Snowboard Canada Women’s Annual 2006
When I finally score an interview with the ridiculously busy Fabia Grueebler, co-founder of Misschief Films, she’s refreshingly upfront about her all-girl snowboard movie, 2005’s As If.
“We weren’t trying to be feminist,” she says bluntly. “All we wanted to do was show that snowboarding is about being out there with your friends and having a good time. I think that’s why we succeeded—we weren’t trying to talk about it or whine about it. It’s just like ‘hey, we’re a bunch of friends and it just so happens that all of our friends are the sickest riders.’”
Writing about women-specific anything is fraught with a certain amount of danger—part of you wants to scream “Girl Power!” like an amphetamine-fuelled Spice Girl, while the other part of you wants desperately to prove there’s no difference between the girls and the boys. (Besides, of course, boobs.) But Fabia’s comment, barely 10 minutes into our conversation, makes me relax and put aside my fem-phobias. This isn’t a feel-good conversation about cuddly times at the girls-only camp; Fabia throws down a real-world breakdown in filmmaking à la femme, and what it takes to do so successfully.
It’s no secret that, until recently, girls were largely neglected in the big budget, large distribution shred-video department. Sure, they were landing parts, but they were too short and too few between. To fill the gap, two (relatively) new filming companies, Misschief Films in North America, and Chunky Knit Productions in Europe, stepped in with full-length, all-girl snowboarding movies. As Misschief and Chunky Knit prepare to release their second and third films, respectively, their founders and starring riders reflect on what it was like to get their start and the challenges of putting snow and sweat to celluloid.
Grueebler, 26, says she first got excited about the possibility of making an all-girls snowboard movie while doing an internship at Transworld Snowboarding magazine three years ago. Her job consisted of filming snowboard contests and events and then editing together video clips to run on the Transworld website. The internship gave the Swiss-born Grueebler a taste for filmmaking and, more importantly, an invaluable opportunity to make contacts in the industry. Her Misschief partner and co-founder Amber Stackhouse was an established pro rider scheming to do an all-girls film venture with fellow rider Macy Price. Stackhouse and Grueebler met on the contest circuit and discovered a fellow ambition to make a girls snowboard movie. They decided to go for it and although Price soon left the project, Stackhouse and Grueebler pressed on. They approached companies about sponsorship and funding, but quickly realized that there weren’t going to get anywhere without a teaser.
“It wasn’t like either me or Amber had a film or photography background,” explains Grueebler of their initial troubles generating interest in the project.
“Amber was a Roxy rider so people knew her, but I’m kind of nobody, so we were walking into companies and going like ‘Hey, can we get $20 grand?’ They were like ‘Uh, no’.”
They scrambled, filmed and collected footage from other filmers and created their 2004 teaser, a short montage of footage and a skit that asked viewers to try Misschief Films, “where double black diamonds are a girls best friend.” It featured the likes of Kjersti Buass and Natasza Zurek and its release quickly changed everything for the girls. Transworld put the teaser up on their website and interest in the project spiked. More riders signed on and the previously uninterested companies changed their tune.
“We had all the riders for backing us from day one and I’m really grateful to Transworld that they put up our teaser on the website, because that gave us a lot of credibility from the start,” Grueebler says. “The sponsors were like, ‘if Transworld thinks they’re cool, then they must be okay’.” The sponsorship money allowed the girls to hire filmers such as Java Fernandez and Ami Voutilainen and recruit more girls to the project. The 04/05 filming season began with Misschief as a viable part of the action.
European filming company Chunky Knit started in a slightly more organic fashion, since co-founders Josie Clyde, 29, and Lesley McKenna, 31, were childhood friends. They grew up in Scotland, ski racing as kids and spending their weekends at Scottish Highland ski resorts. Josie went to school and did photography, while Lesley moved into a professional snowboarding career. The two worked together getting riding shots of Lesley and in the fall of 2002, Josie asked why there weren’t any snowboard films with all-girl casts. Lesley said she wasn’t sure the general level of women’s riding had been full-length film ready, but she felt the time had arrived.
“That was it really,” recalls Josie. “We just started to think about it, and that season, she started asking the girls that she was riding with on the World Cup tour, ‘What do you think? Would you be interested in filming with us if we decided to do this?’ We had a really positive response from everyone.”
