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What Is “Millerism”?

Filming in Valbruna Italy.

01-01-2003

Sometimes I can’t believe this has all taken place. When I look back over the last 15 years, I’m amazed at how fast they’ve gone by.

Fifteen, I wonder? That’s the same amount of time it took from my birth to my sophomore year in high school. Crazy, considering how long it seemed to take to get through one day in high school. Now, minutes seem like seconds, and days have compressed into hours. Yet I still feel as if I graduated yesterday and need to get a real job tomorrow.

This virus I caught – the one that condenses years into minutes, every one of which are now memories – can be blamed on one person: the filmmaker, artist and creative writer Warren Miller. He infected me with just one phone call.

“Will you come and film with us in France?” he asked me one day, out of the blue.

That one phone call changed my life. It gave me the power to convince my college professors to postpone my finals and also introduced me to an entirely new way of living. Of course, one professor did not go along with my plan and eventually failed me. Ironically, he was my sports psychology professor. Apparently, he did not understand the psychological power of Warren Miller’s films.

Already addicted to the outdoors, I became a snow junkie as a big-mountain rider in search of a fix. It has been an odyssey that has turned into a 24-7 life obsession.

Two years ago, I held onto the notion I could find a cure for “Millerism,” as I call it. Then, I was injured, and reality made me realize this virus is part of my life. It has now become my all-consuming work. One day bleeds into the next, and what has happened over the past 15 years is beyond curable.

“Millerism” overtook my being at a rapid pace, and the resulting side effects have been amazing. The whole thing has been a journey, and a very unique one at that. The opportunity to experience the cultures, the environments and the mountains that I have been able to has been worth every bit of suffering this radical virus has inflicted.

There were times I wish the clock had spun quicker. Times like having a horrible stomach virus at 19,000 ft. altitude in Ecuador, coupled with days of no sleep. Surviving an old Russian helicopter rented to a happy, drunken Iranian in the Middle East whose shoddy piloting made for a very perilous ride. I survived those nights and fearful flights, all the while having to carry heavy film gear up in long treks up mountains using brand-new ski boots that hadn’t been broken in yet. All this just to ski down and be captured on camera for all those individuals who seek to live the adventure through my eyes. Yes, there’s always a lot of prolonged pain involved in shooting each sequence every year, but all in all, I couldn’t be happier about being infected by “Millerism.” Looking back on the moments that have been etched in my mind, they seem like a flash in time.

Time is a funny thing. Especially when you are having fun.

“Millerism” is about fun, living in the moment and following your passion. Those who are infected, easily recognize it in others. A certain look gives someone away as part of this different breed, part of something unique—a culture, a belief, a lifestyle and, for some, a religion.

A Warren Miller film is more than what takes place on screen. It is an attitude, an energy that has created audiences who have gathered every fall for the last 50+ years in theaters to welcome the change of seasons. It is a documentation of a bunch of characters, not much different than those in the audience, traveling to places most people do not have time to tackle. It is a family of friends bonded by a sensation powerful enough to elevate the heart rate and stimulate dreams. It is, in fact, a disease that can change your life. And only for the good.

This year’s film has been entitled “Journey,” and to sum it up, in Warren Miller style, the film documents a variety of locations, beautiful scenery and professional athletes pushing it for the audience’s entertainment. But not all, or even most, of the challenge is ever documented for the big screen. The majority of it happens off camera in the battle to get to locations and actually create a segment for the film. Ninety percent of the time, the last thing that comes together is the skiing. In fact, most of the time the snow is horrible, the weather turns for the worse and political crises break out. Yet each segment is still shot, and the tricks to make this happen are what I will document in a book one day.

The entire Journey for each film is about dealing with crises. As it is said, “That which does not kill you will only make you stronger,” and so the Miller films have become stronger, more dramatic and at times more bizarre. Utilizing the experiences from the past to build the future, the art of putting this annual film together has evolved with increasingly better production quality over time. The cameras, film and the editing have all been advanced with digital technology, and as the technical quality of the films improve, so to must the athletes starring in each film have to step it up with every mountain to be skied. They are the actors of the natural environment. Sometimes, the stage is only one turn on five sq. ft. of the only snow for miles, or it might be a massive unnamed peak that could be certain death if anything should go wrong. No matter what the location or the stunt, the athletes usually sit around for hours, nervous about recording their one moment on film. Then, the radio clicks, the cameraman counts down and the athlete, without hesitation, must drop into character. It is a magical sight to behold.

The endless moments of waiting for the countdown are often spent calming the nerves and rehearsing the stunt mentally. So much has to come together in order for the athlete, cameraman, light and snow to be in sync. It is a science of controlled chaos driven by pure passion to bring home a film to the loyal audiences that show up every fall to see what happened last ski season while psyching themselves up for the coming one.

Yes, the 15 years have whipped by in what seems just a fraction of a moment. But it has been an amazing journey, only portions of which have been caught on film. As I continue to go fast into the future, I can’t wait to pause for a moment with the Warren family and watch the latest creation, “Journey.”

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