First Descent | |
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Directed by | Kemp Curly Kevin Harrison |
Produced by | Kemp Curly Kevin Harrison |
Starring | Shaun White Hannah Teter Shawn Farmer Nick Perata Terje Håkonsen |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 110 minutes |
Language | English |
First Descent is a 2005 documentary film about snowboarding and its beginning in the 1980s.
The snowboarders featured in this movie (Shawn Farmer, Nick Perata, Terje Haakonsen, Hannah Teter and Shaun White with guest appearances from Travis Rice) represent three generations of snowboarders and the progress this young sport has made over the past two decades. Most of the movie was shot in Alaska and its back country.
It is the first movie to be produced and financed by the soft-drink company Mountain Dew. [1]
Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games.
Mountain Dew, stylized as Mtn Dew, is a carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in 1940 by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman. A revised formula was created by Bill Bridgforth in 1958. The rights to this formula were obtained by the Tip Corporation of Marion, Virginia. William H. "Bill" Jones of the Tip Corporation further refined the formula, launching that version of Mountain Dew in 1961. In August 1964, the Mountain Dew brand and production rights were acquired from Tip by the Pepsi-Cola company, and the distribution expanded across the United States and Canada.
Shaun Roger White is an American former professional snowboarder and skateboarder. He is a five-time Olympian and a three-time Olympic gold medalist in half-pipe snowboarding. He holds the world record for the most X Games gold medals and most Olympic gold medals by a snowboarder. He has also won 10 ESPY Awards throughout his career in various categories.
Terje Håkonsen is a Norwegian professional snowboarder. He is considered one of the most influential snowboarders in the history of the sport. In the book The way of the snowboarder, Rob Reed wrote that "Haakonsen took the young sport of snowboarding and revolutionized nearly every aspect of it".
Gretchen ElisabethBleiler is an American former professional halfpipe snowboarder. She won a silver medal at the 2006 Olympics.
Ueli Kestenholz is a Swiss snowboarder and Speedriding pioneer.
Hannah Teter is an American snowboarder. She is an Olympic champion, having won the gold medal in the halfpipe at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy and silver at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. She also won bronze at the 2005 FIS World Championships at Whistler, British Columbia, and has six World Cup victories in her career. In January 2010, Teter was named to the US Team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. She won the silver medal in women's halfpipe at the Vancouver Games. Teter came in fourth at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Travis Rice is an American professional snowboarder. He is #13 on Snowboarder magazine's list of the 20 most influential snowboarders of the last 20 years. The 38-year-old has featured in more than twenty snowboarding films. Rice's biggest claim to fame was when he arrived at Snowboarder magazine's Superpark contest at Mammoth Mountain and launched a 'mammoth' of a backside rodeo across a 117-foot gap jump. He has been considered "the Paul Revere" of the big mountain freestyle movement. In 2013, Rice was named the best contemporary snowboarder in the world by Red Bull; Rice was also hailed as one of the greatest snowboarders of all time by numerous writers and publications.
SSX is a series of snowboarding and skiing video games published by EA Sports. It is an arcade-style racing game with larger-than-life courses, characters, and tricks. While the general focus of the series is racing and performing tricks on snowboards, the underlying gameplay of each edition alters slightly; for example, while the original SSX relies on a working knowledge of speed and trick boosts, SSX On Tour requires players to complete different phat combos and monster tricks. SSX is intended to be short for Snowboard Supercross, but the complete title has almost never been referred to in any way in the marketing or promotion of the games or within the games themselves. According to 2012's SSX, the acronym in Team SSX means Snowboarding, Surfing, and Motocross.
Louis Philip "Louie" Vito III is an Italian-American professional snowboarder. He is an Olympian, Winter X Games, and U.S. Grand Prix Champion.
Danny Davis is a professional snowboarder. He was voted 2006 Rookie of the Year in the Transworld Snowboarding Riders Poll Awards, 2006 Rookie of the Year for Snowboarder Magazine, and 2008 Snowboarder Magazine Top 10 Riders of the Year.
Jamie Louise Anderson is an American professional snowboarder. She won the gold medal in the inaugural Women's Slopestyle Event at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia and repeated the feat at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, making her the first female snowboarder to win more than one Olympic gold medal. She has won gold medals in slopestyle at the Winter X Games in consecutive years in 2007/8 and 2012/3. She has 25 total medals: eighteen gold, five silver, and two bronze.
Sean Malto is an American professional skateboarder.
York Shackleton is an American filmmaker and former professional snowboarder. Shackleton is best known for films like Kush and the television show MTV'S Undressed.
Luke Mitrani is a former professional snowboarder and an aspiring musician. Luke placed 1st in the halfpipe at the 2011 Winter Dew Tour with the highest score in Dew Tour history, 97.00. He has also placed 1st at many U.S Snowboarding Grand Prix competitions. Luke was the youngest person to ever make the US Snowboarding Team at the age of 12.
Half-pipe skiing is the sport of riding snow skis on a half-pipe. Competitors perform a series of tricks while going down the pipe. The current world record for highest jump in a half-pipe is held by Joffrey Pollet-Villard, with 26 feet 3 inches. The sport is considered to be dangerous compared to other sports, and helmets are required to be worn during competitions. Half-pipe skiing has been part of the Winter X Games since 2002, and made its Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. David Wise of the United States of America became the first Olympic champion in this discipline with a total of 92.00 points.
Snowboarder Magazine is a magazine dedicated to snowboarding that is published in print and online. The magazine was started in 1987. Five issues are published each year, as well as a photo annual and in addition to gear guides and a resort guide.
Mons Røisland is a Norwegian snowboarder who won a bronze medal in slopestyle at Winter X Games XX.
Green Label is an online magazine, a partnership between Mountain Dew and Complex Media producing sponsored content covering action sports, music, art and style. The site replaces several websites and a YouTube channel that have been overseen by PepsiCo since 2007. The initiative originated in 2013.
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott is a New Zealand snowboarder, specialising in slopestyle and big air competitions. She won the gold medal in the women's slopestyle and silver in the big air at the 2022 Winter Olympics, becoming New Zealand's first gold medallist and first to win multiple medals at the Winter Olympics. She also won the bronze medal in the women's big air at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and won the women's slopestyle title at the 2019 World Championships.