Skiing will always be there for me… I still ski as often as I can at Squaw Valley, but most times I’m on the mountain working for various clients. I was sad for a while-heartbroken, because I knew that part of my career was done. The hardest part was just walking away from the ski industry. What’s been the biggest change to your identity? It’s been incredibly difficult, but I’ve come a long way in a short period of time. I think I have it a lot easier than other filmmakers do, in the sense that I know a lot of people, and have my foot in the door in a lot of industries. When I switched over, all I had ever done my entire life was ski.
I think the whole process of changing my identity. Yesterday, I interviewed Jeremy Jones about avalanche awareness.Īny snags or difficulties moving from on-camera to being behind the scenes? Right now, I’m doing some stuff for Flow Snowboards. We went out for a couple of weeks with Sammy Carlson, and he’s the most amazing skier that I see on the hill today. The last project I worked on was with Teton Gravity Research. I’ve taken a 100 percent turn to make high-end media and also work with the best athletes in the world.
What’s the focus of Chainsaw right now? Any ski-centric projects on the way? It was a learning experience, and the plan was to be where I’m right now-with their money teaching me how to do it. Not everyone has the chance to get a budget to burn 16-millimeter film. Brad Holmes, because I was still pissed at segment with Matchstick… it was a funny name, we got the 16-millimeter cameras, and I was taking money, learning how to use the cameras, edit, and put shit together. That’s what happened when I jumped into doing my own movies. I’ve always just been a creative person in that aspect. What made you decide it was time to start making your own movies? We were just having a good time, and the thing that’s funny about it is how seriously people took it… like: He sucks at rapping! The flamboyant stuff back then was my job… to ski and cruise around, have a good time with people. We thought, We have to fill this movie up and this is what we want to do. The first time I did a rap was in High Society. The goofy skits, the rap videos, the costumes, the antics-how did it start? Before that, in the ski industry, you never saw that. What we did was incorporate skits and did some stupid stuff in there. Glen and I did this movie, Natural Born Skier, and we didn’t give a shit about anything but having a good time. I’ve always been into making movies and being a part of it. When did you shift focus to freestyle skiing and filmmaking? All of a sudden I was on the road, straight into the mix of the World Cup. I was thrown into this mix, and I had never really traveled the world. I got along with everyone, but it was weird because I was so young. POWDER: Did you fit in as a teenager on the U.S. POWDER caught up with Holmes to hear about his latest projects, the progression of skiing over the years, filming with Sammy Carlson, and embracing change. But a continued interest in filming, directing scenes, and capturing shots, have led Holmes to Chainsaw Productions, his Tahoe-based action sports film company. So long are the days of crazy neon costumes and rap-rock music videos with Matchstick Productions. And he has stopped calling himself a professional skier. Holmes, now 46, no longer dyes his hair unnatural shades of purple, blue, or blonde. High-flying and hard-charging, but with a lighthearted attitude, Holmes and his posse tore apart the backcountry and couloirs for the cameras in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1996, POWDER coined Holmes and his cohorts-Seth Morrison, Shane McConkey, and Glen Plake, among others-a group of “planetary snow bohemians.” They gave a here-and-now energy back into a sport once thought to be dying. His fundamentals on the slopes were evident as he crashed through mogul fields with speed and strength, and his outspoken personality and punk-rock style only added to his aura. In 1985, he won the World Junior Championships in France at 16. He strapped on his first pair of twigs at age 4, and started ski racing at age 7, becoming the youngest person at the time to join the U.S. Growing up in Lake Tahoe, Brad Holmes’ ski career spans multiple decades, a feat few can speak to.
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