Runway Films Season Update
It has been a while for a web update, but that’s because there has been so much snow in Whistler and BC, its been hard not to go up the mountain. The Runway crew has been hard at work for the past few months. In December Leanne, Hana, and Natasza went to Golden BC to shred some early season pillows and powder.
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Oakley girls camp, Hintertux Austria!!
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Hello my name is Anne-Flore I come from euroland, I hate cigarette smoke. I love chocolate, dancing, ice cream, karaoke, yoga, laughing and surfing. My favorite colour is blue.. sometimes purple.. My favorite trick is bs 180.. easy but fantastic sensation! This is how the camp started.. Silli, Gretchen, some Radler all the girls and I.. I'm not sure if I can teach anything.. besides how to break your arm, knee and nose.. but anyways these girls are all here to have fun and fun snowboarding! That I can do for sure!! First day up in the blizzard.. we ride all day but can't see shait! My crew is extra motivated, they keep on riding even when everyone is down already! It's only once the lifts close that they finally give up! Ouf!! I was ready for some rest!! Back to the hotel room! Silli goes yeah!! Let's go to the gym.. she drags me in.. and then to the swimming pool! The pool was cool! All the girls are in there.. 3 poor boys are lost in the female crowd.. we play with it.. we follow them around.. they pretend we are not there.. 3 boys for 23 girls What!? They get scared and leave.. boys.. soo sensitive..
Aight dinner and sleep.. I m smashed!
Second day blue bird! Sweet!! The park is groomed! On the mountain I find some of my filming buddies.. Mone gives me a slash everytime he passes me.. haha! It's Aleksi Vanninen’s birthday.. the Method TV crew is here too! It's like the day back on snow! Ok girls!! We are gonna do some runs!! What do you want to do? Anything special?
-I want to ride the box!!
-I want to learn how to do an alley oop
-I want to do a 360
-I want to learn how to jump!!
Woaw!! Ok well The pipe is super fun today so we are gonna start with that!
We'll do alley oops and we'll use the very end of the pipe as a mini jump.. where we'll do fs 180s.. Then we'll hit the rollers and we'll do some bs 180s.. aight!! Runs after runs, makarena after the lasso dance in the lift line, the girls were just killing it!! YEEHAH!!
By the end of the day, they could all do alley oops on both fs and bs, cab, fs and bs 180s some perfect fs 360 too and box tricks!! That's a lot of new tricks in one day!! Plus they are cool, I'm having a great time! Aight we go down but hey!! Here is an après ski party!! YEEHAH!! Let's dance like mad!! And for once, I'm not the only one on the dance floor!! That's the best part of hanging out with girls!! They are always up for a good time!! Sweet! We get down and all get a massage!! I like!!
Tonight is the party night! We go up in a typical Austrian Mountain Hut! We order tons of food.. Wiener Schnitzel, Schpatzle and some salads.. We all jumped on it and the only leftovers were the poor fitness salads.. no time to waste on that kind of boring stuff! Then comes Peter.. or whatever his name was.. he plays accordion and sings après ski songs!! Everyone holds each other’s arm, sit dances with each other, claps hands and sings! That's what I call a good time!! All faces happy! Then we dance.. Gretchen looses a bet.. and get to dance on the bar.. I'm glad I did not play that bet! That's for sure!! The next day we are all kind of tired.. but still the girls are cool!! They ride no mater what!! We have more than snowboarding in common.. We share the passion for FUN and GOODTIMES!! YEEHAH!!
I still think I'm not any good at teaching anything but hey!! I had such a good time!! Can't wait to do it again!!!
Thanks to all the Oakley crew and to the girls!! That was an amayzing trip! You can check the Oakley camps on
www.o-juice.de/
www.oakleywomen.com
Monday, November 19, 2007
Burton Photoshoot in Chile
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Back in Chile for the Burton’s summer photoshoot.
Victoria Jealouse, Natasza Zureck and I are going to Lonquimay which is about 10 hours drive from Santiago.. I love to come down here for the Burton summer photoshoot cause we team up with 2Tiempos, a sled company pull together by Christian Vahrhan.. this guys are dope! Los Andes are huge and deep mountains with Volcanos and the sleds make them easily accessible.. they avoid extra hiking too..
The Orange Truck came to pick us up at Santiago’s airport for a long drive.. We decided to stop at the ocean in Pichilemu on the way after we heard that the waves were huge that day! And they were! Man I had never seen such big waves and by the time we got there, they were much smaller they said! The morning of the same day some Chilean surfers had droped into 12 meters high waves.. one of the surfers even just paddled into it! C R A Z Y ! Last year one of them had won the Billabong XL Award on one of these waves.. I m glad we got to see that! Cause traveling like mad I often don’t get the opportunity to see anything else then mountains..
