For any ski movie to be complete, you have got to have a killer introduction. The Two Plank crew took this very seriously, traveling from Denver to Boulder to Aspen and then finally back to home base in Crested Butte.

It all started at the Denver Grand Prix on a Sunday. The crew consisted of JT Blewett, Steele Spence, Jonny Scott, Jeff Berman, Alex Albers, Ryan Cox and, of course, Corey. Lots of lifestyle shots were taken. While none were actually used because there was just too much else going on in the shots, everyone had a great time.

“Lots of other industry personnel were there so it was a good socialization,” Corey said.

After the Grand Prix, the crew headed to the City Group Financial office in nearby Cherry Creak to shoot Steele Spence’s intro.

Then on Monday, the filming really took off. The day started doing final location scouting. First, the crew filmed at the Go Fast office.

“That was pretty rad because we got to turn their luxury tour bus into a lounge for the day,” Corey said.

Also at this shoot, they experimented with crane/dolly camera angles. These were the most visually aesthetic shots of the intro.

“The point of trying something like that is to add optical motion to the shot,” Corey said. “Anyone can hold a camera and press the zoom button. Instead of that, we put a camera crane on the flat bed of a truck and pushed the truck. It was kind of like a Hollywood or HBO style thing.”

From Go Fast, everyone went downtown to shoot sponsor logo scenes. That took about an hour and a half. Instead of putting a sponsor’s logo on the computer and making it all work after shooting, everything was filmed with the logos incorporated into the shot.

“We shot all of the athletes and the sponsor titles in camera,” Corey said. “There would be people walking to go to a meeting and they’d walk by one of our sponsor’s logos.”

Once all the sponsor banners were done, it was time to head over to Boulder for the Freeskier shoot. There, the crew did a series of dolly camera shots, using some of the Freeskier staff as extras.

“We were dodging lightning bolts outside the office,” Corey said. “I haven’t heard thunder like that in a long time.”

That night, Two Plank treated the crew to a Rockies game and a night out in Denver. And, the Rockies even pulled off the win.

The next day, it was time to head west to a little town called Aspen to shoot intro parts for Ted Davenport and Kiffor Berg. While the original plan was to shoot outdoors, rain forced them to shoot at the Obermeyer office and at Ted’s condo. Unfortunately, the stuff from the Obermeyer office was too washed out to use, forcing the crew to stage another scene that looked like an office.

Finally, it was time for Corey to head back to Crested Butte. He managed to squeeze 60 miles out of his truck to get over a mountain pass with the low-fuel light on.

“I was basically directly between Carbondale and Crested Butte so I really had no available options for gas and this was at 1 in the morning,” he said. “I had no other choice but to send it. As soon as I got to the top of the pass, I was like ‘sweet, it’s all down hill from here to Crested Butte.’”

In some more lousy weather, the intro shoots continued in Crested Butte and in Gunnison at Western State College. That was on Wednesday and Friday for the riders who could not make it to the Denver shoots, including Jack Hannan, Jon Johnston, Laura Ogden, Ben Furimsky and Alex Norton.

“We finally got a good clearing and set up some artificial light and made it look pretty good,” Corey said.

On Sunday—one week after the extravaganza began—the final intro shoot took place, setting the stage for the entire movie. It involved a tripped out ’73 Corvette Stingray.

“We put the camera crane on my truck and actually closed off a section of highway in Crested Butte to get the shot,” Corey said. “It was great.”

After shooting four hours of footage in five days, the shots were edited down to about two minutes for an incredible introduction.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 at 4:16 pm and is filed under TwoPlank Blog & News Archive.