What: World premiere of Out of the Shadows
When: Monday, Aug. 9, 8 p.m.
Where: MY Millennium Place
Cost: $11
Ski film junkies are always looking for a fix - corkscrew 720s, alley oop flatspins and, of course, plenty of pow. In other words, when they sit down to watch skiers on screen, they want some serious ski porn.
"I love ski porn, we watch all the films every year. But what's interesting to me is what each individual's life is outside of skiing, and how that affects how they ski," said Athan Merrick.
Merrick studied film at UBC and works in the film industry today. He also spent a few years trying to make it as a professional skier and knows just how competitive - and fickle - the industry really is. Now, he's teamed up with professional photographer and friend, Nicolas Teichrob, on a new passion project, Dendrite Studios, which aims to create a "new breed of ski film."
"Obviously, there's a lot of talent in Whistler that has never been shown before, from a creative standpoint and an athletic standpoint, so we wanted to show that. But we wanted to show it in a way that hasn't been done before."
The ski industry has become very focused on trends and so-called celebrity skiers, and there is a tendency to overlook the talented skiers and snowboarders who are spending time on the hills alongside us.
"But at the same time, that kind of celebrity ski culture is what drives the market," Merrick conceded. "But a lot of those guys are - nothing against them, they're all amazing skiers and I know a lot of them - but sometimes it's just the luck of the draw.
"We wanted to make sure that everyone else who deserves it is getting seen and heard."
The vast majority of today's ski films are loaded with ski porn and are designed to have the crowds oohing and aahing along to the soundtrack. But the Dendrite crew wants to delve into the people behind those awe-inspiring tricks.
While their first film, Out of the Shadows , still has plenty of awe-inspiring tricks and visuals to keep people happy, the project is really, at its core, about letting the athletes tell their stories.
"We are moving beyond the typical ski porn: we want the viewer to be emotionally connected and have to be thinking when they're watching the film. We just want to push the boundaries (of the genre) cinematically, creatively and narratively."
They decided to showcase their athletes' personalities and back-stories without slowing things down with interviews and dialogue.
"While we'd love to do a full documentary, we recognize that our core audience is still skiers and skiers don't want to hear other skiers talking. So we tried to show every back story visually.
"If there is any talking in the film, it's all in the moment - it's before or after they ski a line. It's all cinema verite style," he added.
Their roster features the return of PY Leblanc, Chris Turpin, Brett Crabtree and Jon Larsson alongside newcomers like Maxim Arsenault, Eliel Hindert, Christian Boucher, Dave Treadway, Mathieu Gagnon Theirault, Ian Cheddar Watson, Dave Gheriani, Adam Topshee, Alex Blais, Athan Merrick, Jake Cohn, Matt Elliot and Matty Richard.
Leblanc, a longtime Whistler local and well-known member of the freeride community, was a paid professional freeskier for 10 years before he was injured and decided to take a break from the scene for a while.
"So he took a couple years off and he's back and stronger than ever. It might be his best segment, ever," Merrick said. "...His segment is going to blow some people's minds, for sure, because he's a bit of an old guy now - I think he's 36, which for this kind of skiing is a long, hard time on the body."
Another athlete, Brett Crabtree, was the 2008 freeskiing world tour champion, and is making his film debut with Out of the Shadows .
"That's what I mean about the luck of the draw," Merrick chuckled. "Brett won the overall world tour in 2008 and with other people, that has completely launched their careers. All of a sudden they're signing big sponsors and all this stuff."
But Crabtree's existing sponsors didn't even up their contracts. He got one or two new sponsors who were offering product only.
"And he tried, so I know he was a little bit frustrated by all of that."
Finding the unsung heroes of the ski world wasn't exactly a challenge for Merrick and Teichrob - after all, they are fairly tapped into the industry, and had a wealth of talent at their fingertips.
"The pieces kind of came together and we were able to get to lots of new zones with people who have been sledding here for years and years and years, so all of the resources kind of came together. And there's a few new faces who I didn't know before who had heard of us one way or another."
Both Merrick and Teichrob spend the majority of their winters in Whistler. They travel in spring, summer and fall. But home is where the heart is, and their pet project will be making its world premiere in Whistler during Crankworx.
So, why debut a ski film at a mountain bike festival?
"Well, we wanted a world-class stage and Crankworx is a world-class stage, and there's a lot of buzz in the industry. The mountain bike and ski industry are, in a way, connected," Merrick explained.
They also wanted to be the first premiere of the season, getting out ahead of the pack and maybe have the big-name ski film companies sweating a bit.
As newcomers to the scene, Dendrite has something to prove. Merrick and Teichrob started working on Out of the Shadows last summer, developing a 30-page business and film plan and shopping it around to sponsors. Unfortunately, they didn't have much luck.
"We received no funding to do this film. We tried very hard to get funding but we are attempting to turn it into a legitimate business - we would like it to be our full-time jobs."
They persisted, and have ended up with a finished product that has far exceeded the expectations of even their own athletes.
"I honestly think because they were all friends with me before, they didn't realize how serious we were about it, and that we're not competing with local, small, amateur ski films," Merrick said. "We want to compete with the big boys - MSP and TGR - fully professional deal. And I don't think they understood that - even when we were filming, I don't think they understood that."
It wasn't until Teichrob and Merrick unveiled the trailer to the team that they saw the pair meant business.
"They kind of went, 'Oh! Oh shit.'"
They apparently aren't the only ones. After Out of the Shadows premieres in Whistler and Vancouver the Dendrite crew is on their way to the International Freeski Film Festival in Montreal, where their project has been accepted in the pro category.
"Most people in their first year have to enter into the amateur category and if they win the amateur category they're allowed in the pro category the next year," Merrick said. "We just sent them our trailer and they were super stoked on it and said, 'You guys are in the pro category.'"
Now, Dendrite is one of six films in the professional category, going head-to-head against established industry giants like Teton Gravity Research, Matchstick Productions, Poor Boys, Field Productions and Level One.