We got here in Lonquimay which is a very remote place, in poor snow conditions.. the worse snow conditions I had ever seen actually! After a day of scoping and a day of studio shoot we went to the Market waiting for the rain to stop.. That was cool! I got cool bellaclavas for the cold times.. like sledding days or bike missions or anything like that.. Victoria and I were on a mission.. we love south American markets and any cultural shopping days! And we got tons of really cool sick dope earings!
Victoria always has crazy stories to tell.. and this time she came prepared with tons of dvds and printed sheets etc.. she is rad! Finally the weather cleared up for the last day.. all excited and curious on what we would find we first got stuck about in the mud.. but the guys thought they had big muscles and could push us through that crazy fucked up dirt road.. Only an hour later they admitted we wouldn’t make it.. so we got on the sleds.. crossing the road bank from one side to the other.. trying to find a way through the bush the river the houses and the dirt.. most of the snow had melted and the way was hard to find..
We finally made it to the top of the mountain from where we could see a huge lava river from a volcano that exploded in 88 I think.. C R A Z Y ! We were right next to the crater that exploded.. so I decided to hike and to check what was in there.. it took me quite wild to get to the top.. all rocks were falling under my feet and the heat coming out of the ground didn’t make me feel any more comfortable.. scared that I was gonna blow up the next second.. the crater was cool! The were caves sucked in the snow to deeper level of the earth.. with smoke coming out from time to time.. I felt blessed being up there! First and probably last time I was gonna be on top of a volcano! Then I straped in my Gtwin and rode the dirty black sticky snow down the volcano..
S T O K E D !
That’s it for 2007 Chile. Hopefully we ll get better conditions next year!
Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007
BONFIRE AND MONSTER ENERGY KICK OFF MOVIE TOUR WITH 2 STOPS IN THE NORTHWEST
Portland, Ore. (Oct. 2, 2007) – Over 400 people got a first look at Blank Paper Studios’ “In Short” and Runway Films’ “La La Land,” in Portland and Seattle this past weekend when Bonfire Snowboarding and Monster Energy kicked off their fall movie tour. The Portland stop of the tour hit theater capacity before the doors even opened. A second showing of the film was added to accommodate everyone and the theater’s bar was packed while the first round of movies played. The Seattle premiere was held at Evo Seattle’s location in the Fremont area. Evo transformed their shop into a movie theater with a pull down screen, beer courtesy of Full Sail Brewing, Monster Energy Products and complimentary sushi. Movie goers at both stops had the rare chance to meet riders David Benedek, Leanne Pelosi, Mikey Leblanc, Jamie Anderson, Desiree Melancon, Erik Messier, Alexis Waite and Jacqui Berg who all showed up to introduce the films and help toss out prizes to the crowd. Almost everyone who showed up walked away with one of the many prizes given away by tour sponsors: Bonfire Snowboarding, Monster Energy, Dakine, K2, Salomon Snowboards, Oakley, Whistler/Blackcomb, HCSC and Frequency Magazine. Exit Real World and Evo Gear helped spread the love from a local perspective. The after party in Portland at the soon-to-be legendary Ace Hotel may go down in history as one of the best dance parties the snowboard crowd has ever seen. The super sweet DJ crew, Presents!, may have something to do with this, as well as the 4 kegs of beer Full Sail Brewery generously donated. All proceeds from the evening went to Boarding for Breast Cancer to help promote breast cancer awareness and research. For more photos and stories check out:
TWSNOW
FUTURE SNOWBOARDING
SNOWBOARDER MAG
Monday, Oct. 1, 2007
We are having our Whistler premiere this FRIDAY, October 5th at the GLC. David Benedek's movie, In Short will play with Runway Films La La Land. Doors open at 9pm.
Friday, Sept. 21, 2007
On September 7th, Runway Films premiered its first movie, La La Land. Thanks to Monster Energy, Bonfire and Fuel TV the party was on a huge yacht called the Inspiration Hornblower in the San Diego harbor, which sized up to about 3 football field sized decks. Crews gathered up to the top deck as the Dingo directed them to watch the movie. At certain points in the movie, you couldn’t hear the music because the cheers were so loud. There was even some celebrity status going on..Carey Hart, MTV’s Malibu Fever crew, and almost every pro snowboarder you could think of. It was the place to be at ASR on Friday night. Check the video and pics.
