VH1, TV land, TruTV, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon & Vice. Raab continues to transfer his passion for the film and television platform into heartfelt projects that make a difference. He is the founder of Hope 4 Today Nonprofit, an organization designed for community outreach, both locally and abroad.

Tags: artist, cinematography, filming, popularity, skateboarding, sobriety