Roxy’s European division, for whom Lesley rode for, came on board immediately and helped the girls fund the creation of their teaser. The teaser was made in May 2003 on a trip to Iceland and it brought more sponsors on board. Filming for Dropstitch officially began in August 2003, when the girls went to New Zealand with a crew that included pro snowboarder and filmer Johno Verity. The trip proved to be a bit of a crash test of the ins and outs of filming in far-off locations, remembers Josie.
“It was quite daunting, you know? We were doing a lot of heli stuff and backcountry stuff and we were learning as we went along. We didn’t know that in New Zealand, you couldn’t really go backcountry without permission. If you hurt yourself you’re screwed. It was a really steep learning curve, but it was amazing.”
The Misschief teaser evolved into the full-length movie As If, released in the fall of 2005. Chunky Knit’s second effort, Transfer was released in 2005 as well, full of lessons learned and almost three seasons of filming experience to draw on.
Both films have done well in their respective continents—As If is the best-selling girls action sports movies ever, according to Misschief’s Canadian distributor Platinum Distribution —but getting to those movie premiers wasn’t easy. At the most basic of levels, it’s just plain different shooting a girls snowboard movie versus a guys snowboard movie. In the first year both companies shot their debut films, they were working with crews of girls who had even less filming experience than the founders did, which was basically none. Aside from girls such as filming pro Victoria Jealouse or a superstar rider like Tara Dakides, few girls had experience in front of a camera.
“It was hard because most girls had never filmed before,” Fabia says of their first year. “And then the other problem we ran into—we’re trying to change this about women’s snowboarding—is that right now if you want to be a professional female snowboarder, you have to go to contests to stay sponsored. The guys can pick: you’re either a contest rider or you’re filming parts and you’re still getting money. The girls never had that. And for us the switch was really hard because we had to film the girls while they were still doing all the contests.”
Chunky Knit too struggled with trying to learn how to make a movie while helping the riders learn how to film a part. Filming, for all its glory, can be brutal amounts of work in some of the most challenging environments you can imagine. All in front of a camera lens capturing your every move—on very expensive camera film that filmers hate to waste on missed tricks.
“I like to film, but it can be a bit stressful sometimes,” says Kjersti Buass, a Chunky Knit rider and 2006 Olympic bronze medallist. “You know that you have to get that shot before the light goes away and that can have a bad effect on me sometimes.”
That kind of pressure is what new Misschief rider Marie France Roy said she found the most intimidating in her first season of filming. “There is pressure sometimes, and that’s where I learned a lot this year,” she says. “You have to listen to yourself even though sometimes it’s hard. You have to know your limits and when to say no, because that’s when you get hurt. If you don’t feel something, it’s sometimes better to just pass on that moment instead of being hurt and unable to ride for a month.”
The pressure of contests and the pressure of filming are intense in different ways and for many of the riders, filming offered the first chance to see which kind of lifestyle they preferred. It’s not for everyone, and balancing the two is hard. Canadian rider Natasza Zurek has made filming her first priority, dedicating two-thirds of her season to Misschief’s upcoming 2006 release Ro Sham Bo. “I love the relaxed atmosphere compared to contests,” she explains. “You still have to be on it to get anything done, but you get to choose the spot, the day, the people you go out with, etcetera. Unlike contests, you’re not going to be forced to ride a halfpipe in a blizzard just ‘cause the organizers need to make it happen on schedule for TV.”
It’s still quite rare for a female rider to focus exclusively on filming in the backcountry and avoid contests, but the shift is slowly occurring as girls such as Natasza work with their sponsors to prioritize filming. Whistler’s Annie Boulanger took a brave leap of faith, by all accounts, when she all but ditched the contest circuit in favour of learning the backcountry. “Annie’s been killing it this year,” Fabia reveals. “I personally think she has a chance to be the next Victoria [Jealouse]. She took a big risk; she disappeared from all the contests and media, and she was just out there with the guys, learning how to sled. And now she knows how to sled really well and she can go anywhere the guys go. That’s why I got her a private filmer with Victoria…no one can sled like her.”
