FILMING HENRIK WINDSTEDT FROM SKIS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
Follow Windstedt was built around one visual idea: every sequence would be filmed from a moving camera on skis.
I directed and filmed the project in Kaslo, British Columbia, skiing alongside Henrik Windstedt with a camera and gimbal through deep powder, trees and cliff drops. Rather than observing the skiing from fixed positions, the camera moved through the same terrain, using the distance and movement between Henrik and me to create the perspective.
Client: Peak Performance · Skier: Henrik Windstedt · Alexander’s role: Director, producer, cinematography & followcam · Location: Kaslo, British Columbia, 2018
“Behind the idea was the drive we have of pushing followcam filming further. It’s quite a different style of shooting since you’re not only focusing on your own performance, you also need to plan the runs together in a whole different way.
With the snow flying everywhere and the tight lines that come with tree skiing, it was a much harder project than I had imagined. One of the hardest parts was to get long runs and being close to each other the whole time, it´s also quite tough with the cold temperatures all the snow when you’re using so much electronics like cameras and gimbals. The best part was that we actually got to ski a lot during the shoot, and as Alexander is both a fast and technical skier we managed to get some sick shots. Great snow, amazing terrains, long run, and great teamwork made this one of the best shoots I’ve done in many years.”
— Henrik Windstedt
“Timing each other has been one of the most challenging things, sometimes we needed to have close to perfect timing, not easy while for example jumping cliffs.
Skiing two people at the same time, in deep snow, makes room for many potential errors, spraying snow in each other’s faces makes it tricky to see obstacles like branches, etc. And we were of course always aware of the avalanche risks, especially as we were skiing two at the same time, all the time. Great teamwork is for sure the key to making an edit like this. I have been filming with Henrik in various projects around the world for the last four years and we both felt that we wanted to do something new, something different. The idea came up two years ago and after lots of planning the project became reality last winter. I’m thankful for all the trust Henrik has given me, and for the support, we got from all our partners who believed in our idea. I’m now looking forward to new challenging projects.”
— Alexander Rydén
The film Follow Windstedt has been touring with International Freeski Festival, Untracked Film Tour, and Peak Performance showed it during the Freeride World Tour event.
Read more on
Freeskier.com
TetonGravity.com
