If my calendar serves me correctly, it’s almost trailer season. We’ve still got to wait for some spring park shoots to wrap up, but pretty soon we’ll be feasting our eyes on some carefully edited snapshots into the work of the top thirty to fifty skiers in the world. Some might say that the trailer is overrated, but I’d have to disagree. A really good trailer will grease the gears of the hype machine and get the internet buzzing with anticipation.
I’ve used this example before, but the trailer to WSKI was so banger that the hype probably eclipsed the actual video. There’s obviously lots to be said about editing and the choice of shots that will make the jaws drop, but song choice isn’t to be ignored. You can really make a statement with a song, and setup an image/mood that we’ll carry in our heads until that first premier.
Here are a few of my less-than-serious suggestions for everybody’s favorite film companies:
Meathead Films- Probably the most crucial trailer of year. These guys serve an audience that takes pride in being core to the core, and they took some risks by filming in Japan. The boundaries of the “east” had been stretched slightly to include Michigan, but flying to the other side of the world might be a bit questionable. This trailer will need to say “We’re still core as f*ck. You got a problem, sucka?” What better way, than with some grimy Baltimore hip hop?
Level 1: Refresh may have produced more hype than any ski movie in the last decade. While that’s usually a good thing, I’ll bet Berman wouldn’t mind a year without subpoenas and cease and desist orders. I think they’ll go with a can’t-we-all-get-along track:
Nimbus: I know, I know…they’re not really putting out a traditional trailer this year because it’s all futuristic digital downloads and whatnot. Nonetheless, here’s my completely unsolicited opinion on what they need to make happen with their music: We all love the class rock vibe of Nimbus stuff, and if you don’t…well you’re an ass. However, we’re in the midst of a really damn cool bluesy classic rock-esque music revival right now. There are a shitload of bands making music that sounds both current and straight out of 1971. So in order to narrow it down a bit, just start with anything from the Black Keys. You know Dan Auerbach is one soulful ass whiteboy.
Surface “Walks of Life”: I don’t give a shit what song you use, just release the damn thing.
With a serious lack of creative jam competitions like this one, there’s very little room for quirky non-doublecorkers in skiing. Garrett Russell stands out as a member of a small club that has rejected the jock norm and carved out a separate space. We talked to him about being a badass ninja renegade, and what it’s like to do such weird tricks.
It seems like snowboarding has room for a bunch of guys who are never going to hit the big jump or do tricks you’d see in competition. What would you say has kept skiing in this mindset of correct, or better, tricks to be done on a particular rail/jump?
Its background. Coming from racing the seed is planted in there and it’s really hard to get away from it. Skiing came from racing, so you have to ski with ski poles and you have to do this or that. Growing up we were, or for me, I was watching Shane McConkey and Scot Schmidt and those guys were extreme and they stepped outside the boundary.
I think, just recently snowboarding has started that where it’s kind of like skateboarding. Like the Think Thank crew, they’re just crazy creative. I think skiing will catch on to different kinds of variations. I think Traveling Circus is a type of variation. Will we ever see Andy Parry do a doublecork? I don’t know, but maybe we’ll build a backcountry jump and he’ll try it. It will be pretty funny, but that’s just for shits and giggles.
As someone with some perspective on the industry, would you say there’s starting to be room for people who are doing it differently?
I think it’s slowly growing into that. Remember back in FREEZE, it was the same five people over and over again. I was pretty excited during this X Games because there were a whole bunch of new cats, new people. That’s pretty cool.
I think there will be room for it because at some point people are just going to want something that’s different and appeals to a different public. I read that only 3% of the US population skis. It’s so crazy and it’s such a gift that we get to live this life. Some people just don’t see it; they come from money, they ski, and they expect everybody to know who they are. You can tell there are a lot of professional skiers who came from a background of money and racing. I didn’t come from that, and I know that if I didn’t have sponsors there’s no way I’d be able to afford to ski like this. So I’m super appreciative of those guys who have helped me, and I just want to get the public stoked on skiing. That’s what will keep the sport alive.
Jason Levinthal is the founder and mad scientist behind LINE skis. I had the privilege of skiing with him at Stowe. Before we met up, I put together fifteen questions and we got through about four of them. When J Lev speaks, you listen. What follows is Jason’s response to my first question; I passed him my iPhone and let him talk because what was flowing was essential for knowing your roots. I’ve transcribed the interview for the readers among us, but I’ve also included the raw audio for your listening pleasure.