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Aaron Leyland's ichat title reads "what now?" That's a really good question. Leanne, Jacqui, Hana, Izsumi and are in New Zealand to compete in the NZ Open and having some non-filming shred time. Leanne and Jacqui won the best trick at the NZ Open 1/4-pipe with synchronized frontside handplants. Jamie and Leanne are now headed to Australia to compete in the Australian Open of Snowboarding. Wish them luck! Aaron is also headed to Australia and then to Chile to film the Burton women's team. It sounds to me like a happy summer.
-Christy
Tuesday, May. 24, 2007
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Apparently Whistler isn’t the only place to be in Canada right now, as Anne-Flore and Marie-France just got back from an epic trip to the interior BC where they were toured around by veteran pro Shin Campos. They reportedly lucked out with good snow and sun for two weeks, and got to shred some sick pow lines.
In other Whistler news, the Runway crew took Izumi Amaike sledding for the first time last week. She did great, although she did roll Leanne’s sled eight times. The same day, Runway filmer Jeff Keenan was showered in gasoline as he helped Leanne turn over a sled she flipped into a tree. Also of the sled nature, Runway photographer Christy Chaloux learned to snowmobile this winter, and in one incident was heard yelling, “I don’t like” this after sending her sled off a seemingly gnarly cliff. And finally Natasza Zurek is spending some time at the body shop, since she put her snowmobile through her rear window of her new Toyota Tacoma just a few days ago.
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And just a few doors down from Erin’s home in Salt Lake is a house that Lexi just bought with her hot boyfriend Marius Otterstadt. Lexi is took a week off to “make house” and is just got back from a photo shoot in New York with Jacqui Berg.
Tara Dakides won the Roxy Chicken Jam slopestyle event at Park City last month, and has recently been filming at Bear Mountain and Mammoth.
Team K2 won the TransWorld Snowboarding Team Challenge recently. The prize: a trip to El Salvador. Team Salomon—represented by Jamie Anderson and Scotty Arnold—won the TransWorld Team Challenge Photo Shootout and the accompanying $10,000. Jamie was stoked to be home in South Lake, but immediately after the Team Challenge left to film with Tara and Desiree Melancon in Mammoth.
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---Runway crew
Monday, April. 9, 2007
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So a ton of Runways girls all got to hit-up Japan this year to film, it was awesome to be all the way out in Japan, in Hokkaido (the north island) and just run into your friends around the towns, pretty funny. Jamie Anderson, Laura Hadar, and Silvia Mittermueller were all travelling with the Runway/Oakley crew, Erin Comstock, Amber Stackhouse, Kjersti Buuas, Torah Bright, and myself were there representing Roxy and then there was a Burton crew that consisted of Natasza Zurek, Spencer O'Brien and Elena Hight. So pretty much all of us were there from Feb. 13-26-ish. Since I was with the Roxy crew, I'll let you know a little about that! We are a pretty tame bunch as of late and no good party stories except the night Kjersti and I drank absinthe... not a really bright idea! : ( We all had such a great time together, we were in the town of Niseko and riding at Grand Hirafu (or vice versa) for the majority of the trip (Oakley was there too). Japan is like snowboard playland. There is not too much super gnarly backcountry riding, it is just fun! There were small cornices to jump off, tree puffs to bonk, hip jumps, and lots of laughing. My kind of trip. The rails in Japan however can get pretty hectic, we didn't have much luck finding anything that wasn't a high bust though. We had an awesome guide for a few days named Tom Costa, he killed it! Guides are very recommended in Japan. Eating was actually really good here, lots of rice balls but pretty darn satisfying (which is not always the case in Asian countries). We all liked the "mayonaise with tuna flakes" which was actually tuna in rice with a drop of mayo, I hate mayo and this was good. I think the funniest and most frustrating thing that happened to us was when we decided to build a backcountry step-up and it should have been great but, it didn't work. Two full days of building, 8 people working and a giant cheesewedge later I got the comic pleasure of watching all my friends FLY off the take-off FULL speed, out of control and smack into the powdery wall like flies! It was so funny! Upside-down, backwards, and every-which-way! Hopefully you'll get to see some of these crashes in the out-takes, it was awesome! Lesson learned: don't start building a jump in flatlight, foggy blizzards, it doesn't give you the right physics of the jump. Lesson learned and we'll do better next time. Other things done were bigger successes and especially the shopping. Toyko has some of the world's best and I pretty much killed it there! It you can... GO TO JAPAN! It rocks and the light powder that falls every single day in Niseko is definitely worth the journey!!!
-Alexis Waite
Thursday, April. 5, 2007
The Laura Hadar Interview
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SLUG: Why did you go to China?
