MSPs HIT LIST: A film about everyones dream to explore the hills...
Recently, I stumbled across on old blue notebook with a purple POWDER sticker on it. It was the notebook I used in 1991 when I was an intern at POWDER magazine. Inside are my notes about stories I wanted to write and dreams that I hoped to fulfill.
In 1991, the ski industry was in a different place. Back then only a few companies had what would be considered a pro team, and the word “freeskiing” wasn’t even a spark in Shane McConkey’s head. Freeskiing was something you did when you weren’t in the race course or training bumps. Now, ironically, we have freeskiing competitions. Which leads to the bigger question: What do freeskiing competitors do when they aren’t competing?
Scanning the old notebook, I noticed an original pitch I was hoping to make to POWDER. I wanted the magazine to pay for me to chase storms across the western United States and Canada. At the time, I was young, had nothing to lose and was inspired by a beatnik writer named Jack Kerouac and his epic novel On the Road. I was hoping POWDER would give me a small chunk of change to write a story for the magazine—my own personal “On the road”. According to my notebook, it seems there is no more noble a cause than sacrificing a material life in exchange for a few good powder days. POWDER never did fund my idealistic road trip, but they did help support, after much prodding, Steve Winter and I with a fledging ski film company.
Fifteen years later I am still a ski bum. No, I am not living in my car in the Alta parking lot, but I am sacrificing, like everyone at Matchstick, a material-based corporate lifestyle in exchange for a deep rooted love of skiing. While our peers are raising families and making large wads of cash, we have spent the last 10 winters traveling the globe 200 days a year, living for skiing. In 1991, who would have pictured this long-haired midget cruising up the coast of British Columbia on a 110-foot ship carrying a helicopter looking to ski uncharted territory? Not me in a million years. Skiing has taken me places I only dreamed of as an intern at POWDER.
HIT LIST is a film about everyone’s dream to explore the hills. A big part of skiing is the places that it takes you. Everyone talks about where they plan to ski, some more loudly than others. Even the most core powder skier has, in the back of his or her mind, a hit list. For this year’s film, we wanted to document the amazing progression of our athletes, as well as share our journey from one destination to the next. Our goal with HIT LIST was to reveal a little more about our skiers’ dreams, goals and live, to and share some laughs along the way.
We really want our films to be fun—fun to watch and fun to be a part of. Along with making Hit List more about the locations, we really wanted to involve the skiers in the edit and creative processes. This year our DVD will include two dics: one will be the theatrical version of HIT LIST, the other, an all-athlete edited film, titled The Hit List Remixed. This version is the athletes’ chance to show all the shots that might not have made the final cut and put their own creative spin on the film. We are giving the riders free reign.
Hit List is an innovative film that let’s the viewer see the shots the way the skiers want it. Because in the end, that’s all that really matters.
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