By Andrew Mitchell
If true artists must suffer for their art, then aspiring filmmaker Liam Walsh has created much more than a snowboard documentary with Pipe Dream, which premieres at the Whistler Film Festival on Dec. 3.
The film follows rising snowboard stars Crispin Lipscomb and Dan Raymond for almost four years, as both athletes set their sites on the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
Already living on a shoestring, Walsh maxed out his line of credit and credit card and spent almost everything he earned teaching snowboarding to be able to follow his subjects across the country and around the world — sleeping in cars and hotel floors, and generally doing whatever it took to get the footage he needed.
“It was unreal,” said Lipscomb. “Dan and I would be staying in these four-star hotels, getting pampered, and we’d meet up with Walsh the next day and he’d have frostbite on his face from sleeping in a stairwell somewhere.
“He even made it to the Olympics to finish the story, where he slept under buildings, anywhere he could find. In the end he couldn’t even get a ticket or media pass to the halfpipe event so he hiked up and down the other side of a mountain and snuck in.”
If you follow snowboarding, you know how the story ends — Lipscomb placed 11 th in the halfpipe, while Raymond qualified but just missed the cut by a handful of FIS points.
But while the ending is important the documentary is really about the journey to get there and the progression of Lipscomb and Raymond from the rank and file of snowboarding to the elite level of the sport.
At the same time Walsh was learning his own chosen trade as he went along, refining his filmmaking skills, asking better and harder questions, and telling a story that has it all — compelling characters, moments of triumph, moments of tension, moments of disappointment, a sense of humour, and a genuine love for the sport.
According to Walsh, his idea came together better than he could have expected.
“I definitely got lucky because I really couldn’t have picked two better characters to follow, not having any idea four years ago how everything would turn out,” he said. “You can’t ask for any better subjects than Dan and Crispin either, both are pretty unique guys and pretty different when it comes to their personalities.”
Walsh knew Lipscomb from Silver Star in 1998, and met him again in the parking lot of Mt. Seymour a few years later when Lipscomb was coaching the B.C. halfpipe team. Walsh told Lipscomb he was thinking of doing a documentary on snowboarding, and asked whether Lipscomb had any idea what subjects to follow. In 2002 Walsh got the call from Lipscomb — he was just selected to join the Canadian Snowboard Federation’s development team, and was interested in being a subject for the documentary.
Walsh also followed a member of the women’s halfpipe team, but less than a year later she dropped out of the competitive side of the sport. Lipscomb then suggested Walsh include Raymond, another up and coming Whistler rider. Raymond was mostly entering local contests at the time, but had the distinction of literally writing the book on snowboarding for the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors.
Through the documentary you get to see the riders progress from being coaches and snowboard instructors to the top tier of their sport. Walsh even has some competition footage of Lipscomb from 1999 to compare with footage from last year.
“When you’re so close to it you don’t always see the progression as it’s happening, but when you compare the old footage and the new footage it blows you away,” said Walsh. “You really see how hard these guys work, and the kinds of risks they take to get to the next level.”
Although it was sometimes hard having a camera follow them around, both Lipscomb and Raymond now appreciate the opportunity to sort out their feelings, to have a record of those years, and, every so often, to vent. By the end they had as much interest as Walsh in seeing the documentary completed, and egged the director on.
“I knew from the start, regardless of the outcome, that it would be great to have some kind of record and to be able to look back and see everything that happened,” said Raymond. “There were some good moments and some bad moments, but it’s always easy to forget the bad moments when you’re feeling up, and the good moments when you’re down. It was a roller coaster ride for three years, and there were always new obstacles to get over.
“It was also nice to be asked the question, ‘why are you doing this’, over and over again. The obvious answer is that snowboarding is fun, but when you have the camera in your face, and things aren’t going so well, you start to really think, ‘why am I doing this?”
For Lipscomb, always vocal and never afraid to say what was on his mind, the camera was a dose of reality.
“Sometimes you’re having a good moment and Walsh is there with his camera, and you just want to enjoy the moment as friends and not go through the whole interview,” he said. “Other times I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Those were probably the best moments on film, when I’d get caught out and just vent and say things I wouldn’t ordinarily say — but now it’s on film, and I can’t take it back. Sometimes I’d walk away from the camera with no idea what I just said, thinking ‘uh oh.’”
Lipscomb also likes the fact that the documentary is about the process rather than the results.
“Most people follow what we do by reading the results in the local paper, so they know where we placed but they don’t get the whole story,” said Lipscomb. “The don’t read about how one rider was competing with a blown knee, or what you and the coach talked about at the top of the pipe, or that you slept five minutes the night before because you were so nervous. The paper just says how everything ended, but this (Pipe Dream) is us saying ‘this is what really happened.’”
The entire documentary was self-financed by Walsh. During the time he spent filming he says the most he made in a year was around $11,000 and the average on his tax returns was around $9,500. He also upgraded his equipment as often as possible, with the result that the quality of the footage improves as the movie progresses.
The draft of the movie, which will be shown at the Whistler Film Festival, is not the final version. Walsh has been put in contact with several producers who have an interest in reworking the film for other film festivals. Getting other people involved in editing and production was key, says Walsh, because he was too close to the project and snowboarding, and needed someone on the outside to pick the real story out of more than 80 hours of training, competition and interview footage.
“And it’s a great story,” said Walsh. “You really get to see what these guys go through to get to the top.”
The film will premiere on Sunday, Dec. 3 at MY Millennium Place. Tickets are $10.
Lipscomb and Raymond are currently training in Switzerland to prepare for a pair of World Cup halfpipe events, but are flying back to Whistler to be at the premiere. Friends and family of both riders are also making the trip to the festival.