Hadar: I ride for Oakley and our team manger, Liesl Holtz, put together a trip with a couple of the girls on the team. There were four riders, a skier, a writer for Future Snowboard Magazine, a photographer and of course our guide J3-of the original “Vail Days” of the early 90s. I'm leaving everyone nameless incase I end up telling you incriminating stories about the trip.
SLUG: We love wild stories here at SLUG. What were you there for?
Hadar: I'm a pro snowboarder, so in search of something new. We went to get footage for the movies we're filming, and to get photos in magazines.
SLUG: So you went to film for the chick flick shred movie? What did you expect?
Hadar: Yeah, the Runway movie. I pretty much broke my leg off the day before the trip trying to do this really crazy maneuver on my snowboard, so I was pretty much out. I came to China knowing that I couldn't snowboard for at least a week; I just expected a vacation where I could observe and absorb.
SLUG: What was your first impression?
Hadar: Well, right when I landed I noticed that there were more places to smoke-that got me excited. Other than that, the toilets in the floor, where you just squat over a hole in the ground-put a whole new meaning to the phrase 'pop a squat' for me. And because of the range of tone people talk with there, they all sort of sound like they're pissed half of the time when they're just talking.
SLUG: What was the food like?
Hadar: The food was 80% horrible and 20% surprisingly good, like the beef BBQ soup. There's no such thing as kung pow chicken or moo gi pan. They have chicken feet, bugs that look like cockroaches, pastry looking things that are filled with fish guts or cow stomach lining. Most of the stuff was either fishy, raw or had the weirdest texture to it. I would never say, 'oh man, you have to go to China and eat their food, it's so good.'
SLUG: What was the craziest experience you had in China?
Hadar: Everyone was getting wilder than they had in awhile, myself included. Highlights were our media duo getting 'happy ending' massages at the hotel, after a night of partying. They said that the girls were super into them and that they wanted to come back to America with them, but the boys didn't know about the rule of bargaining in China so they paid the girls full price. Let's just say that the girls had a good night, and by all means, the boys did too. That same night a twenty-year-old girl who'd never been drunk before, got wasted and told us things like 'I deserve to be a slut!!!' After another day of not getting to snowboard I decided that it would be a good idea to jump into a koi pond with all of my clothes on. I hesitated for a second, but the writer wanted to see me in action so he pushed me into the water. There was a lot of drinking, smoking, dry humping and freestyle karaoke-over all, it was drunk chaos.
SLUG: What was the snowboarding like? Isn't that what you said you were there for?
Hadar: Yeah, but I couldn't ride because of my knee. From the bottom of the hill you could tell that every resort was small like east-coast hills with one or two lifts maybe. The biggest resort we went to had a long gondola that looked like it just served a long piece of man-made ice. They did have some parks, but most could hardly be called acceptable at any ski resort in the developed countries. They had a contest when we were at that resort that I helped judge. There were about 65 people ranging in age and ability level. It was cool to watch people who couldn't even ride the pipe, or really hit the jumps to go for it right after kids who were doing legit nines and big sevens.
SLUG: So from China you went to Japan right?
Hadar: Yeah, it was crazy to go from a world that is so underdeveloped to a place where every car has G.P.S and everyone seems to be pretty well-off. SLUG: What else went on in Japan?
Hadar: We eventually ended up in Nesiko, Japan. It was a small little ski town, with all the amenities of a modern society and heated toilet seats to boot! We were there to snowboard, and by that time my knee was feeling a lot better, so I was excited to get in some pow pow.
SLUG: More snowboarding huh?
Hadar: Yeah it was fun. It was some of the best powder in the world, the floaty shit. I did my first big line there. Totally dropped over the edge, just blind, you have no idea what is going on over the edge. The shit was crazy.
SLUG: Didn't you run into the Roxy Chica's in your hotel or something?
Hadar: Yeah its funny, you go half way across the world, to get some original footage and then we walk down to breakfast and the whole fricken Roxy team is there chillin'.
SLUG: Last question. Why are all your photos all artsy and crazy? What are people supposed to get from these?
Hadar: I guess my whole thing with these photos is that I didn't want to be that person with their digital camera just taking photos of everything. I guess I was definitely trying to get my artsy on. I used a YASHICA T4 Super, with E-6 cross-processed film. Supposedly it's the same camera Terry Richardson uses for a lot of his portraits. I love that guy. He's crazy.