Sledding is the bane of many and a common barrier for women to film in the backcountry. Sledding is hard, and many girls don’t have a lot of experience. (Learning to sled takes a village—you have to have a crew to ride with, and they have to be willing to help you when you inevitably get stuck, which everyone does. They also have to be patient enough to teach you the intricacies of managing the machine and keeping it from breaking, which it probably will.)
Despite the obstacles, rookie rider Spencer O’Brien took the plunge and put in her time on a sled this year in order to get footage for Ro Sham Bo. “I learned from every single day that I got my sled stuck and ate shit all day long. I’m at a point where I want to get good at backcountry and be able to handle my sled. It’s so much different than other kinds of riding and even when you fall all day long, it’s still so much fun.”
That’s where Europe comes in handy with its lift-access backcountry. It’s a way of equalizing the playing field between the genders by removing the need to sled. Both Misschief and Chunky Knit did trips to Europe this year, the former to Austria and the latter to Romania. Making a movie means you need sets, and they’re not the kind that can be made with wood and nails. A location like Romania or Russia puts an exotic spin on a sport that always takes place in the same essential environment: mountains and snow. The trials and tribulations of getting that footage will be the focal point of ChunkyKnit’s 2006 release Last Winter.
“Traveling really keeps snowboarding interesting,” says Chunky Knit rider Erin Velverde, who found out how interesting it can be when she suffered a wicked bout of food poisoning in a tiny, remote hut in Romania while filming Last Winter. “Since we did a travel-themed movie this year, I’m really looking forward to seeing the outcome of each trip. It will be such good memories to see it all in the end.”
I know a few guys who would turn green at the thought of multiple weeks travelling Europe with an all-female contingent, but Misschief’s pro filmers, who are mostly dudes, handle it in stride. “People think that there would be catfights when we’re travelling for two months together in Europe,” says Fabia, “but it’s so fun and everyone gets along so well. The guys like it too! The filmers want to keep working with us next year—they can show some of their more feminine side!” she adds with a sly giggle. “They share their problems with us and sometimes we go shopping. I think that guys like filming with the girls.”
All of those hard-earned hours of footage find a home in the editing suite come springtime. The long days of filming are over, but the tough choices between whose shots make the cut and whose won’t have just begun. Fabia says she and Stackhouse are militant that only the best shots make it into the movie—they don’t want to leave any room for the phrase “good for a girl” to come up. This is the crux of their success and the reason why this year’s rider lineup is so good; the girls who were cautious and nervous that As If might be a girly project filled with lame shots saw the goods last year and became believers. The result is this year’s collection of “insane” footage from the likes of Natasza, Laura Hadar, Victoria Jealouse, Anne Boulanger, Tara Dakides, Alexis Waite, Marie France Roy, and others.
As Chunky Knits enters production of Last Winter, Chunky Knit co-founder and pro rider Lesley McKenna says her favourite part of the entire experience has been watching riders get a chance to film who might never have been able to do so before, because they were too shy or reticent to barge their way into a film crew of guys.
“If girls are given a little bit of support and a little bit of belief from their peers and from other people around them, then they really improve and start to grow and flourish, and that’s been interesting to see,” she explains. “It’s not something that’s been around very much for the girls in the past ten years, it’s always been individuals battling it out their own way. It’s nice to see that it’s making a difference for them.”
It’s a sentiment with which Natasza Zurek agrees. She’s experienced nearly every facet of being a pro: contests, the Olympics, photos shoots, fashion shoots, film shoots. The all-girls format, she says, isn’t about girl power, it’s about having the best possible environment to improve your skills and enjoy having a truly enviable career.
“I know that I would much rather film for Misschief than a guys video,” she explains. “I love filming with those girls and feel that the Misschief environment is the most conducive for my riding to progress. This is because with Misschief I get to make the decisions and everything is under my control. Like, I’ll never be put in a position where I’m out in the backcountry with some dudes and be forced to sit and watch because the jump they built is too huge! At the same time, while filming with Misschief, I’m surrounded by a positive group or friends with whom I share a common goal. It would suck to have to ride the season by myself simply because I can’t keep up with a guys crew.
“Think about it like this,” she continues: “Why would I want to spend the entire season filming to get a few shots in a guys movie, while I could be getting the ender of the Misschief movie?”
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