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[VIEW
THE TRAILER FOR 'WANDERLAND']
9.25.07
This Meat's Well Done
Vermont's Meathead Films have put eastern ski flicks in the
national spotlight.
by
Dan Mathers
New Hampshire's Stacey Rachdorf skies
the backcountry terrain at Vermont's Stowe Resort during the filming of
Wanderland. (C. Nelson James Photo)
It’s early
September, and Geoff McDonald is spending long days and
late nights in the
Meathead Films studio adding titles,
tweaking transitions and balancing audio levels. He's putting the
final touches on the company’s new ski flick days before its
premier at the International Freeskiing Film Festival in
Montreal. Burning the midnight oil and working under a deadline
might not sound terribly fun or glamorous. And it isn’t. But the
rest of his job ain’t bad at all. As one-half of the duo that
leads the Vermont-based Meathead Films, McDonald makes his living
chasing snow and shooting the gnarliest ski flicks in the East.
McDonald, 25, and Chris "Rooster" James, 26, started their maverick ski
film company six years ago when the two were still students at
the University of Vermont. While virtually all other ski films
showed people on exotic adventures like heli-skiing in Alaska or
cutting untracked lines in Asia, the two college students
decided to shoot their home: The East.
Now, this company that films ski adventures on mountains a
fraction the size of those out west has become a major player in
the ski porn industry. This autumn, their new flick
Wanderland will embark on a 60-city tour, the size of which
rivals the other major national ski film companies. Apparently,
that’s what screwing around at school can do for you.
[DISCUSS MEATHEAD
FILMS IN THE SIX STATES FORUM]
The Meatheads base
their studio in Burlington, Vermont, where, if powder calls, they can
easily shoot out to one of the region’s ski areas: Mad River Glen, Jay
Peak and Stowe, which they love for its above-tree-line skiing. “It’s
our favorite spot to ski out east,” says James.
It was the area’s mountains that called to the students in 2001 and gave
birth to the Meatheads. At the time, McDonald and James were producing a
Jackass-style television show for the university. While their
antics got them more than two-dozen citations from the school, they were
also honing their film skills. They combined those skills with snow in
their first film, A Natural Force, which was about skiing,
snowboarding and skateboarding. It was a hit at a public viewing at the
university and was distributed locally on VHS. The next season they
released their first ski-specific film, Elevated, which featured
both new school and backcountry skiing. A handful of places showed it,
sponsors supported it, and fans praised it.
“There were no other ski movies out there that were exclusively East
Coast. People thought it was refreshing,” says James. “Everybody was
pretty psyched. These were areas where they skied.”
Maine skier Shea Flynn makes the most
of the urban streets of
Manchester, New Hampshire. (C. Nelson James Photo)
They followed that up with Schooled,
which featured footage from nearby resorts like Stowe, Jay Peak and
Sunday River, and a trip up to the Chic Choc Mountains of Quebec. The
Meatheads then released their first documentary, Epoch, which is
a must-see for any Northeast skier. The film features seven friends who
climb and ski the highest peaks in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts and New York. Along the way, the film explores the
history, settling and early skiing on these peaks and gives a glimpse of
what it meant to ski the East before the days of the rope tow and ski
lift. With these films, the Meatheads’ tour expanded, their number of
sponsors grew, and their fan base took off. Enough so that when James
and McDonald graduated in 2004, they were ready to make it their
fulltime job and mission to showcase the mountains and skiers of the
east.
“We just figured we’d try something different. This is where we grew
up,” says James. “There’s a huge market out here. And there’s a crapload
of stars out here.”
Those stars ripping untracked lines, catching air, doing flips and
pulling 360s include characters like 21-year-old urban skier Will
Wesson, 46-year-old mogul extraordinaire Radio Ron, and action sports
show host Asia Magriby, who skied backcountry powder while being
5-months-pregnant for the Meatheads new flick last winter. Their
personalities, stories and abilities, combined with the Meatheads’
quirky film style, have helped make Easterncentric ski flicks a success.
The past few years the Meatheads have released two other successful
films, Born From Ice and Snow Gods. They’ve also launched
a side project called Ski The East, which sells clothing, backcountry
calendars and pint glasses, all extolling the virtues of eastern skiing.
The Meatheads’ newest film, Wanderland, features their crew
exploring mountains in Newfoundland and central New York, where
lake-effect snow made for great conditions late last winter. They’ll now
spend the next few months working on the film tour. Then they’ll start
working on next year’s project . . . if Mother Nature cooperates. James
and McDonald have sweated out the snowless early winter months of the
past two seasons.
“We were pretty scared the last couple of years with the late
snowstorms,” says James. “But we always manage to pull through. If
there’s snow falling, we’ll find it.”
For information on Meathead Films and a schedule for the
Wanderland tour, visit the Meatheads’ website at
www.meatheadfilms.com.
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