ALL THE RAGE: BOOTER CRUNK
The last three films to come out of the Rage Films production studio have documented numerous skiers (up to 30) in shorter-length segments—and have been huge successes. After ten years in the business, the Bend, Oregon-based film company decided to mix things up with their fourth production, Booter Crunk (which is still being filmed and has yet to be edited). The Rage crew has put together a talented roster, ranging from billy-goating big mountain rippers to jib-focused urban destroyers, with plans to create lengthier segments. With a resolution to focus more on the jib scene, yet film nothing within resort boundaries—save a few events like Superpark— Booter Crunk promises to be Rage's best showing to date.
We caught up with owner and founder, Sky Pinnick, at his home base in Bend en route from the Tahoe backcountry to Austria.
CHECK OUT THE BOOTER CRUNK TEASER at WWW.RAGEFILMS.COM
How many people are on the Rage staff?
We have five: two fulltime camera guys, a producer, a graphic designer and a web guy.
What are your duties as owner of the company?
Everything: business stuff, directing, editing, setting up trips, dealing with sponsors, and of course shipping and receiving.
Who chooses the music and how does that process work?
The riders basically pick what they want and we try to make it happen. We have to license all the music so they pretty much have to pick from what we can get but we do our best to accommodate what the riders want in their sections.
Do you get cinematic inspiration from anywhere else?
The music video world, Independent films, short films but I wouldn’t say it’s direct influence. If I had to pick a director I’d say Spike Jones and West Anderson are a big influences. I really try to keep my ideas fresh by not locking myself into any specific area. It’s weird; I just try to keep a fresh palette to work with.
To what extent do you have a vision of how the final product will come out?
This is what’s hard with ski movies… it’s so dependant on what you capture throughout the season. That’s what ultimately dictates what you end up with. You go into it with a set idea of some of the places you want to go and features you want to build. Then you go and capture it and put together your story based on that. So it’s obviously a little different from dramatic film where you come up with an idea and then go get the shots to match that idea. For example, this season we’re not shooting on resorts at all. We’re only shooting urban set ups, big mountain lines, backcountry jumps, that kind of thing. There are a couple things that we’re having resorts build specifically for our riders but no typical inbounds footage or public park footage. In this genre of film it’s more about documentation of what happens throughout the course of the season than envisioning some elaborate shot.
Ski movies have pretty much always stuck to a formula. A few companies have broken out of that mold with varying success. How do you feel about the traditional ski porn formula and where do rage films fit in?
I haven’t seen Tanner’s movie or most of the ones that you might be talking about which is part of what I was talking about with keeping a fresh slate. It’s not that I don’t watch those movies but I more see them in passing, I don’t sit down and analyze them. I haven’t really decided if that’s good or bad, I just don’t know yet. I’m trying to keep my own vision but at the same time I’m curious to see what everyone else is doing and especially what the big dollars can do.I know that everyone is trying to break the mold of the ski porn. And you know, it’s hard, it’s hard to create a narrative based film when it’s all action and you’re trying to document what is actually happening.
Right. And a lot of times when you try to force a plot into a ski movie it ends up being really cheesy and bad.
Which gives the ski porn moniker even more credit. When porn stars try to act it’s… shitty. I think everyone is trying to find creative ways to do it. I think the best way is to just tell the story of your filming. So if you’re going to Europe, you tell the story of the entire trip and what happened. That’s kind of where it’s at. I think it’s pretty hard to break the mold in any different way. It’s just the nature of the beast. We’ve been working with motion graphics, different styles of editing and we’ve done the narrations and interviews but there’s really no silver bullet. In the end you’re making a movie to showcase skiers. It’s an evolving thing; different companies are going to do whatever they can to give it a different spin or a different flavor. That’s what’s cool, trying to come up with some sort of solution to that question.
How’s the season going so far?
Killer. Unreal. I mean we have enough footage to edit the movie right now. Especially considering the dismal season most of North America has been having. Other than Tahoe and Utah it’s just been terrible snow wise. We’ve just managed to be in the right place at the right time. We maximized on that early storm cycle that came through in Late October early November and got a lot done. We’re ahead of the curve right now; which is a good place to be.
Tim Durtschi blew out his knee this season, I heard you guys were doing a river gap… tell me about that.
He actually just left the office. Anyway… He blew it out on a river gap early this season in December. It was obviously a big blow to him but fortunately for his segment, because he’s from bend and we’re from bend, he was with us on a lot of trips. He still has the strongest showing for footage to date, so it will NOT negatively affect his segment. He’s going to have a killer segment and he’s recovering well. He’s just walking on it again and hoping to be skiing by the end of the month. There’s even a possibility he might be back in the [filming] game for the latter part of the season.
Jamie Pierre also had an accident just recently. What happened, how’s he dealing with it?
There’s not much to say, he fractured his skull but it’s really not that bad, he’s already back on the hill. Tom Wayes just had a gnarly accident.