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While we’re in the depths of our winter down under, Summer is fading in the Northern Hemisphere and the industry is in full preparation mode for the season ahead.
Autumn (our Spring) is the time for the big ski movie releases, so right now it’s a Press Release here, a teaser there, and perhaps a trailer if you’re lucky.
As previously posted on aussieskier, industry heavyweights TGR have already put up a trailer for ‘Light The Wick’ and their major counterparts MSP have also released a trailer for their upcoming feature ‘The Way I See It’. Poor Boyz have dropped ‘Revolver’ which is likely to be the standout jib flick of the year.
Level 1’s ‘Eye Trip’ trailer caught my eye after their excellent ‘Refresh’ last year. Local Mt Buller producer Alex Gaynor and his Purple Paint crew are polishing their craft as well – check their latest edit.
But the film I’m most keenly anticipating this year is clearly Greg Stump‘s ‘Legend of Aahh’s’:
For those to young to remember, or too old to care, Greg Stump’s films in the late ’80’s and early ’90’s inspired a generation and started the movement of ‘Extreme Skiing’ which is the precursor to what we know now as Big Mountain Freeriding. He brought us Glen Plake, Scot Schmidt and featured places such as Chamonix and Squaw Valley back when ski movies were barely disguised infomercials where a crew of brightly clad skiers would drive their ‘Neesaahn’ past the conspicuously placed resort signage, followed by film of hapless punters falling off lifts.
Stump’s most famous work was the seminal ‘Blizzard of Aahhh’s’ – it is widely credited as the most influential ski movie ever.
‘Blizzard’ was punk rock, cliff jumps, deep powder, mohawks, moguls, steeps and so much more. It captured the spirit of a burgeoning ski movement and communicated it to a generation in a way never to be forgotten. I will never forget the fortunate moment of walking in to a store at Mt Buller which largely specialised in snowboarding gear, only to see a Greg Stump box set of DVDs on the counter. I now carry Blizzard with me every day on my iPhone, just in case.
The ‘shootout’ segment in Squaw Valley is the stuff of legends and the powder of Snowbird looks too good to be true.
I can’t help but feel the irony watching the following clip, not only knowing that Telluride has turned out to become exactly what ‘Rasta Stevie’ was trying to avoid, but also finding out that Steve was a ‘Trustafarian’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMp7W8GqzBM
But the most famed segment is the visit to Chamonix, a personal mecca that made my own personal pilgrimage to earlier this year
It’s with keen anticipation and a healthy dose of reverence that I await ‘Legend of Aahhh’s’ – I’m not expecting a mind-blowing freeskiing feature, but the ski movies I have enjoyed the most lately are documentaries such as Swift Silent, Deep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP61I7w_EPw
and Steep
I also am keen to see Edge of Never – a story about pro skier Kye Petersen visiting the site of his father Trevor’s death in Chamonix.
Younger readers of this post are probably now bored and stretching their tall-tee’s and wondering why all these old farts have poles – but they can rest assured that what they love to do today has come about in no small part thanks to the people featured in these clips, and Greg Stump in particular.
