The interview

New Zealand and extreme skiing - can it get better than that? At this point in the semester, thinking back on what I have learned about docu, the knowledge I have of it now is stronger than it was in week one. Its form that can be loose raised curiosity of how filmmakers in other fields produce documentaries. Stepping outside what is mentioned at university on docu, and exploring things of interest, I came across extreme skiing and extreme snowboarding documentaries. In both these documentaries and what has been taught at RMIT, I would still base the docu around interviews. I think if we ask Yanni the great question, he will talk like a waterfall and say those something’s that really captures the audience’s attention of the truth.

For me, TRUTH works when I can see and hear the talent, and the way he or she performs is not reconstructed but naturally told (with pauses, eye language, body gestures and emotional). In The edge of never and STEEP, extreme skiing legend Glen Pake talks about Trevor Peterson’s death and the going back to his son about extreme skiing. They wanted to make a movie about the heart of skiing and the producer meant that to do so, they would have to get to the bottom of it. The documentary introduces the story via a live interview, where they simply tell the truth of the kid that lost his father aged 6, now 15, that now is hitting the slopes that killed the father.

STEEP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr7_4LrF8As
The Edge of never
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SP02fGLldM

Besides the stories of Glen Pake and Trevor Peterson, the truth here is also seen in the reality of extreme skiing: how this sport for some guys, a part of becoming a man – something that sounds bizarre and cliché, but for this particularly audience, that is the truth, the reality and the reality of their truth. No risk, no adventure and for these guys adventure is a part of life.