It’s common knowledge among skiers that Lynsey Dyer can shred. After all, she’s been in more than a dozen ski films. But now she’s turning the lens around to produce an all-women ski film, Pretty Faces, due out in September. Nearly everything about the project has been a challenge, Dyer says, but the support she’s received, including a Kickstarter.com campaign that crowd sourced $113,534, has been overwhelming. We caught up with Dyer to talk about Pretty Faces, community-sourced footage and motivating Minnesotan kids to ski.
“It’s the first crowd-sourced, crowd-funded ski film,” Dyer says of her all-women’s ski movie, Pretty Faces, which is due out at the end of September.
Backcountry: Where did the idea for Pretty Faces come from?
Lynsey Dyer: I think girls have wanted something like this for a long time. Every girl that has skied, just like every guy, has envisioned herself crushing it and wanted to see herself represented in movies, and I don’t think they’ve really had that opportunity yet. I felt like I was in a position where I could do my best to give that back.
BCM: How important are films and media like this for advancing women’s participation in skiing or outdoor sports in general?
LD: My goal is just to make it look so damn fun that girls can’t help but want to participate. My goal is for a little girl sitting in Minnesota, who would usually go to the mall, to envision herself in the mountains. People are afraid to be bad at something, and if we can make fun of ourselves and celebrate being amateur, or celebrate the process, versus [thinking] “I’ve got to be the biggest, raddest, gnarliest badass, never scared, never unsure,” then I think we can get more participation. It doesn’t matter at what level.
BCM: Pretty Faces will include community-sourced footage. Where did that concept come from?
LD: I really wanted to showcase the community, not just big names. It’s so clear that there are so many females out there that are unrecognized. I wanted to give girls an opportunity to be seen regardless of big-name sponsors, because that’s usually how movies are run.
BCM: What has been your favorite part of putting this project together?
LD: It’s really pushed me to go out and meet the community, to go beyond the pro ski world. I think that’s probably the highlight—sitting down with people and really speaking with them and learning who they are. There’s just so much soul in this sport. That’s why we all do it.
BCM: What’s been the hardest part?
LD: I don’t even know where to start. From really treacherous conditions this winter—high avalanche danger everywhere we went and making sure everyone came home alive—to the technical parts of moving footage and organizing it all. It takes a lot of money, time and effort. I don’t expect a big payoff. To me this is just something that needed to be done.
BCM: What’s the current status of the film?
LD: We are filming one last thing in Whistler right now on the glacier. We officially are launching our world premier at the Boulder Theater on September 30. We have so much footage, and my goal is to have this kick off into a web series.
BCM: Your Kickstarter.com campaign goal in January was $60,000, and you nearly doubled that. How did that success feel?
LD: I still don’t know how it did so well. I kept saying, if it’s meant to happen, then it will. Things like that show me that the world actually wants to see [the film].
BCM: What prompted you to break the status quo of ski films that feature women who rip alongside men with this film?
LD: It seemed like an unfilled niche, and I think, in the long run, we don’t want to be separate. As a community we all ski together. We all shred together. But this is a way to give girls what they’ve been wanting, which is to be represented.
This story first appeared in the September 2014 issue of Backcountry Magazine.
Related posts: