The media within skiing is an integral part to the DNA of the sport, but it can not exist without the dedicated individuals who reside on the other side of the lens to make it happen. The talent that resides in the clicking of cameras is of equal importance to the talent that resides in the stunts on sticks, and Behind The Lens is an effort to shine light on the lesser known faces behind your favorite photos, edits, films, and general bad-assery.
Like many filmers, Jake Strassman got his start by filming his backyard sessions and days at Afton Alps in high school. It wasn't until he began attending the University of Minnesota in Duluth that he was able to pursue higher level ski talent to film.
"I starting making videos with my new friends Dave Baillargeon, Travis Halverson, and the local group of kids
—The “D-Crew”, with the likes of Evan Rutford, Chris McKeever, Josh Beasley, Austin Torvinen and honorary member Cody Ling. With these guys and a bunch of other good friends, I started to take on the role as camera guy on most days. It just snowballed from there."
"In early spring of 2008 I blindly sent out an email to Windells Camp asking if they had any positions for a camp filmer open. Through some sort of dumb luck, the head Windells videographer offered me a position for the summer. I had always wanted to go to summer ski camp, and figured this would be my way to finally go. That summer I drove the 24 hours out to Oregon, landing at a fairly greasy house in Brightwood, Oregon with a few other snowboard bums that made up the video crew for the summer. In 2008 the state of the “session video” was a DVD that campers could buy from the video crew to take home. After session 1, by order of Tim Windell himself, we were forbidden to sell the DVDs to campers, so we could move to making them free online. For whatever reason, our head video guy didn’t think much about that, and made the DVDs anyways. He was subsequently fired, and by association, the rest of the crew as well."
"I figured I’d stick around and ski for the summer anyways. About a week later I got a call from Tyler Malay and Alexandra Erickson, who had been filming for Windells the past two years. They were now the new head videographers for camp and asked if I’d join them as an intern for the summer. I reluctantly said yes, only because I was now aware of how sketchy the workings of this camp could be. But in the end, that was likely was the most important decision I’ve made in my ski filming career. I’ve met so many people on Mt. Hood during the six summers I worked there, and through those people came countless other opportunities in skiing. Those ended the best summers of my life."
Over the past 10 years or so, Strassman has made his rounds in the industry, filming events for magazines, for ski movies, for brands, for a fair share of web series videos, or sometimes just assisting or contributing on other projects.
"There are a few on-going projects that I’m most passionate about. Working with Banks Gilberti on Adventures in Transition has always been so much fun. I think it’s the loosest in terms of constraints. We’ll meet up throughout the season and find something fun to film. It always turns out great because we have so much fun doing it, and it comes through in the
vibe of the videos we make."
https://vimeo.com/186522803
Contributing to Level 1’s annual movies has also been an honor. Josh Berman gave me a chance to film an urban trip with Will Wesson and Ian Compton years ago, and since then I’ve been able to take a few trips each season to contribute something for the annual film. One of my favorite seasons filming for Level 1 was the Party Cloudy year. Will Wesson and I spent a lot of time in the streets that winter and he ended up with the opening segment in the movie. It’s really cool to see your work on the big screen in front of cheering crowd.
Real Ski was a cool experience. The whole contest element of it was
what made it interesting. While it is a ski contest and judged almost entirely
based on the action, I felt like I was submitting work for a film contest at the
same time.
It was especially challenging to find people to help with everything.
Urban skiing usually isn’t a two-man-crew kind of thing. But when all your
friends that you usually shoot with are the competitors, it adds another kink
to the whole process. I think for LJ and I, a bare-bones crew helped us be
really quick and mobile, which is essential on a short timeframe. It’s a ton of
non-stop work to finish a part by mid January.
Meeting up with everyone in Denver to watch our videos, and tell our
war stories made it all worth it in the end. Everyone was really excited to
see what all the other teams had been up to.
https://vimeo.com/256997032
We were invited back after winning the fan favorite vote. The first
year had been so focused on getting the craziest tricks LJ could do, that wedecided to take different approach the second time around. LJ agreed, because neither of us wanted to see him end up in the ER trying to one-up our first video.
The pair decided to take a different approach
https://vimeo.com/204827752
That led us to take the opportunity to create something that stood out in a different way, a concept that leaned more on the filmmaking aspect but would still be a challenge for LJ. There was a whole new set of problems we encountered trying to film long, multi-feature, single-take urban lines. Mainly, every attempt is compounded by the risk you’ll screw up some part of the line, and also that the camera has to be able to capture everything along the way. In the end, I think we were both surprised that we pulled anything off at all. We walked away with a unique video that we were both stoked on.
https://vimeo.com/296428357
Orage has been fun to work with, thanks to Mike Nick who took a chance hiring me early on. The team has changed throughout the years, but it’s always been full of legendary people that made for unforgettable trips and shoots.