Who and what influenced your skiing the most back in 1995 when you started Line?
Back in ’95 skiing, you gotta remember and it’s hard for people to realize, there were signs at the top of the Stratton Terrain Park, and most terrain parks, that said no skiers allowed. You know, that’s just a fact. And then, the other fact is it wasn’t even called terrain parks, it was called snowboard parks. If you can imagine that, then that’s only the tip of the iceberg of what skiing really was, and it’s such a short time ago, but it’s so easy to forget.
The only ski you could buy was like a 203 length, you know, if you’re 5’10”, 150 lbs, you’re gonna ride a 203 length ski that was like 65 in the waist, so stiff you couldn’t even flex it if you put it between two saw horses and jumped on it. It had no side cut, so you really weren’t even carving unless you were going 80mph down a downhill race course in the Olympics, which only 5 people can do. That’s what all the skis were built on. So, your options for skiing was basically this product that really inhibited you from progressing, and then you had no imagery other than Scott Schmidt and Glen Plake which, hats off to those guys for at least taking that product and pushing it as far as they possibly could. I mean, they’re throwing like 720’s off cornices and they’re doing like everything possible but it was still so far behind snowboarding, and snowboarding was behind skating, and you know, that’s ultimately what influenced me was the fact that all these other action sports existed and were so far ahead of the curve of skiing.
Skiing was one of the oldest of all those sports, and it was like the last one to ever evolve or change. I mean you’re talking 30-40yrs of just the same thing: skis built for world-cup downhill skiers, of which 99.9% of people that go to the mountain can’t ride like, don’t train enough to be able to bend a 200-length ski at an 80mph course of ice. They just wanna go have fun, and they’re really fighting the design of the ski. So, for me, design-minded, kinda inventor-minded, mechanically minded, I saw snowboarding, I skateboarded, I wakeboarded when that came about. I inline skated when that came about. Mountain biked. BMX. All these products were old products. I mean cycling evolved to BMX, evolved to mountain biking. Skateboards became twin tip. Wakeboards came from water skiing. Rollerblades came from roller skates. Snowboarding really came from a problem with skiing not being able to evolve.
So, what I did seeing that, it just bothered me for like a long time, probably, 10 years leading up to that. So, I started snowboarding in like ’88 or something. So that was when I was going to Stratton on the weekends and I was visiting the Burton factory, and I was seeing what Burton was doing for snowboarding. You know, from just an idea into a finished thing. So, I saw what Burton was doing with snowboarding and how they were doing it and then, eventually, when I had my second or third board, my first board was a Sims Switchblade, anyone that knows snowboarding knows how old that was. That was one of the first boards with edges, you know, a few years after edges were put on snowboards. Eventually, I got a Burton Air, it was a completely symmetrical board, or pretty damn close, it was the first board that was like that. I got on, took one run at Stratton, and it was like the light bulb went on: “I’m mounting my skis centered.”
So I didn’t mount my skis center, I was just on this snowboard, and I said, “this is crazy dude, like what I can do on this snowboard is unbelievable and this is what I need to be able to do on my skis.” And I was literally snowboarding half the day and skiing half the day. I’d bring a snowboard and skis to the mountain every time I went. Half the day I’d snowboard, then I’d jump on my skis the other half, because I love skiing because the forward facing, just like that was me; but snowboarding, I got a feeling from snowboarding carving, riding switch, doing tricks, the maneuverability, the playfulness, the fun, the agility, all is what I really also loved. I wanted to be able to do that on my skis, but couldn’t, so I just had to do both to satisfy my craving.
At one point I snowboarded half the day, I switched to my skis, I was on like 203 Rossi’s, those green ones, and then I, without thinking, just did a 180, cause like that’s what I had been doing all morning on my snowboard. This was like before college, I was in high school. Then like 5 years went by and I was in college and we had to do a project and I was like, “I’m gonna make a ski like a snowboard.” This was in ’95, so I took all the dimensions of a snowboard, cut in half—length, width, everything. That’s how I came to a skiboard. There was no more thought beyond than that.
