The Whistler segment from Level 1's 16th annual feature, Small World.

Directed by Josh Berman
Cinematography by Josh Berman, Jonny Durst, and Zach Moxley
Edited by Josh Berman
Sound Design/Score by Stephan Chaikovsky and Schui Baumann
Director Josh Berman recounts the back story of this shoot:
This one has been in the making for a few years. When we last shot in Whistler back in 2013 for Partly Cloudy, we approached them with the idea of a giant step-up to step-down and the snow just didn’t cooperate. Snow levels again worked against us in 2014 and we scrapped plans altogether, but this year—despite the challenging winter that the Pacific Northwest experienced—the stars finally aligned and Chris McLeod [film and communications supervisor] and Charles Beckinsale [head park builder] worked to find a location that had the terrain and the snow to accommodate our feature. Charles is a wizard with the cat and ultimately made some tweaks to our design to fit his vision, and the end result was one of the most impressive snow sculptures I’ve ever seen. The lines were so smooth and the aesthetic so unique that we opted to not sheer the wall of the step-over. I know Charles really wanted to cut it, and the feature would have looked 10-times gnarlier, but it was so perfect that we didn’t want to change anything. And we figured we’d save Whistler Blackcomb some money on the already stretched cat budget!

About Small World:
Go out into the world, they say… see it for yourself!
But in an age where any destination is in the palm of your hand- just a click away, what is left to truly explore?
Level 1 examines the universal dialect of moving down snow on two feet through a lens of fresh perspective- documenting the outer niches of a sport pushed under the rug by the modern day ski zeitgeist.
From the secret valleys of Switzerland, the ancient cities of Estonia, to the rowdy rope-tows of Minnesota- follow us around the globe as we capture skiing in its purest form. It’s a Small World, after all.
Small World Awards:
“FILM OF THE YEAR” – IF3 Film Festival, Montreal