Aspen Film’s second annual “Radical Wednesdays” returned to the Isis Theatre this month.
Every Wednesday in February, the theater presented a different retro ski and throwback winter sports film followed by a Q&A.
The first week screened the 1983 film, “Hot Dog,” and the second week screened the 1987 film “The Good, The Rad and The Gnarly” by Greg Stump.
Another one of Stump’s films will be shown Wednesday at the theater with a Q&A scheduled with him after.
Stump’s “Fistful of Moguls” will play Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The final showing of the month is “Blades of Glory” showing next week.
Reporter Regan Mertz spoke with Stump about how he got into filmmaking, why ski films and what people can expect from the screening.
The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length.
Regan Mertz: Can you talk to me about how you got into filming?
Greg Stump: I got into filming early on, because I loved ski movies. And I think the first thing I bought with my paper route money, when I was like 13, was a little Super Eight movie camera because I just was fascinated with movies. My brother and I started fooling around, and our sister too, we’d just make these crazy movies. And we invented a whole series called “Cludumbia Invades America,” and it was really us kids screwing up our family vacation movies. My dad bought all the film and was like, “Just film the family vacation.” So, we made this ridiculous movie with my brother sticking out his tongue at every national monument.
It wasn't what my dad was hoping for, but I had the bug of filming. And I had a little editing thing. So, I started editing, and then worked in radio, actually from like seventh grade on, so I had the radio bug and really liked audio production. And so I, because of the radio background, I knew I could make a ski movie, because I could do my narration and cut it to great music.
Mertz: The narration seems to be a big part of the films, but then also actually filming, so how do you marry that?
Stump: Oh, okay, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Okay, well, for the first four movies I made, I cut the entire audio of the movie at the radio station on quarter inch tape, like the sound effects, the interviews, everything. So I had this set audio movie that I then would put on videotape and just paste pictures to it, completely backwards to how you want to make movies. And I did that for the first four years, but then I finally could afford an offline editing system. So, you know, two, three quarter inch decks, you make offline edits and not build the whole soundtrack first, but that's what I did.
Mertz: So can you actually, moving into that, can you tell me a little bit about your two films that showed last week and then they're showing Wednesday night in Aspen?
Stump: Well, last February, we showed more contemporary stuff. This last Wednesday, we showed “The Good, The Rad and The Gnarly,” which I made in 1987 and that was the last movie I did where I laid the whole soundtrack down first. And it's a really nutty idea, because I was kind of going after this Walter Mitty character. And so that was kind of the premise of last week's movie. I had this guy, Harry Ackerman, and he had a horribly boring life, but when he would fall asleep, he'd dream of one of us. And when I say one of us, I don't mean me. I mean my brother, Scott Cannon, the skiers and snowboarders that we had, he dreamt he was one of our gang. And it's a pretty cool idea, and people were laughing, but it's a movie from 1987. So I made that one when I was like 26 or something, but it played really well. I was surprised.
The show on the 19th is strong. It's really strong because the story is about Johnny Mosley, the Olympic gold medalist in moguls. Two years before, my friend Glen Plake goes, “Greg, you gotta see these kids now, these bump-skiing kids, they're unreal. And this one guy, Johnny Mosley, he's gonna win the gold medal.” So, this is two years before the Olympics. So we, I just tailed Johnny for those two years, and then he wins the gold medal. So it's got a happy ending, and it's and the music's really strong.
Mertz: And since you started filmmaking, or just started skiing yourself as a kid, how have you seen skiing evolve in the last several decades or so?
Stump: Well, I guess the biggest thing would be the equipment change, because it was skinny skis, but once snowboarding broke through, I mean, it was just really obvious to make a wider ski and maybe a shorter, wider ski, which is what everybody's on now. And I think that's the biggest technical thing that changed, and it made skiing much easier for people who are just learning. I mean, you can learn to ski in three weeks now, in what used to take two years.
