How did the idea to produce a “Minnesota only†film begin?
The idea about a statewide collaboration movie in Minnesota has been kickin’ around for a quite a while, since maybe 2005. After tossing around the idea on Newschoolers, some friends and I decided to throw a couple movie premieres with all our flicks. It’s always a good time to get the whole community together and watch each other ski on the big screen. That’s where the idea for Nice grew- out of that collaboration. We wanted it to be Minnesota from the inside out, the skiers, the locations, the music, everything. We made a hundred DVDs, some stickers, and a few dozen shirts with our own cash. We did three premieres of it, two in Minnesota and one in Milwaukee at the Midwest Ski Film Festival. After the last premiere, we were basically cleaned out, but Nice did something special for our scene- it was unlike any local movie we’d had around before. We didn’t slide as many handrails as we probably should have, but we created this unity that brought the state together. I’m really proud of what we accomplished. I still have kids asking me for stickers.
Does the sequel, Too Nice, carry the same MN flavor? Or did you spend time filming elsewhere?
Too Nice isn’t technically a sequel. It’s mostly new people, so it’s just a tribute to Nice and how it brought us all together. It does follow the same formula though: Minnesota skiers, locations, and music all the way through. I spent quite a bit of time traveling elsewhere this year, four weeks in Colorado and three or four to Mt. Hood, Oregon, but that stuff is tucked away in the bonus features or on the internet. It just doesn’t fit the Minnesota theme of Too Nice…
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