One of my favorite memories was posting up in Sun Valley for over a month. A lot happened—the Orage team shoot, Orage Masters 8, Level 1 Superunknow X, and the almost-cancel Level 1 park shoot. If you only knew what happened that month, you’d understand why that was one of the last big events or shoots Sun Valley allowed. To me, that month was the epitome of freeskiing.
Then there’s Traveling Circus (they were there at the Maters too, with the moving backflip jump). TC is a wild ride. Between the places we end up, all the people we ski with and the shit Andy says, it’s always a memorable time filming the episodes. Will, Andy and Shane did a great job establishing one of freesking’s greatest video series, and it’s awesome to be involved and keep it going.
I met most of the TC and Line team working at Windells over the summers, and also spent a few seasons with Will filming urban. When Shane was ready to tap out, I think it was my past experience working with those guys, and also their familiarity with my work that made them comfortable letting me take over. I feel like taking the reins of TC felt pretty natural. As someone who had watched every episode, and also filmed with most of the crew before, I think I was in the best position of anyone to take on the role of filming and editing the series.
Strassman describes the transition as intimidating nonetheless, admitting he spent a lot of time before his first trip watching old episodes and identifying key elements that make TC what it is.
"I wanted the videos to transition as seamlessly as possible".
"It took a season or so, but I learned that you can’t really plan on anything with TC, it all just needs to happen on it’s own. For me, it’s the hardest part. I like to plan things out. I feel like we’re constantly on the verge of chaos. But usually when our plans are the loosest, it’s worked out better than it could have otherwise. Sometimes we do go over the edge with the non-planning and it makes for some logistical nightmares and plenty of bickering."
It’s a shared responsibility with all of us to keep the series entertaining. Having already made 50+ episodes, it would seem hard to keep it interesting. But we have all the right ingredients—Andy has a bottomless mouthful of absurd things to say, Will never stops looking for the next (weird) place to ski, and a long list of friends who love to film with us. As long as I keep a camera rolling, I feel like we cant go wrong. But we also have years of experience creating ski videos, so I guess we also know what works."
Like many filmers, Jake Strassman got his start by filming his backyard sessions and days at Afton Alps in high school. It wasn't until he began attending the University of Minnesota in Duluth that he was able to pursue higher level ski talent to film.
"I starting making videos with my new friends Dave Baillargeon, Travis Halverson, and the local group of kids
—The “D-Crew”, with the likes of Evan Rutford, Chris McKeever, Josh Beasley, Austin Torvinen and honorary member Cody Ling. With these guys and a bunch of other good friends, I started to take on the role as camera guy on most days. It just snowballed from there."
"In early spring of 2008 I blindly sent out an email to Windells Camp asking if they had any positions for a camp filmer open. Through some sort of dumb luck, the head Windells videographer offered me a position for the summer. I had always wanted to go to summer ski camp, and figured this would be my way to finally go. That summer I drove the 24 hours out to Oregon, landing at a fairly greasy house in Brightwood, Oregon with a few other snowboard bums that made up the video crew for the summer. In 2008 the state of the “session video” was a DVD that campers could buy from the video crew to take home. After session 1, by order of Tim Windell himself, we were forbidden to sell the DVDs to campers, so we could move to making them free online. For whatever reason, our head video guy didn’t think much about that, and made the DVDs anyways. He was subsequently fired, and by association, the rest of the crew as well."
"I figured I’d stick around and ski for the summer anyways. About a week later I got a call from Tyler Malay and Alexandra Erickson, who had been filming for Windells the past two years. They were now the new head videographers for camp and asked if I’d join them as an intern for the summer. I reluctantly said yes, only because I was now aware of how sketchy the workings of this camp could be. But in the end, that was likely was the most important decision I’ve made in my ski filming career. I’ve met so many people on Mt. Hood during the six summers I worked there, and through those people came countless other opportunities in skiing. Those ended the best summers of my life."
Over the past 10 years or so, Strassman has made his rounds in the industry, filming events for magazines, for ski movies, for brands, for a fair share of web series videos, or sometimes just assisting or contributing on other projects.
