Considering that independent ski movies seem to be taking over, and bigger films from large productions studios like TGR, MSP, and WME have been lacking in recent years, I've been wondering if having life showings of multiple independent ski movies could take off, kinda like what Banff mountain Film Fest does with outdoor short films. As a kid, the main thing that got me stoked about skiing was going to ski movie premieres and watching how hyped everyone was about skiing, and of course getting free shit in swag tosses. I would hate to see that part of ski culture die out, which made me think, what if someone did a film festival for independent ski movies? I have done this before with Level 1 movies and it is honestly not that hard to do, as all you need to do is rent out a theater, get rental insurance, pay a licensing fee, and maybe advertise a bit.
The main issues that you would have to deal with would be:
- if Covid is still a big enough deal where theaters are closed or limited.
- Location : I'm guessing interest for something like this would be pretty niche, so you would be limited to having only having shows in areas with large skiing populations, so basically just SLC, Denver/Boulder, and maybe Bozeman.
-Licensing : For more established film companies, there is a process in place for getting permission to show a movie in a public setting in which you have to sign some paperwork and pay a couple hundred dollar fee. I'm guessing most small film crews don't have such a process, so you would have to figure out how much to pay each crew, and what the terms of the licensing would be.
- Getting films: Firstly, most of the bigger independent films like carnage, magma, and strictly already organize showings of their movie each year, and I think it would be hard to convince them to let someone else show their movie. Secondly, independent movie release dates are all over the place, so you would either have to convince film crews to let you show their movie before it's internet release, or wait till all the movies have been released online.
While all the content that came out this year got me really stoked to go skiing, it was also a bummer to realize that the influence that a video might have on skiing does not translate directly to funding/monetary gain from a ski movie. In his Level 1 podcast interview, Mango had a somewhat depressing insight on filming x games real ski parts, where he said something along the lines of how he spends his whole summer working so that he can film a part, and if he wins, he will get half his money back, and if he gets hurt in the process, it will cost him 3x more than he made. While this is a larger issue that a collective film showing could not fully address, it would be great to see film crews getting some compensation in exchange for their audience to be able to enjoy their film as a community.
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