Colby Stevenson & Co. Chat About His Mind-Melting Solo Project 'Proof'

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Colby Stevenson (CS), Justin Mayers (JM), Jack Francis (JF)

Proof was filmed in Wyoming, Utah, and Alaska. Was there any significance in choosing these locations or were they more based on convenience?

CS: I’d say that we chose those locations because of the convenience and that's where the snow was. Justin grew up in Jackson Hole and we’ve snowmobiled out there for the last eight or 10 years. We're lucky enough that when we get snow at home, we always want to get out. But if we go on a trip, we’re much more productive because we’ll get up early every day and don’t have the comfort of our own homes and with other distractions. So, we got a good block done in Utah and then we saw the snow in Jackson and did a few weeks of filming out there. Then we went up to Alaska with Stellar Adventure Travel, who I went up with the previous year with Matchstick Productions.

So it was all terrain that you're pretty familiar with and like pretty comfortable on?

CS: We were in the zone where we knew we could get a lot done because we had such a short amount of time to film. We got really lucky with the time we did have and the snow conditions and storms coming in. We'd hit a jump and I would crash and not get the shot and then it'd snow a couple days later and we'd go back and get the shot.

JM: Our first shoot was X Games because we wanted to capture Colby being in that environment. Obviously, he won Knuckle Huck, which was huge for the piece. After that, everyone had zero snow and so it was a slow start to the season for sure. So, our first shoot location after X Games was in Park City and we didn't even start shooting until January 20th, which is pretty late. It was like February 11th when it finally turned on in Utah. There was like a good chunk of time where we were sitting there and Canada didn't have any snow. Alaska didn't have any snow, like nowhere had snow and then Utah just turned on.

We got lucky to hit some pretty big jumps out there. The one jump that definitely stands out, we're calling Valentine's Day gap, which was our last jump that we hit in Utah. It was this massive, massive jump that no one had hit in the past. It's always a little bit iffy when you're trying to line these jumps up and make sure that they work because there's no real science to it.

Colby ended up hitting it one time and he knuckled it and just came to a dead stop and we didn't know if he was gonna be okay. That kind of wrapped up our Utah segment. After that, the guys came to Jackson. We had a pretty good break to let Colby heal and then Jackson was full on.

JF: Justin had the idea of running a cable cam, so that kind of dictated where we were. When you're bringing that much gear out, you don't want to go into a zone you aren't familiar with. The cable camera requires a pretty specific location, being able to span over a valley that's not too long because the weight of the camera will actually sag the cable and you can't run the camera on it. That definitely dictated why we went to Jackson, specifically back in Mosquito Creek, in an area we've been to quite a few times and a lot of iconic segments have been filmed there.

If there's any phrase that stuck with me in skiing, it's 'Never leave snow to find snow'. There was good snow in Utah, but like Justin was saying, it was really that crash that Colby had where he got super bad whiplash and couldn't ski for two weeks, that kind of reset the shoot.

Are you using a RED for the cable cam set up? How does that setup work?

JM: The first complexity of that is finding a jump zone where there's an adjacent mountain to it. That's the hardest point. If I could run cable cams on all sorts of jumps, I would because they're just such incredible shots. They look beautiful and you can put a RED (camera) on them. We ended up stringing a thousand feet of cable across the valley. Then you put it on a gimbal and then you have a live feed from the gimbal coming straight to a command center.

Then it's a two person job. One person is in charge of moving the cable forward and back. Then we put a Mōvi Pro Mimic on a tripod and then wherever I move the tripod, the gimbal moves with it.

Can you talk about having been friends for so long and what working on such a high intensity project in terms of both the timeline and skiing together was like?

JF: We've been filming for Colby for a couple years, but what runs a lot deeper than that is the connection we have and moving in the mountains together. All three of us went to school together and have been skiing and snowmobiling for probably 10 years now. That plays a huge role in working as a team out there. Bringing camera gear into the backcountry is a whole other step. Moving together as a team in the mountains is something that's super unique especially with our crew because we all have relationships that are beyond just a filming business standpoint. It comes from deeply rooted friendships. There's a lot of trust there. I think that’s a huge reason why we can be so efficient so when it snows, we can jump on a project or shoot and already have that trust established so we can focus on being as productive as possible. 

At the beginning of the year, we all did a snowmobile-specific filming backcountry course that Utah Avy hosted for us. I think that was super beneficial for our team just because we all got to work together and refresh our knowledge around backcountry safety and evacuation and burials.

Colby, do you feel like you’re able to put your full focus on skiing when you’re working in the backcountry with people you know really well?

CS: Every day we were out there, I was trying something that was really scary or something I hadn't really done. So knowing that if something went wrong, we were all trained and they could get me out of there or vice versa. We were all on the same page with that.

