Film Review: Lucky Number 13

Chuting their shot. 

Hunter Green and David Schmidt’s first film, Lucky Number 13, which recently took third place at Bridger Bowl's Point and Chute film contest. Set to a fast-paced soundtrack and showcasing a myriad of stoked air and powder shots, the film was created entirely with a common video camera and a PC. Thanks to today's sophisticated but dime-a-dozen editing programs and beefy computers, filmmakers like Green and Schmidt are now less worried about mastering the mechanics of filmmaking than they are about communicating the feel of the shred. That in turn lets ski-film producers focus more on the art and the message. “Whereas before skiing was just a recreational thing that Hunter did with his friends on the weekend, the filmmaking has become a new outlet for him and has introduced him to a lot of other skiers that he would not have otherwise met,” says Roper Green, Hunter’s father.

With the advent of small, simplified, and durable video technology, skiers are finally free from a curse that has plagued generations before them: having their stories of sick lines and huge cliff drops dismissed as fish tales from vivid imaginations. Skiers these days not only have proof of their epic powder days, they have films that offer a new dimension of artistry.

To boot, skiers and boarders have a virtually limitless audience for their ideas given that every move can be edited, set to music, and distributed with a personal computer. That's why on sunny winter days it is not uncommon to spot roaming gangs of groms tearing across a slope and toward a kicker, capturing their mountain exploits on video so they may be relived. And that in turn is why Lucky 13 Productions (Green and Schmidt's new production company) doesn't need enormous shooting budgets, coordination with the industry's top athletes, or commercial sponsorships from numerous outdoor companies to produce another award-winning film. Technology has liberated them all.

What Green and Schmidt could use, however, is a later curfew and a ride. You see, they're in the seventh grade.

Adults, swallow your pride and be humbled, because the young people are biting at your heels and the proof is flickering on a big giant screen.