Late freeskier JP Auclair (right) on a break from shooting an urban ski segment in the 2011 film All.I.Can with director Dave Mossop (right).The Globe and Mail
In 2011, Whistler ski filmmaker Sherpas Cinema put out an innovative film called All.I.Can, directed by Dave Mossop. The centrepiece was a 4 1/2-minute urban segment that featured Canadian freeskiing legend JP Auclair skiing on patches of snow through the ragged , brown streets of the towns of Rossland and Trail in the southern Interior of British Columbia. It was set to LCD Soundsystem's Dance Yrself Clean and became a viral hit online.
A few years later, Auclair had an idea for a sequel of a sort. But not long after, Auclair, a Quebecker who was a pioneer of 21st-century skiing, died in an avalanche in South America. He was 37.
This fall, Sherpas Cinema released Imagination, another 4 1/2-minute short feature directed by Mossop, a realization of Auclair's film vision.
The ode to Auclair, which stars American skier Tom Wallisch, quickly garnered several million views online and won awards at the iF3 ski film festival in Montreal and the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. The Globe and Mail spoke to Mossop about the project.
How did you first come to work with Auclair?
JP and I met in Haines, Alaska – the glorious mountain range there. We clicked immediately, scheming film ideas, sharing music and philosophizing.
There is a lot of urban skiing in ski movies but the All.I.Can segment ended up being quite unique. The viewer feels like they are riding alongside Auclair as he skis down through town. How did you come up with it?
Great ideas I think come from an act of listening. It was the steep streets and looming smelter towers that drew us to Trail but it took a while for us to figure out what the landscape was telling us. It was raining when we arrived so we were driving around town and we talked about all kinds of creative weirdness. Looking out the car windows, the side-angle point-of-view presented itself. We could [imagine someone ] skiing as we drove, linking one trick to the next.
What were the challenges to film that, without permits or anything?
In those days, we were low budget. No crew and no permits. Renegading locations is typical for urban ski segments. You often get sent home by the cops after shovelling for 12 hours without any footage. But that never happened in Trail. People were friendly. In shooting, our main challenge was crew size. I was the crew. For certain shots I had to drive with one hand and film with the other. It was crazy but superfun.
In Imagination, the perspective starts with the boy riding in the back seat of his parents' car. He's dreaming of skiing, using his fingers, pretending they're a skier taking jumps. Then the dream comes to life. Where did the idea come from?
In 2014, it came to JP. We talked about moving the camera perspective back to include the actual kid in the car, imagining skiing along with his fingers, until suddenly his imagination is real. We talked about having his boring parents driving a wood-paneled grocery getter from the '80s and droning on about adult things, oblivious to the excitement. Last year, we pitched the idea to [outdoor product maker] The North Face. They immediately said yes.
You went from a two-man job to this whole big production. What was it like doing Imagination?
Both segments took an immense amount of work, much more than it looks like, planning and prep, plus hours of shovelling and unshovelling each stunt. But this time was very different because we had of dozens of people, even hundreds if you count in the town of Nelson that came out to help. Almost everyone in Nelson had seen the original JP segment and pitched in on this tribute film.
Auclair isn't necessarily widely known. What would you say his legacy and influence on skiing in Canada and the world is?
JP was one of the absolute best skiers of all time and he was part of a small group that invented modern freestyle skiing in the late '90s. He had a brilliantly creative mind. He was humble, kind and funny.
Both films use birds as a symbol, the flock of birds, the birds as warm, colourful graffiti. What was behind that?
The real birds first came as JP and I were setting up a shot and a huge flock landed, but I didn't get them – they flew away. I left my camera running and three hours later the flock was back. I inched the camera out and they burst into the sky. Could not have been a more perfect opener. The art birds – me and JP were both really into street art and wanted to include some. JP had drawn this bird in his sketchbook as a gift for his wife Ingrid on her birthday. It was perfect. Later that night we were sloppily pasting it to a cement wall and inventing elaborate stories in case anyone busted us doing crime. Like any true symbol, the impact is in its ambiguity, its simple presence. For me it's a feeling of hope and creativity. Like a kid's imagination.
This interview has been condensed and edited.