Replying to How to be a professional skier : some advice i got from the godfather

aight boys, here's the "how to go pro" thread to end all how to go pro threads. met mike douglas a few weeks ago at an event at the banff film festival called "So You Want To Ski In The Movies". it ended up being really quiet, like half of the people there knew each other & some of the attendees were literally already pro skiers, so I got to spend like an hour and a half talking to mike (and others - simon hillis, stan rey, alexi godbout). mike gave me some advice that I haven't seen before on newschoolers, probably obvious to some of you but given how many "how to get sponsored" posts I see its obviously not obvious to some folks. anyways.

1. find out who the local photographers & filmmakers are. most big ski places have professional ski photographers living and working there, a lot have way more than one. reach out to them on instagram and offer to ski for their shoots - i'm told that, more often than not, even if you're relatively unknown, they'll give you a chance. be good to work with and there's a recurring opportunity to ski professionally right there.

2. ask if you can make an edit for the local shops to play on their in-store TVs (if that's a thing they do where you are - it certainly is in Banff). if you're decent they'll probably say yes and might even throw gear your way. works for local generic ski stores and apparently also for dedicated brand outlets.

3. this one isn't from mike but my own personal experience, get to know the marketing/communications managers at your ski hill. they can feature your edits, and if it's a big hill and they produce their own ads, that's an opportunity to ski for them right there.

4. find out who the good/professional skiers are at your hill and ask if you can ski with them. this isn't racing or some shit - freeskiers (usually) don't have huge egos, are chill people, and will often say yes. a good way to get good fast is by skiing with people better than you, cause it challenges you to get up to their level.

so there's some uncommon, useful advice from the godfather of freeskiing himself, that'll actually help you go pro beyond just "get good."

**This thread was edited on Nov 18th 2019 at 8:30:18pm