Tonight Matchstick Productions premiered its latest ski film, In Deep at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, CO. As usual, MSP did it up big, with big name athletes [Abma, Bushfield, Rahlves, Heim, West, Harrison, Teen Heartthrob Bobby Brown], big venue, poster signings, VIP lounge and one hell of a killer movie.
Set in a different direction, the movie opens to an ethereal and moody animated intro, which quickly moves into the opening segment slayer, Sean Pettit. Pettit shows exactly why he is quickly becoming the king of the next generation of skiers, spinning of big cliffs and hits, stepping to AK lines like it’s his job and showing that he is the real deal, even though he’s still in high school.
After Sean, instead of moving into another rider segment, the movie is separated into either trip segments or thematic segments. Voice overs about the joy of powder are overlaid to the likes of Hjorleifson, Heim and Douglas ripping nearly bottomless champagne. Park voiceovers are set to Wester, Henshaw, Schiller and West slaying parks from Keystone to Squaw.
In addition to themed segments, true trip segments exist. Watch West, Bushfield and Hunder get creative in Retallack, BC. Davenport, Rahlves and Windstedt get GNARLY in AK. Teen Heartthrob Bobby Brown, Harlaut and Godbout crush a jump in Ã…re, Sweden. And it continues: [insert amazing location] slayed by [amazing skiers].
In fact, after Pettit, the only other two riders to receive their own segments are Mark Abma and Henrik Windstedt. Abma throw big tricks of big features. Pure BC pedigree, powder, cliffs, big mountain, even a park jump; Abma slays it all. The Swede Windstedt flashes AK lines and backflips his way through the segment with such force it’s incredible. A lot of American audiences will be clamoring for more Henrik for years to come.
The closer was a heart warming, funny, touching tribute to Shane McConkey, a decade veteran of MSP lenses. During the segment, it was hard not to get choked up as the moving images on screen played the life and times of the most beloved skier of all time.
The credits was basically a glorified music video, with the athletes singing Billy Joel’s Piano Man, a nice way to end the show. As I type, the 2nd showing of In Deep is in progress at the Boulder Theater. Check mspfilms.com for more information on the In Deep Tour. Check it out.
