Snowboard Canada: The Non Sequitur - Where in the World is Lukas Huffman?
Posted on November 12, 2008 - Filed Under Uncategorized |
This is the first installment of my Snowboard Canada column for 2008/2009.. The column’s called The Non Sequitur because there a lot of interesting topics and stories out there that don’t have a common theme or thread. Randoms. Anyway, this appears in this year’s Buyer’s Guide issue.
The Non Sequitur: Where in the World is Lukas Huffman?
By jeff beer
Standing atop a nameless craggy cliff deep in an unknown backcountry outpost, he tosses the board from outstretched arms held high above his head. It twists and flips in the mountain air like a cigarette flicked out an open car window but you can still read the word printed on the base in bold green caps. Huffman.
Whether Mack Dawg’s Shakedown was the first time you met Lukas Huffman or not, that 2004 video part testifies to why his polished and powerful riding style is such a goddamn joy to watch. But in February 2007, the Vermonter who became an honorary Canadian by conquering the best of our West for so long, peeled off his pro rider name tag, climbed into his truck and pointed the headlights to Brooklyn, New York.
“I had visited New York City a couple times and it gave me the same feeling Whistler did when I first moved there to snowboard,” says Huffman. “I knew New York was the place I needed to be. This was the environment that would feed my ambitions.”
A career in professional snowboarding, much like circus performance or corporate accounting, can really wear one down, both physically and emotionally. It’s All In, All the Time – which may sound like just this side of heaven to a 15-year-old grom, but add more than a decade to that and extracurricular ambition can start to gain traction. Not to mention the toll injuries can take. And so, as much as it may make a million wannabes shit their saggy slacks in disbelief, Huffman followed his burgeoning interest in film to the Big Apple, dropping all ties to pro riding and traded in powder turns for Natalie Portman. Well, the one day he got to ask the modern geek’s goddess to stay out of the frame as part of a production assistant gig.
“Being a PA is not exciting at all,” he says. “Often times, I would be a block away from the action, just shooting the shit with a traffic cop and making sure nobody walked down the street while we were filming.”
As tedious as the job might seem, it serve him a slice of film industry reality. “Film attracts similar folks as snowboarding,” he says of the experience. “People who don’t want office jobs and like to be on location, doing active things. Also, the challenges are different with each set and crew, so my ability to adapt and deal with various kinds of people has been helpful.”
But, you may be wondering, in the name of all that is holy, what about the mountains, man? Does he notice the difference between fresh alpine air and the pungent, stale urine drenched putridity of Gotham on garbage day? “I actually don’t notice the city versus the mountains too much. The city can be really beautiful, but the lack of nature will probably catch up with me. Being in New York, culturally, is like being in a foreign, or many foreign countries at once. There are so many different people and lives.”
Part of Huffman’s re-location plan all along was to land a spot at Columbia Film School, which has turned out a gaggle of successful filmmakers including James Mangold and a Farrelly Brother. His dad had attended the prestigious university and suggested Lukas look into the program for those deemed “non-traditional” students, a designation that luckily the title Former Pro Snowboarder seems to fit. “(Columbia) is a good place for a gnarly education,” he says.
Huffman had always been attracted to film and much of the pro riding life involved a hearty dose of documentary-style moviemaking. But the more he learned about narrative film, the more he enjoyed its visual and conceptual freedom, as well as the collaborative aspects of the overall process. “I like to think and look at things and film is all about that.”
Just as lesser riders would try to emulate his style on the hill, Huffman has his heroes behind the lens. “Werner Herzog and David Lynch are inspiring because they do things on their own agenda. I like the work of this German dude Fassbinder because it’s kind of punk. He doesn’t hide any of the ideas in his films, which is bold, and means you have to have good ideas!”
Fast-forward to Summer 2008 and Huffman is in a small apartment nestled in the warm Eastern European bosom of Romania. Now just how the sweet hell does a guy go from Biggie’s borough to Bucharest, you ask? Well, while his ultimate goal of making smart, emotionally raw action films may come as no surprise, given his past occupation, the subject matter of his current project may be a curveball to the average hard-charging bromo sapien. It’s a series of five romantic dramatic shorts entitled Five Ways to Leave Your Lover, where each part is five minutes long, features a different couple and is filmed in a different country. The first part was shot in New York, this Romania stint is the second and Huffman hopes to film the other three in Japan, Germany and Egypt, depending on his funding.
“The idea is to explore how different ages and cultures can contribute to the universal experience of having love problems,” says Huffman. “I designed the project to let me write what I enjoy and still do an internationally relevant film. I got a small grant from my school but I’m funding the first two. The hope is to raise money for the other three.”
It’s too early to tell whether Huffman’s film career will be more There Will Be Blood than Boat Trip, but there’s no doubt he’s taking the same balls-out style and fearless attitude that made him such a success on snow over to his newest artistic endeavour. Besides, when’s the last time you saw Spielberg toss a smooth 360 off a cliff?
Check out FiveWaysToLeaveYourLoverMovie.com to learn more about Huffman’s project.
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