Episode 2: Some Snow Required

January 13, 2016

There was finally a glimpse of hope in what had seemed to be the warmest november in recent memory. Not only did it look like temps were finally favorable for snowmaking there was also a decent sized storm shaping up for the weekend. The forecast called for snow starting friday night into the early morning Saturday, Tyrol Basin our home hill also announced they would open up their annual preseason hike patch Sunday. It was shaping up to be a good weekend, finally a chance to get back on snow!

I drove down from Oshkosh and Rayce drove from Milwaukee friday night to meet up with the crew in Madison. It wasn’t long before we looked out the window and saw the welcome sight of snow flying down from the sky. Rayce and I grabbed our bikes to go check it out for ourselves cruising around campus. It was shaping up to be a good weekend getting back out on the skis.

We woke up the next morning to a fresh blanket covering the city. Seth and I got up early to go shoot some video of the fresh snow, before heading out to film a rail on the outskirts of Madison. Six inches had fallen which is just enough to hit some decent sized rails. We decided to test our luck at a pretty high consequence closeout/wallride rail, I was against it but I’m just a filmer so what do I know. The skiers were all for the crazy, high, awkard closeout rail for the first rail of the year. As I expected the crew quickly realized how rusty they actually were. We got a lot of great fall shots and one usable shot of seth doing a front two to flat. We ended up calling it and moving on to something else.

Episode 1: America's Dairyland

December 16, 2015

This winter was warming up to be one of the best yet. We were fortunate enough to be selected the winners of the Newschoolers Pilot Project contest and were given a contract to make six episodes documenting our season. We also partnered up with Northpull winches and could not be more excited to start getting after it in the streets. Unfortunately, it actually did warm up. The beginning of the season was more than lackluster. We continued to be teased by the weatherman with impending snow, only to be met with rain. Despite this shortcoming, it forced us to be creative to get more footage for the edits than just plain skiing. We tried something a little new, and something that is definitely going to take some adjustment. Have you ever been in a situation where you know everything you are supposed to do, yet you freeze up and nothing happens? That was how our interviews went. Seth and I took two days to complete the interviews on the Monona Terrace in Madison, WI. We were more than professional with our MacGyvered boom which was made out of a mic screwed to the end of a shot ski. Even with our best efforts all of the audio from the first day was ruined due to wind. If only you could have heard how much better our dialogue was on the first day.