CC grads find powder - and a profession - shooting skiing in Japan
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- Created on Friday, 18 June 2010 18:42
- Written by Nathan
By ANDREW WINEKE, The Gazette
Japan and sushi go together. Japan and skiing? It doesn’t seem like a natural fit.
Dead wrong, said Nick Waggoner, a Colorado College graduate who spent last winter on the slopes and in the backcountry of Japan, filming Japanese and American skiers for his new film, “Signatures.”
“Amongst hard-core skiers, Japan is the Mecca of powder skiing,” he said.
Waggoner and his freshman CC roomate, Ben Sturgulewski, kicked off their ski film careers last year as an unofficial senior project, shooting in Silverton and British Columbia to produce the critically acclaimed “Hand Cut.” The film was enough of a success to allow the filmmakers (Waggoner is the director, Sturgulewski the producer) to go for a post-graduate thesis.
Rather than tour the country or the world hunting for extreme shots, they wanted to pick a place and focus their cameras on that spot for the entire winter. They chose the mountains of the island of Hokkaido, spending nearly six months shooting there as Pacific storms buried the mountains in snow.
“That’s part of our film, showing the change in one place over the course of six months,” Waggoner said. “How the emotion changes and the light. It was just the natural way to film.”
Waggoner bought a retired school bus to serve as the team’s home for the next several months as they take “Signatures” on tour, hitting 50 locations between Japan and New York City. The film premiered Sept. 19 in Aspen and will be shown at Colorado College on Saturday.
“Hand Cut” wasn’t a typical ski film. It included black-and-white footage, interviews with miners and a relaxed bluegrass score. “Signatures” continues that feel, mixed with an appreciation for the culture of Japan, Waggoner said.
“I think we’ve stepped it up a bit because we weren’t in college,” he said. “The tone of ‘Hand Cut’ was so Western-gritty. The Japanese perspective on skiing is, it’s art.”
Lou Dawson, a Colorado skiing legend and author, is a fan of Waggoner and Sturgulewski’s work. He said he liked “Hand Cut” and loves “Signatures.”
“This film is more about the subtle motivations behind adventure skiing and free skiing,” Dawson said. “It’s still got a little bit of adrenaline stuff in it - a couple of really radical looking falls. Some of the films that have the more adrenalized, radical approach are excellent films, but you get a little tired of it.”
Waggoner and Sturgulewski gave Colorado College students a sneak preview of “Signatures,” showing a three-minute clip at the school’s film festival. Waggoner said it’s exciting to return to his alma mater with the finished product. Some more CC students and alumni, including nationally ranked half-pipe skier Matt Philippi, Japan coordinator Yuki Miyazaki and associate producer Ian Hock, helped on “Signatures.”
“That’s where our films were born out of,” Waggoner said of CC.
If “Signatures” can match “Hand Cut’s” success, Waggoner already has his next destination picked out: Bolivia, Argentina and the mountains of South America.
“That’s where our films are at, is mountain culture and people who are unique to these different places,” he said.
Signatures
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Colorado College, Armstrong Hall, 14 E. Cache La Poudre St.
Tickets: $10
More information: sweetgrass-productions.com
More movies
“Warren Miller’s Dynasty”
When: 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. Nov. 20, 6 and 9 p.m. Nov. 21
Where: Pikes Peak Center, 190 S. Cascade Ave.
Tickets: $17, 1-800-325-7328, ticketswest.com
Get a leg up
Colorado College seems to produce extreme filmmakers the way USC churns out tailbacks. Long before Nick Waggoner and Ben Sturgulewski started making ski movies, CC alums Peter Mortimer, Josh Lowell and Nick Rosen were shooting climbing movies.
Four years ago, the filmmakers joined forces to create the Reel Rock film tour, which will be shown in more than 100 cities this year (it stops in Colorado Springs Oct. 15 at Armstrong Hall) and sold out theaters in Boulder and Golden.
“It’s somewhere between a Banff (Mountain Film) Festival and a Warren Miller movie,” said Mortimer, a 1997 CC graduate now based in Boulder.
Climbing is more cerebral and less adrenaline-oriented than skiing, Mortimer said, but it lends itself to character development that even non-climbers can appreciate. And, he said, it’s not like climbing lacks action.
“Even someone who doesn’t climb, they see somebody dangling a thousand feet above the ground, they get that there are some serious consequences,” he said.
At this year’s Reel Rock, Mortimer is showing two episodes from a National Geographic Adventure series he filmed, “First Ascent,” which will premiere on television next year.
“It’s these amazing athletes doing these incredible climbs way off in remote areas,” Mortimer said. “This is definitely a step up in terms of doing big expeditions and getting all the camera angles.”
For more information on the Reel Rock tour, go to reelrocktour.com,
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