The ski industry, and particularly the ‘freeski’ industry, is not an easy place to find dollars. I’ve been working in the game for some years now and support for the parts of skiing that, to me at least, are the most important seems to be waning. I recognize that we’re a niche of a niche (of an already fairly niche sport) and that brands want to see their marketing dollars pay a tangible return. But between social media and competition skiing we appear to be left with the situation that groups of largely broke, footloose ski bums living in their vans, parents basements, or overcrowded, run-down ski houses are out there making the best ski content… with their homies... on 0 budget.

Those indie edits and movies have always been the lifeblood of Newschoolers. We were stoked to promote so many projects last fall as part of our premier program. The response from our community and audience was amazing, and the view counts on those movies blew us away. [Sidenote - We will be running our premiere season again, we have a couple of projects lined up already but if you have a movie or project and you’d like to work with us to promote, please hit me up about that too.]

This brings me to the point of this article. As a result of the unique set of circumstances we’ve endured in the last 18 months (along with some creative financial thinking) we actually find ourselves in possession of a small amount of leftover budget that we want to put towards your edits and movies. The surplus comes from unspent travel budget and various other savings ( @katrina and I donated our compensation for judging the Newschoolers awards to the pot, for example). But in a year where industry purses have tightened, we’re hoping that what little we have can provide a few crews with what they need to get their project over the line next season. A little Newschoolers stimulus check if you will.

We don’t have a fixed idea of how this is going to work, but we do know we want to divide what we have equally between guys and girls crews, and that we likely want to support projects that have otherwise struggled to get much backing. Beyond that, please don’t be afraid to reach out and pitch me on something. We have no set requirements other than that whatever you produce gets premiered on Newschoolers. So tell us what your project is, fire us a trailer/plan, and tell us why you need the cash. You can reach me at (twig@newschoolers.com).

We probably aren’t going to be funding anyone’s whole next movie, but we’re hoping we could help you replace that camera lens you smashed in the streets or help bring the crew together for a shoot somewhere. We’ve all been there and we know how much of a difference even a small amount can make to making something happen.