"There are a few on-going projects that I’m most passionate about. Working with Banks Gilberti on Adventures in Transition has always been so much fun. I think it’s the loosest in terms of constraints. We’ll meet up throughout the season and find something fun to film. It always turns out great because we have so much fun doing it, and it comes through in the
vibe of the videos we make."
https://vimeo.com/186522803
Contributing to Level 1’s annual movies has also been an honor. Josh Berman gave me a chance to film an urban trip with Will Wesson and Ian Compton years ago, and since then I’ve been able to take a few trips each season to contribute something for the annual film. One of my favorite seasons filming for Level 1 was the Party Cloudy year. Will Wesson and I spent a lot of time in the streets that winter and he ended up with the opening segment in the movie. It’s really cool to see your work on the big screen in front of cheering crowd.
Real Ski was a cool experience. The whole contest element of it was
what made it interesting. While it is a ski contest and judged almost entirely
based on the action, I felt like I was submitting work for a film contest at the
same time.
It was especially challenging to find people to help with everything.
Urban skiing usually isn’t a two-man-crew kind of thing. But when all your
friends that you usually shoot with are the competitors, it adds another kink
to the whole process. I think for LJ and I, a bare-bones crew helped us be
really quick and mobile, which is essential on a short timeframe. It’s a ton of
non-stop work to finish a part by mid January.
Meeting up with everyone in Denver to watch our videos, and tell our
war stories made it all worth it in the end. Everyone was really excited to
see what all the other teams had been up to.
https://vimeo.com/256997032
We were invited back after winning the fan favorite vote. The first
year had been so focused on getting the craziest tricks LJ could do, that wedecided to take different approach the second time around. LJ agreed, because neither of us wanted to see him end up in the ER trying to one-up our first video.
The pair decided to take a different approach
https://vimeo.com/204827752
That led us to take the opportunity to create something that stood out in a different way, a concept that leaned more on the filmmaking aspect but would still be a challenge for LJ. There was a whole new set of problems we encountered trying to film long, multi-feature, single-take urban lines. Mainly, every attempt is compounded by the risk you’ll screw up some part of the line, and also that the camera has to be able to capture everything along the way. In the end, I think we were both surprised that we pulled anything off at all. We walked away with a unique video that we were both stoked on.
https://vimeo.com/296428357
Orage has been fun to work with, thanks to Mike Nick who took a chance hiring me early on. The team has changed throughout the years, but it’s always been full of legendary people that made for unforgettable trips and shoots.
One of my favorite memories was posting up in Sun Valley for over a month. A lot happened—the Orage team shoot, Orage Masters 8, Level 1 Superunknow X, and the almost-cancel Level 1 park shoot. If you only knew what happened that month, you’d understand why that was one of the last big events or shoots Sun Valley allowed. To me, that month was the epitome of freeskiing.
Then there’s Traveling Circus (they were there at the Maters too, with the moving backflip jump). TC is a wild ride. Between the places we end up, all the people we ski with and the shit Andy says, it’s always a memorable time filming the episodes. Will, Andy and Shane did a great job establishing one of freesking’s greatest video series, and it’s awesome to be involved and keep it going.
I met most of the TC and Line team working at Windells over the summers, and also spent a few seasons with Will filming urban. When Shane was ready to tap out, I think it was my past experience working with those guys, and also their familiarity with my work that made them comfortable letting me take over. I feel like taking the reins of TC felt pretty natural. As someone who had watched every episode, and also filmed with most of the crew before, I think I was in the best position of anyone to take on the role of filming and editing the series.
Strassman describes the transition as intimidating nonetheless, admitting he spent a lot of time before his first trip watching old episodes and identifying key elements that make TC what it is.
"I wanted the videos to transition as seamlessly as possible".
"It took a season or so, but I learned that you can’t really plan on anything with TC, it all just needs to happen on it’s own. For me, it’s the hardest part. I like to plan things out. I feel like we’re constantly on the verge of chaos. But usually when our plans are the loosest, it’s worked out better than it could have otherwise. Sometimes we do go over the edge with the non-planning and it makes for some logistical nightmares and plenty of bickering."
It’s a shared responsibility with all of us to keep the series entertaining. Having already made 50+ episodes, it would seem hard to keep it interesting. But we have all the right ingredients—Andy has a bottomless mouthful of absurd things to say, Will never stops looking for the next (weird) place to ski, and a long list of friends who love to film with us. As long as I keep a camera rolling, I feel like we cant go wrong. But we also have years of experience creating ski videos, so I guess we also know what works."
