KGB Production's "Wyoming Triumph"
"Wyoming Triumph," a two-year film project about skiing in the Equality State.
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
KGB Productions, a Jackson-based film company is releasing their two-year movie project, “Wyoming Triumph.” Producer Sam Pope told us why they wanted to shoot a movie in the Equality State, why their film is different, and approximately how many bones they broke in the process. The film premieres Saturday night at the Pink Garter Theater in Jackson.
Where did the idea for an all-Wyoming film come from?
It was a two-fold idea. As a skier you know what it’s like to drive around and look at every mountain and see a ski line. In Wyoming it’s hard not to look at the mountains like that and wonder, ”do people ski them and how do they get there?”
The other side of it is—and I don’t want to be the 100th person to compare themselves to the Art of Flight—but in the age of Art of Flight and multi-million dollar movie budget It seems ridiculous to travel to these exotic places when we haw this in our backyard.
So we decided to get some people together and buy some snowmobiles, get some maps, and go explore. Some places we had no idea about it was literally a shot in the dark
Was it ever a dead end?
Oh yeah, almost every other time. For every awesome zone it was a week of figuring out how to get there, and getting turned around and ending up in the wrong basin.
What are you most proud of?
When we undertook this task we didn’t know what we were getting into, it was really challenging, a lot of early dark mornings and coming out at 10 at night, but we feel pretty good about it.
In ski movies these days everything is trying to do something different, add story, Everyone is trying to deal with that realization that people are getting tired of straight ski porn. For us we just kind of kept it simple and I think it felt different without having to try too hard.
You say in the trailer that over the course of filming your crew had countless broken bones. Can you give us a number?
I’m actually not sure, but with the exception of 1 or 2 athletes everyone had an injury. Mostly knees, backs, nothing that was as bad as it could have been especially because these places that we were going to were six hours deep in the backcountry. It wasn’t the Jackson sidecountry.
What happens next?
Well here’s still a half dozen places in Wyoming that we didn’t get to, or we didn’t get it as good as it could have been.
Check out their site.