So, I wasn’t about to take a ski and redesign it. I was going to take a snowboard, and evolve it into a ski, you know, start all the way from one extreme. That’s why it was short, that’s why it was wide, that’s why it was twin tip, symmetric, and had side cut, and it had a soft flex. All those aspects of that ski at that time, which people want to call a “skiboard”, was closer to the modern day ski that you’re on today. You’re riding on longer skiboards, or more realistically, back then, you’re riding on shorter skis that were fucking 10-15yrs ahead of their time. People call them skiboard for the same reason they call terrain parks snowboard parks. They couldn’t get over the fact that that could be a ski.
Each year the ski internet buzzes with predictions for who will win Level 1′s Superunknown competition. As each wave of finalist edits are released, the speculation only increases. This year, Alaska native Logan Imlach took the honors by mixing backcountry with some creative and burly urban. Level 1′s Freedle Coty was kind enough to answer a few questions about judging, past winners, and Logan’s future with the crew.
This is the seventh year of Superunknown– has the contest changed now that most of the contestants are already minor celebs with edits all over the internet?
Not necessarily, first off there’s plenty of people we haven’t heard of as we don’t have time to sit and watch every edit, all day. Every year a few kids come out of the woodwork that are unknowns even in the internet edit culture. This year I personally had heard of, or knew, 5 of the top selections. Kids who watch edits religiously definitely have a better tab on this kind of stuff on a day to day basis.
How aware were you of Logan prior to the contest?
Not aware. I had never heard of him.
When the edits are submitted, what does the judging process look like?
We go through all the videos one by one when they come in, that’s the mind numbing part. This year Berman did all that himself because no one else was around; he has a good eye for that. Sometimes you can tell right away what will make it or not and from there we select a top tier, and watch those more closely. Now with the amount, and the level of talent, it comes down to two tiers, and that’s what we released on Vimeo. The top tier we show as many people who are close to or in our crew and try to come to a consensus. It’s not democratic necessarily, nor is it a “best edit” contest which I think a lot of people confuse for. We look for an overall impression of talent and personality primarily, with potential being the biggest factor. It’s not easy. The last two years we struggled on choosing the winner, but this year I think it was slightly easier.
Does it ever get like a draft, where you’re looking to fill a particular hole in your “team”?
Yeah, I guess that can be a factor, but it’s not really the deciding one. There isn’t a rulebook for it, we want diversity. It definitely helps to choose somebody who adds to our crew and movie in some way.
This past weekend, I headed to Jay Peak to meet Mike Rogge, who was running Ski The East’s Freeride Tour and the IFSA extreme competition at Jay. After going on an extended diatribe making fun of Jon (BroBomb editor) and painting a picture of him standing in the park making fun of kids with baggy clothes while he cruises by in a jean jacket, leather pants, and feathers in his hair; Rogge suddenly changed subjects: “Just write a positive article for once.” Wow. I’ll admit that in the increasing spite I’ve felt towards the world since writing for this blog, the idea of writing a purely positive article was a new and uncomfortable idea. Could I go another week without trying to do harm to someone’s reputation in the ski industry? Without venting there was no way I was going to be able to hold it together enough to be cheery on sales calls for SASS. But thankfully I saw some performances this past weekend at the Ski The East Freeride Tour’s Jay Peak IFSA “extreme” comp that inspired me to positivity despite my ardent efforts to remain miserable.
Since Garrett moved to Telluride, Nimbus probably won’t let him into their chamber of monologues to pontificate on the finer points of style and friendship. This would obviously be a massive loss, so we’ve cleared some space on the internet for Garrett’s ideas on aesthetics, fun, tricks, and style.
I think kids want to know about your approach to selection of terrain. Actually, terrain isn’t the right word, but when watching a Garrett Russell edit it would be hard not to know its you. We all have access to a hundred edits a day, and there’s a lot of sameness, but there’s usually something different about yours. How would you explain your approach that makes it so different?
First of all, thanks man, that’s a great compliment. You’ve got originality and style, and what is style, it’s hard to even explain. I feel that my style of skiing is just creativity and trying to have fun; you know? That’s what it all comes down to, because if you’re not having fun then what’s the point? I used to do a bunch of competitions, but it was just frustrating so I kind of turned my attention away from it and let style create itself and become what it is today.
I’m completely inspired by snowboarding, skateboarding, music, and art. Bruce Lee said, “style is a crystallization.” If you have one style you can’t grow, so I’m constantly trying to intertwine my style with the feelings of the day, the terrain, or the park and just trying to make the best out of it. Life is too short to be salty.
You also do a lot of stuff that requires crazy control of your tips and tails like butters and noseblocks and stuff like that. You still don’t see a ton of guys doing that stuff.
