In recent years we’ve seen Meathead veterans graduate to bigger film companies out west, whether it be with Level 1, TGR, or Stept Productions. What do you attribute that success to?
Geoff:
I hope that we’ve helped them along the way and been able to showcase their skiing when they were starting out. Some of those guys we still do film with. That’s definitely part of our deal is being able to deal with skiers leaving for different reasons. Whether it’s getting a real job or moving out west and filming with somebody else, but every film company has to deal with that. Sometimes people come back, but not always, so every year we’re dealing with a third of our crew being new guys and rookies. We’re always on the lookout for good talent. I hope that other ski filmmakers look to our movies for up and comers from the east.
“…it’s a testament for their love for the East Coast and the connection we made with them when we were shooting with them back in the day…” – Chris James
Chris:
I feel like we’re kind of the talent scouts out here. We usually go through a pretty quick cycle of talented athletes because they like to think they get recognized through our work. When they are going to make that move they’ve got a resumé, they’re ready to step it up with sponsorship and move on to shoot with film companies out west. It’s been amazing. The whole Stept crew, basically every one of them out there is an East Coaster, and now they’re just holding it down in Colorado. It’s awesome to see with the other guys like LJ, and Will. It’s tough to see those guys leave but it’s great seeing them still willing to come back and shoot with us. It’s a testament for their love for the East Coast and the connection we made with them when we were shooting with them back in the day.
Geoff:
They’re pretty psyched now too. For instance, Will and LJ, are on our STE team, so we’re not really competing against the other films anymore. We can shoot footage that they can use in their movies, like the Level 1 movie, and we can use that footage for our online projects. It’s a win-win for them, if they can come hit the great urban locations out here but still be able to get good footage for their part [in other films].
Chris:
We’d like to think they get a little nostalgic after they’ve been away for awhile. They come back for Christmas or to visit family and they get hyped on where it all started from, so we try to scoop them up and take advantage when they’re back.
Geoff:
LJ gets nostalgic, Will’s a robot.
Are there any up and coming East Coasters that we should keep our eyes peeled for?
Chris:
I don’t know, like Bode Miller, Hugo Harrison, Chris Davenport, dudes like that. [laughs]
Geoff:
We’ve got some good guys on our team that are definitely up and comers.
Chris:
Canadians.
Geoff:
Yeah, Vincent Prevost and Martin Boulais, those guys are sick out of Quebec. And one thing we’re trying to do now, when we were doing just Meathead Films we had a tight crew, whoever we worked with would carry over year after year. But now with Ski The East we’re trying to make sure we’re represented up and down the coast. That way we’re not just a Vermont brand or a New England brand, so we have some good skiers out of Virginia, like Jon Steltzer.
Chris:
For the powder skiers, that’s kind of ebbed and flowed. We’ve gone through lulls of that where it’s been really hard to find dudes to go up to Mount Washington or the Presidential’s or go do some sidecountry off of Stowe. Now, there’s a really talented crew that came out of the Mad River Glen freeskiing team and the Smugglers’ Notch freeskiing teams. Freeskiing teams in general are gaining huge momentum out east. They’re popping off at so many more resorts now, and there’s a crew of young guns, some have just graduated high school and are sticking around the east, that are killing it.
Geoff:
There’s two guys out of Mad River, Noah [Ranallo] and Dylan [Dipentima], that are really good, and two guys out of Smuggs, Carter [Snow] and Dominic [Castine]. We skied with all four of those guys a lot last year. Some are in the Mad River segment we just released, and will be in future segments. Those guys are a pretty tight knit crew.
Will we ever see a film titled, The Life and Times of Radio Ron?
Chris:[laughs] Did you get some inside information? Yeah, there’s something on the back burner, we’ll say that. [laughs] There’s been some footage, that has not been produced, but there’s still some work to be done. But that’s never out of the question.
Geoff McDonald gets the shot of Erik Olsen in the Stowe, VT backcountry. Photo by C. Nelson James.
What have been some of your favorite shooting locations?
Geoff:
For me, there are two memorable trips. One was in 2007, we went to Tug Hill Plateau of New York, and it snowed like 13 feet in 10 days. That was just a biblically awesome storm to be a part of and it hasn’t happened since, and probably won’t happen again for a long time. To see that and film that, even though there wasn’t huge vertical, we were getting pretty crazy powder shots and discovering new zones everyday where no one’s ever filmed.
The other one was in 2010, filming down in Washington D.C., when they got the “Snowmaggedon.” That was memorable because they got an incredible amount of snow, it was super unique, we thought we were going to get busted when we snuck around the National Mall. The whole city was on lockdown so we had our run of the National Mall for a few days. A lot of the staff photographers for the White House were taking the day off because it was closed, so they were down there taking pictures for the Associated Press of Will and Shea [Flynn] jumping in front of the memorials. Some of those photos went around the world to the India Times, it was crazy to be a part of that.
Chris:
For me, it was our second trip we did to New Foundland. It was a huge goal for us just because it’s geographically the eastern most point in North America and we had a huge crew. We all drove up in three or four cars and we had filmers, photographers, athletes, sixteen people and every day we split up with a jib crew to go find backcountry booter locations, and another crew that was on a fleet of snowmobiles to go ski backcountry, and it was a shit show, but also super fun.
Then, the trip we did for our 10th anniversary film Prime Cut, when we went to the Chic Chocs [in Quebec]. We brought back Andrew Whiteford and Simon Thompson who are our OG Meatheads, that we shot with back in college. They had been living out west, Whiteford in Jackson, Simon in Whistler, for a handful of years. So they came back with crazy confidence, skiing some of the bigger lines that we had never done there. We just got incredible snow conditions, we were cat skiing there with Ski Chic Chocs and were able to just bag a whole bunch of really great lines.
You guys are both University of Vermont graduates, I along with two fellow Freeskier staffers went to UVM. There are tons of Catamounts in the industry, why does UVM produce such rad grads?
Chris:
The action sports capital of the east!
Geoff:
I went to UVM because my parents didn’t let me go out west, they didn’t want to pay for flights back. Maybe that’s the case for people who want to stay local, but want the best skiing school. It’s the best skiing school east of the Mississippi.
2 thoughts on “Chatting with the Meatheads regarding new skiing web series, UVM and repping the east”
Comments are closed.