The MogulSkiing.Net Interview with Zac Hoffman
Bumps: A Mogul Skiing Documentary
MogulSkiing.Net recently got a chance to sit down with Zac Hoffman the creator of Bumps: A Mogul Skiing Documentary. Two years in the making, Bumps is the first mogul specific ski movie since Greg Stump’s Fist Full of Moguls. Hoffman, an Ontario based skier who is now skiing his first season as a member of the Canadian National Team originally made a name for himself with the OMTV series of videos which chronicled the travels of the Ontario Mogul Team on the NorAm circuit.
We talked with Zac about how the project started, the challenges, the results and what’s next for Bumps...
MS.N: When did you come up with the idea for Bumps?
I always had in the back of my mind that a movie about mogul skiing would be cool because I had been watching ski movies since I was eight years old and there was never anything about moguls. Once I started doing OMTV I started getting some people from the National Team asking if they could be involved and it kind of hit me that people are interested in this and maybe it’s something I can pursue.
My original spark for the film was when I saw Park and Pipe get put in the Olympics. I love both those sports, I do them all time but I got scared that mogul skiing was going to fall by the wayside. So then I wracked my brain trying to think what I can do to make mogul skiing more well known. So then I pitched the idea to all my friends and thankfully they were all into it so I started filming.
MS.N: Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted the movie to be or did that evolve as you were working on it?
I was pretty adamant that I didn’t have too clear of an idea because I was scared that it would become Zac’s idea of what mogul skiing is. I wanted to make sure that it encompassed everyone’s opinion. So I had a rough guideline but I tried not to make anything too specific until I started doing interviews. I would ask people general questions and if I saw that people were giving me answers that were similar over and over again then that was something I was probably going to include in the movie.
MS.N: What were your biggest challenges in making the movie?
Definitely the fact that I was still competing full time. I never took a break from any training or competing to do this. I’d basically shoot depending on my start list for the day because I was filming mostly at competitions. It was tough to balance everything trying to make sure I’m as focused as I can be on training and competing but still get the footage I wanted for the movie.
MS.N: Did you film separately for OMTV and then the movie or did you just get what film you could and sort it out later?
The movie was filmed over two seasons. The first season I was still doing OMTV. It helped to get it started because I had all my teammates who would help me film. The next year I decided Bumps was coming together better than I expected. I thought it could be something great so I said we’re going to stop doing OMTV right now and I’m just going to film for bumps and put all my effort into that.
MS.N: When did you finish working on Bumps?
I honestly finished it the day before the premier in October.
MS.N: What were your goals when you set out to make the movie?
Basically I wanted to put together a film that logically explained the sport of mogul skiing and showed the passion that’s involved in it. I wanted to have something that even a person who doesn’t ski could watch and understand. It’s a pretty unique sport so it’s hard for people to understand why we’re all so passionate about it.
What I did to get the project started was to use this new feature on Facebook called Facebook Groups where you didn’t have to accept to be in the group you just had to be put in it by somebody. So I just went through my list of friends and added every mogul skier I knew and pitched an idea not even knowing if people were into it. I looked back at that post a few days ago and I wrote in it that I wanted it to be a short movie filmed over one winter a maximum of 20 minutes long. It’s kind of doubled in size since then. So I kept my sights low and left room to grow and it grew quite a bit bigger than what I expected.
MS.N: How happy are you with the results?
I’m quite happy. My expectations for the film changed. Every couple weeks I had a new idea or a new goal. I succeeded what I expected to happen and reached what I hoped would happen.
MS.N: What’s some of the feedback that you’ve gotten?
The interesting feedback that I’ve gotten has been from mogul skiers. Because I had that concept of listening to what people said and putting that in and not just putting in what is the most proper or fitting to where the sport is at now. I had some stuff in there that was a little bit against the sport. Stuff that I thought should change about the sport and that people I interviewed thought should change.
MS.N: You’re referring to the part about how instead of doing bigger and bigger airs maybe we should start to add grabs…
Yeah, I for one have always believed that. I’ve always thought there should be a little more creativity allowed in the sport. It’s kind of hard to be creative in the sport now and still get scored well and I found that a lot of people I’ve interviewed thought the same way. At the premier I spoke to a judge and he said “you shouldn’t have been so preachy about the doubles”, but I put in what people wanted to say. I haven’t gotten too much negative feedback from the movie as a whole but there’s definitely been parts that some people didn’t agree with. If I interviewed ten people and seven of those people had an opinion that three people didn’t agree with then that’s the way it had to go.
MS.N: Where did your interest in film making come from?
It definitely stemmed from ski movies. I grew up watching ski movies with my brother. I remember always being fascinated by the fact that skiers were landing on the beat of a song and things like that. Two of my best friends, Geoff Hewat and Gordie Rogers, got into film making. They got cameras from their parents and started shooting little edits. I’d be involved with them but I was never doing any of the filming. I realized something I wanted to do was being behind the camera and not just in front of it. I was in all these business courses because I figured I was going to study business. I dropped out of them and took all the art and film courses that I could. Geoff and Gordie had a huge part in making Bumps. Everything I did I ran by them first to make sure it was a good idea.
MS.N: What movies influenced you?
There was this one ski movie that I watched called While We Can by Andreas Olofsson. It’s a park movie that contrasts the idea of skiing for style or passion versus skiing for competition. It blurred the line between a ski movie and a documentary. That movie was huge for Bumps because of that format they used. When I watched that movie it hit me that that’s how I wanted to make Bumps and it was soon after that that I pitched the idea to my friends.
There’s definitely Hollywood films that came along the way: Her by Spike Jonze, Inside Llewyn Davis, Boyhood… but to explain how I use that inspiration in a mogul skiing movie would be pretty tough. They’re just little things that inspired the way I framed a shot or made a cut.
