Interlude

Interview by Jeff Schmuck
Photos by Anthony Verge

Hey Nick, how's it going?

Hey Jeff, pretty good thank-you!

How has your winter been, and what have you been up to?

It's been pretty good, the weather could have been a lot better but I'm still really happy with how it turned out. Due to the lack of snow on the East Coast we mostly stayed around Quebec City and Montreal for the majority of the winter. We found a bunch of new stuff to do and new ways to hit classic features. We shot a lot more than last year and have captured the most footage ever. Two new filmers also joined the team, which made a good difference on the production side of things. But by the end of March, in less than a week, most of the snow was gone due to some weird 70+ weather. So for the most part our park shoots got cancelled with the exception of two of them. To be honest, we were a bit in panic mode and had to figure something out, so we booked a trip to France with an amazing crew. We just got back from there and let me tell you, it was a trip of a lifetime.


Glad to hear it! Looking a little further back, as most people know, you never released your last year's movie, Interlude. What was the reasoning behind that?

Well lots of people have been asking about Interlude and why we haven't released it yet. Last year the schedule just wasn't right with all the crew and we didn't get to film as much as we would have wanted. That being said, we still got a pretty decent amount of footage, but just not enough to put together a full-length movie. We didn’t want to sell a short-length movie, so we decided to release it for free at a moment where no other movies were coming out. And I think it's also a good way to promote our upcoming movie! I've been meaning to release the movie for a few months, but it just kept getting postponed again and again for different reasons, but here it is, free to watch for all of you!


You mentioned your upcoming film, but before we get into that, tell everyone what Interlude is all about and what they can expect from it.

The title kind if speaks for itself. It's sort of a "pause" in between Stadaconé (2010) and Souvenirs (2012). I'd say it’s short and sweet. Interlude is 20 minutes long filled with laughs, bails, bangers and a high stoke factor. We could have made it longer, but I think it's better to keep it short with the best of the footage. I'd mainly like to bring people's attention to the first segment of the movie. A lot of imagination, time and work went into it, and sometimes it's hard to show how big or scary features are, which is the case for this specific one.


Moving forward, tell us all about your upcoming film, which will be released this fall, and which athletes will be featured in it?

First of all the movie will be called Souvenirs. Expect a lot of heavy urban from Yan Bussières, Charles Gagnier, Gab Boudreau, JF Houle, Alex Bellemare, Alex Beaulieu, Frank GP, Ben Gendron, Jeremy Bellemare, Cedric TF, Émile Bergeron and new additions to this year's crew, including Kieran McVeigh, Richard Carle Jérome Vallée, Hugo Blanchette, Dom Laporte, Vincent Prévost and Nicholas Chenard. It's crazy where urban skiing is going, and every crew is killing it so hard and it's a good challenge to keep up with that level, so I’m really looking forward to editing all the footage we got. We have lots of good ideas and I think we'll be releasing something that's going to please everyone’s eyes.


When can we expect a trailer for it?

Somewhere between May and July. I realize that’s pretty vague (laughs), but the sooner the better.

If I'm not mistaken, this is going to be the last official film from ESK Media. Is that true, and if so, why?

It's hard to officially say, "Yes, we're out, ciao, bye". I don't want to cut it short or anything, but I think yes, as far as I know, this will be our last ‘typical’ urban Québec ski flick. I think being in school full time kind of makes it harder to reach the next level. It's been seven years since we dropped our first movie, seven years of total fun, achievement, learning and rough partying, but I think at some point we must move on. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other movie crews will be doing in the next few years around here, as there's still so much stuff to do. That being said, who knows what the future will bring us, ESK will for sure not die, but we're just open to different projects.


You, along with NSF Productions, have led the charge over the last couple of years in terms of being the hottest up-and-coming films coming out of Quebec. What would you say to anyone out there who'd like to follow in your footsteps?

I guess just keep pushing, set some goals, and do your best to achieve them. I mean if you have fun doing what you do that shouldn’t be a problem. I think the one thing I've learned is to not be afraid to reach out to people and make connections, and it really helped out.

Anything else you'd like to add?

A big shout-out to our sponsors and resorts for helping us out, and to you for putting this interview together!