Does your mindset shift at all between filming in the backcountry and competing?

CS: I really enjoy competing and filming in the same year because it feels like two completely different seasons. I'm able to just shift my focus and I have that competitive mindset, so I apply that into the filming. If conditions are good, we get up early every morning, we go build these jumps that we find and I apply the competition background of tricks into the backcountry.

Has filming in the backcountry more in the last few seasons changed how you approach competition?

CS: I've always had the most respect for people that ride big in the big mountains and in the backcountry. It’s just so much gnarlier because it's not manufactured and it's totally up to you. It's a different sport. I always knew as I got older, I would be doing more of that. It's also an age thing too, because as I get older and the guys that are really good at slopestyle just keep getting younger, I can't heal as fast as I did back then. I'm only 27, but it's just one of those things, it's like a natural progression for a lot of legends in the sport that did the same thing. I've only done a couple big mountain events, but I see myself pursuing that pretty heavily as we go forward and potentially in the Olympics one day.

Do you feel like you have more freedom to be creative with your skiing in the backcountry versus a competition environment?

CS: I don't send it as hard as I do in the backcountry in the park these days unless it's like a competition just because of the risk factor, like you said, it's always a risk vs. reward. There’s so many different ways to ride in the backcountry and build jumps. It's really dictated by the terrain which is why I love it so much. It’s a blank canvas and it’s up to you how you want to interpret it. With slopestyle, it really comes down to the trick selection and creativity in that aspect. The features are different everywhere, but the majority are pretty similar. But I can’t have one without the other. The things I learned from slopestyle are what I’m applying and bringing to the backcountry, so they go hand in hand for sure.

Justin and Jack, can you talk more about your approach to filming in so many different locations and settings and making it a cohesive piece?

JM: It’s all going into these environments with a good plan and a good intention and finding the right tool to get the hob done. Cameras are tools and sometimes a GoPro is the best tool and sometimes a RED is the best too, and we used Jack’s FX3 for a lot of the sled shots because it was the best tool.

JF: Filming in a backcountry environment, there’s so many variables going on and you want to use every tool or camera to the best of its ability. The thing that stays constant is Colby’s unique ability to bring slopestyle tricks into a backcountry setting, so our main focus is capturing that whether we’re in Wyoming filming a jump or Alaska watching him ski a spine. Everything is very intentional down to the camera, the lenses, the way you’re gonna shoot it, the timing of the path, the timing of when you’re gonna cut the skier out of the clip. Justin does a super good job about that. It’s all very intentional in how it’s filmed in order to focus on Colby and his ability to transfer between those two disciplines.

JM: We didn’t want to film a documentary on Colby. We wanted to film his skiing in the best way we could.

Colby, what was it like working on your first solo project and having the pressure, budget, and spotlight all on you versus a bigger project like MSP?

CS: It was definitely a lot of added pressure knowing that my sponsors were putting a lot of trust in me and our crew to get it done and I just had to stay healthy through it. At the same time, I wanted to push my skiing to a level I never have. So I had to find the fine balance between going big and learning tricks versus surviving the project. Like Justin was saying, mid-February on Valentine’s Gap, I thought I broke my neck. I was super lucky to heal after a few weeks because we hadn’t filmed very much.

JM: To add to that, the previous seasons, Colby was in Level 1 and Matchstick and TGR and had zero creative control over the output. It's like you see your part when it's on the big screen, when you're at the premiere. Early in the season, there were definitely chats like all right, this is gonna be ours and Colby's gonna be able to have that creative control to make it look how he wants it to look. I think that, like Sammy Carlson is a good example of that, where he is putting out his own film every single year and he has full creative control of how it looks, how it feels, and how it, how he's presented on screen. He's definitely someone to look up to that does it arguably the best because he has that control.

Can you talk about the music choices in the film? (We really liked them).

CS: Music is everything for me in a project. If the music is off it just throws off the whole vibe in the film. I wanted something that felt like it was me, you know? Like it was something that I was really happy with and showed who I am, what I listen to. I think a lot of people didn’t see that the premiere version didn’t have that Gang Starr song in it, it had a different song. But I just wanted more of an old ski movie vibe, like an early 2000’s vibe. That's what I grew up on. That's the music I fell in love with, the music I ski to.

What are you looking forward to most in the upcoming season?

CS: I'm looking forward to doing a few more competitions than I did last year since it's a pre-Olympic year. I've got another few World Cups and then breaking it up with a nice couple weeks in Jackson around Kings and Queens of Corbet’s again. Hopefully there's enough snow to do it this year. Then in March, I’m thinking about doing Natural Selection and a World Cup in Tigne, France, and then filming in Alaska after Natural Selection.

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