MS.N: You got a lot of the big names in the sport to do interviews for Bumps, was that difficult?
That was the beauty of doing this. It was so easy to do that stuff. It’s such a small community. I’ve known Justine (Dufour-Lapointe) growing up. I was on the NorAm tour with her and Maxime did a NorAm tour with my team a few years back. I’ve known Mik (Mikael Kingsbury) my entire life growing up on the Canadian series tour and the NorAm tour. So it was literally just a text or a message saying “Hey, are you interested?” It was easy to do that thankfully.
MS.N: Did you have any funding to do the movie?
I was able to get some funding. My parents helped me out a little bit and got me started. Then I was able to pick up ID One Canada as a sponsor which is run by my old coach David Belhumeur. So ID One Canada is the presenting sponsor. I was also able to get some funding from Beaver Valley Ski Club which is where I grew up skiing. They are the associate sponsor.
MS.N: Did that fact that all the movie profits are going to a charity - The High Fives Foundation - make a difference in any way?
I think we’re going to see whether that’s going to be a factor now because it’s still early in sales. There’s definitely been a fair amount of people who feel a little more influenced to buy the movie because it’s for charity. When I started making this movie I knew I wanted to sell it not because I wanted to make money but because I’ve seen so many amateur movies go online free and people are excited about it for a couple days but then it just dies. I wanted to sell it so there would be longevity.
I spoke with Jake Hickman who was my connection to High Fives Foundation. He’s now an ex-mogul skier who broke his back and was paralyzed from the waist down. He did come back but and skied for about half a year before deciding it might not be the best thing for his body. He was definitely a big inspiration and that’s sort of why I wanted to give to High Fives.
MS.N: What are the next steps for the movie at this point?
I’m still just working on promotion. Columbia Outerwear has reached out to me and said “we want to help you promote the film”. They don’t want the logo on it they just want to help promote it so I’m trying to hook up more things like that. I do hope to get it into some festivals. I’m going to start doing research for that soon. And I’m still working on some screenings.
Bumps: A Mogul Skiing Documentary is now available to view for free at the following link:
http://bumpsdocumentary.com/
To check out other videos by Zac Hoffman and OMTV visit his Vimeo Page here:
http://vimeo.com/zachoffman
-MS.N
It definitely stemmed from ski movies. I grew up watching ski movies with my brother. I remember always being fascinated by the fact that skiers were landing on the beat of a song and things like that. Two of my best friends, Geoff Hewat and Gordie Rogers, got into film making. They got cameras from their parents and started shooting little edits. I’d be involved with them but I was never doing any of the filming. I realized something I wanted to do was being behind the camera and not just in front of it. I was in all these business courses because I figured I was going to study business. I dropped out of them and took all the art and film courses that I could. Geoff and Gordie had a huge part in making Bumps. Everything I did I ran by them first to make sure it was a good idea.
MS.N: What movies influenced you?
There was this one ski movie that I watched called While We Can by Andreas Olofsson. It’s a park movie that contrasts the idea of skiing for style or passion versus skiing for competition. It blurred the line between a ski movie and a documentary. That movie was huge for Bumps because of that format they used. When I watched that movie it hit me that that’s how I wanted to make Bumps and it was soon after that that I pitched the idea to my friends.
There’s definitely Hollywood films that came along the way: Her by Spike Jonze, Inside Llewyn Davis, Boyhood… but to explain how I use that inspiration in a mogul skiing movie would be pretty tough. They’re just little things that inspired the way I framed a shot or made a cut.
MS.N: You got a lot of the big names in the sport to do interviews for Bumps, was that difficult?
That was the beauty of doing this. It was so easy to do that stuff. It’s such a small community. I’ve known Justine (Dufour-Lapointe) growing up. I was on the NorAm tour with her and Maxime did a NorAm tour with my team a few years back. I’ve known Mik (Mikael Kingsbury) my entire life growing up on the Canadian series tour and the NorAm tour. So it was literally just a text or a message saying “Hey, are you interested?” It was easy to do that thankfully.
MS.N: Did you have any funding to do the movie?
I was able to get some funding. My parents helped me out a little bit and got me started. Then I was able to pick up ID One Canada as a sponsor which is run by my old coach David Belhumeur. So ID One Canada is the presenting sponsor. I was also able to get some funding from Beaver Valley Ski Club which is where I grew up skiing. They are the associate sponsor.
MS.N: Did that fact that all the movie profits are going to a charity - The High Fives Foundation - make a difference in any way?
I think we’re going to see whether that’s going to be a factor now because it’s still early in sales. There’s definitely been a fair amount of people who feel a little more influenced to buy the movie because it’s for charity. When I started making this movie I knew I wanted to sell it not because I wanted to make money but because I’ve seen so many amateur movies go online free and people are excited about it for a couple days but then it just dies. I wanted to sell it so there would be longevity.
I spoke with Jake Hickman who was my connection to High Fives Foundation. He’s now an ex-mogul skier who broke his back and was paralyzed from the waist down. He did come back but and skied for about half a year before deciding it might not be the best thing for his body. He was definitely a big inspiration and that’s sort of why I wanted to give to High Fives.
MS.N: What are the next steps for the movie at this point?
I’m still just working on promotion. Columbia Outerwear has reached out to me and said “we want to help you promote the film”. They don’t want the logo on it they just want to help promote it so I’m trying to hook up more things like that. I do hope to get it into some festivals. I’m going to start doing research for that soon. And I’m still working on some screenings.
Bumps: A Mogul Skiing Documentary is now available to view for free at the following link:
http://bumpsdocumentary.com/
To check out other videos by Zac Hoffman and OMTV visit his Vimeo Page here:
http://vimeo.com/zachoffman
-MS.N