Yeah man, tech mob. In Mammoth, I lived there for six years, and it was sweet because I would watch guys like Pat Bridges, the editor of Snowboard Magazine. I’d be watching him cruise around, and everyone is acting like you have to hit the big jump to work on spins and stuff, but there’d be certain days where I’d just want to do what Pat’s doing. So I’d just fuck around and do noseblocks, and just have fun. Knuckle tricks are really fun, and I just learned a lot by just messing around. The entire tip and tail thing is definitely different now, you can do so much with it and I hope to create new tricks. There’s no names for them, I find ‘em and try them out.
I’m trying to express that you don’t have to do doublecorks and extreme stuff. You can just cruise around and…I don’t know, creativity is hard.
This is going to be a ridiculous question, but what would you say the difference is between what you see when you look at a park and the what the average pro skier sees?
When I look at a park, what do I see? I try to look for stuff that is not there. I try to create something out of what is not there and that’s hard to even explain. I see a jump and I think, “Well, can I do something off that knuckle over to this tranny?” It’s a lot of tranny finding and looking outside the box.
Like any seasonal sport, there’s a certain ebb and flow to the media coverage of skiing. Articles about the earliest resorts to open are inevitable in the fall, and it’s impossible to avoid the ‘summer camps’ issues of all your major mags on the newsstands in February. Spring is another major tick on the clock of the ski year. Freeski mags and sites probably don’t go for the obligatory “bikinis and hero snow” article as often as a mainstream mag, but it’s still there in spirit. I could write one of those, but I’m sure the serious journalists over at SKIING have beaten me to it.
Part 4 of The Unemployment Chronicles of Owen McKee. This episode is based on a dream and all that comes with it, from the unemployment monster, to skiing a variety of features. Presented by Trashpile Productions.
Skiing, like most outdoor sports, has seen countless advancements in equipment during the last couple decades. Plenty of these new technologies are gimmicky and worthless– useful only for those who have to own the latest and greatest gadgetry (I’m thinking of the ski-wheel they sell in SkyMall). Then there are substantial changes like sidecut, twin geometry, and new durable materials.
Through all of this, the most begrudged of all equipment, boots have stayed largely the same. There are lace-up liners; two, three, or four buckles; shock-absorbers; adjustable flex; and other bells/whistles, but the core concept is the same. We’re still sliding in a hard-plastic shell with a soft liner stuffed into it. I don’t pretend to be an expert on ski boots, but I’m pretty sure I can get an “amen” from the congregation on this one.
The most memorable recent modifications on the standard model have been of the DIY variety. Allen Lam came up with a system for V-cutting SPK’s and possibly Full Tilts for more mobility. I’m sure many of you are familiar, but here’s a shot of the finished product:
Like most things Allen does, this has garnered its fair share of hate, but I think it’s promising. I’ll probably pay the $20 he asks and send my old SPK’s to him to try it out. Nonetheless, it’s still just a modification of the existing technology. DIY will never get us truly new technology.
Here is where I introduce you, maybe for the first time, to Apex ski boots. They’ve developed a relatively thin version of a BOA snowboard boot and a carbon casing that gives it rigidity like a normal boot.
After trying them on, I discovered a few points that would have to be altered if this boot were to work for street/park skiing. First, someone else would have to make them. We spoke with the owner and reps, and they were completely oblivious to freestyle skiing. They described their ideal customer in marketing speak as someone who drives a Mercedes and owns a second home in Aspen. It’s no surprise, because the price tag is the second thing they’d have to change: they’re asking $1295 for a pair. Insane, I know, but I can’t see a reason why the carbon couldn’t be replaced with hard plastic and the entire price tag be brought back to earth.
I obviously didn’t ride on them, but just strapping in revealed a couple other problems. The buckle across the instep would need to be wider and more thickly padded. This is a minor change, and the parts already exist in most snowboard bindings. Otherwise some thicker foam padding would solve most other issues. I’m sure flex is on your mind, so check out the photo below. The black band and colored spacers are supposed to adjust the degree of flex. I wasn’t able to test them out, but the boot flexed a bit like original SPK’s without any adjustments.
I would encourage you to write them to show that the freestyle movement represents a serious market share, but these guys are so oblivious that I doubt it’d do any good. Maybe someone can pool some of that trust fund money everybody’s dumping into tall-sweatshirt companies and make us some comfy boots!