Thursday, April. 5, 2007
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The U.S. Open photo.... "It was a crazy contest, super firm and slow but pretty fun....the funniest part is when I was on the podium Torah Bright pored the whole bottle of champaign on my head, and it went everywhere! All on my face down my chest and all in my hair, I was so sticky for all the interviews I had to do"!
The vail sessions contests photos....... "The Vail sessions contest was really weird but fun!....the set-up is always really unique and different! It was hard to get the hang of, but after you did, it was super fun! Ellery ended up winning and I got 2nd and Sylvia got 3rd.
-Jamie Anderson
Tuesday, Mar. 27, 2007
Japan is soo fun! Check out my pictures! karaoke everynight + random japanese ppl+ snowboarding = a really fun trip!
-Jamie Anderson
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Tuesday, Mar. 27, 2007
The last few weeks were pretty hectic. Went to the Vans cup to a Dakine Heli trip, to the US Open, to a Transworld shoot at Big Bear, to the Chicken Jam in Salt Lake City and now I've found myself back at Big Bear. I guess since the last contest of the year is over (FINALLY!!!), we can really start to focus on the second half of the season to film. By the way, the Chicken jam was the best contest of the year for girls progression. The girls went off, I think there were at least 7 girls doing 720s, a couple trying 9's. This is a hint of what's to come in the movie as we start our North American park shoot tour/Whistler powder filming. This week I am heading to Lake Louise Alberta to coach at MGT Snowboard Camp. Its a girls snowboard camp for freestyle riding that my friend Joanna and I started 5 years ago. It should be fun, I hope its sunny! Check it www.mgtsnowboardcamp.com. Holla
-aaron
Tuesday, Mar. 20, 2007
Well, March was off to a good start, i just got back from Japan and Whistler had just gotten a bunch of new snow. Leanne, Tara and Robyn sledded 3 of 4 days, built some jumps and got some good stuff then things kinda took a turn for the not so good, high freezing levels, clouds, Whistler.... yeah. not so good. Lexi randomly showed up in the middle of the month and we got a couple decent weather days. Christy Chaloux was here too, shooting photos and then the weather came back in and put us all on vacation for long enough to make everyone think I was never gonna ever get good again. ahhhhh vacation. so the girls took off to... slc, i think. and here we are.... 66% done march.
-aaron
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2007
For the last two weeks I have been trying my best to film in Salt Lake City. It is amazing what you can do in a city with a dusting of snow. I hung out in a city park with our filmer Jeremy and sessioned some bleachers, then Hadar showed up and rode for a bit. The next day Tara Dakides showed up and in the same park and we hit a wallride for like 4 hours, it was fun and we kept going just trying to get higher and higher. That is filming when there is no powder and horrible conditions, making something out of nothing. It can suck but last week was fun and I think it worked, we didn't get any “banger” shots but we still did get some good shots. I also hit a rock ride with Erin and Desiree and learned a new trick on a picnic table set-up Erin and I had in another park, front-side 180 to switch-nose press to nollie backside 180 out. Mellow but fun on a picnic table. Thanks Jeremy for being so on-it and finding us things to do when there is hardly anything at all. Now I am leaving for Japan to find some powder, I can't wait to get into the deep snow to film in. I got so teased being in Whistler for the opening of the season, I got spoiled and forgot that it isn't normal for most places to have over 10 feet of base in November. Can't wait to jump and bounce onto the pillows… soooo FUN!
alexis
Thursday, Feb. 2, 2007
Welcome to our site where you will be able to keep up with the Runway Films' crew with their latest happenings and travels. Runway Films is a snowboard video production company, rider driven by the most influential female snowboarders in the world. Check out the new teaser in the MOVIES section and the crew in the RIDERS section to get a glimpse of what is to come. Enjoy!
Monday, Jan. 31, 2007
Hey Hey! So just before we left our winter wonderland in beautiful British Columbia, for the Winter X games and the Vail session, Natasza Zurek, Priscilla Levac and I took our sleds out to a zone called Tricouni to have some fun. We spent some time 'rooping and boondocking' ...wierd snowmobile terms, ha! (means to shit hook, figure that one out!) We hit a few cliffs, tried some spins and mostly ate shit but gained confidence out there in the backcountry for the season to come. Nat ended up trying a switch backside 180 off one of the cliffs and hit her face to nose, which gave her a bloody one, but she got back up after having something to eat and hit more cliffs. What a trooper. For most of the day, we had milky conditions and Jeff kept saying it was going to burn off. I didn't believe him, until I saw the clouds disperse magically. Check the photo while I sat on my sled! I think we all felt pretty lucky then because rarely do we get epic snow conditions..AND the sun! So sick... Can't wait until it snows here again...
Leanne