Hi Everyone,
I wanted to share with you the experience I had this weekend. I was lucky enough to host three professional figure skaters and a film crew who came in from all around the country to make a movie. The premise of the movie is to show figure skating, which is most often done in a big arena on zambonied and refrigerated ice and a blaring sound system, in the outdoors on natural ice in spectacular surroundings. Unfortunately all of the glorious ice we had on lakes such as Winnepausakee and Smith Pond just two days before their arrival was covered in 6 inches of snow when they came in on Thursday. We were able to work with the Mascoma Lake Skating Association and Ben Prime from Nordic Skater to get a beautiful, smooth rink area plowed on Mascoma early the following morning and they were able to film for 7 hours and get some great footage despite the 10 degree temps and 40 mph winds. I set up a large tent and provided a heater to keep the crew and equipment warm. Evan was nice enough to do some early morning scouting the next morning and found a beautiful lake in the White Mountains that had partially blown clear of snow, leaving a beautiful surface for skating in some of New England's best scenery. Again the tent was required in the below zero temps and later the lightly falling snow. They filmed all day and fell in love with natural ice and skating outside, so much so that they are talking about coming back next year to make a sequel about nordic skating and chasing black ice. I really enjoyed assisting with this project as I think it is a great representation of skating on natural ice. The following is a quote from Clara, the creator of the project:
The title of the film is water has a shape, and it intends to bring together place-based musical composition and improvisational ice dance, and place it in the natural world. While staying in a cabin in Meredith, the musicians recorded an original musical composition, and the filmmaker filmed ice dancing to that music on the frozen lakes. The filmmakers and skaters were blown away by the beauty of New Hampshire and the generosity of the New Hampshire natural ice skating community. We hope that this beauty comes through in the finished film.
If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to support the project, you can do so here.