Meet the Creatives: Julien Eustache
Each week we talk to a leading member of the Movidiam community about their professional journey, their industry insights, and how they have worked with Movidiam on innovative projects. This week, it’s Julien Eustache, professional freeskier, DOP, and drone specialist.
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Hi Julien, welcome to Meet the Creatives.
This is the first time we’ve had a professional Freeskier featured! In 2012 Julien won the 2012 French Slopestyle Cup in La Rosiére. How did you go about coupling skiing and filmmaking?
As an “athlete” back in the day, I was always around cameras — not behind but in the front. I always wanted the best footage possible, so I had to really understand how it works. I was very curious about it.
At some point, my agent — Charley Chauvin, who was also managing a very good international mountain bike team — asked me If I would be interested in filming the team during the summer. The plan was to film all 7 stops of the bike world tour; Australia, South Africa, Europe, US and Canada. Obviously I said yes.
It was perfect, because I had the opportunity to keep skiing during winter and filming during summer.
I filmed for the Commencal team and Redbull France for 3 summers. I couldn’t have asked for a better “film school” than shooting mountain biking. It’s fast, has a big variety of lights with a lot of details to get. I’d never tried mountain biking but I definitely loved filming it.
In 2010 you featured in the ski documentary “Invincibles”. there seems to be an ever-increasing desire to push the boundaries of these films. It’s amazing to see how far ski filmmaking has come from the time when Warren Miller was making documentaries back in the 1940s. How do you mitigate risk while making sure that you get that amazing shot?
Ski movies to me is a category all on its own. Every year all the big names in the industry are creating their own movies that are being shown at the ski/snowboard movie festivals around the world. It’s funny because now people have got used to this format, so much so that there are a lot of expectations to do something different than everyone else. I also think that because ski/snowboard movies are often created by skiers, and not filmmakers that have finished film school, there is a lot of liberty and creativity. There are no boundaries, no rules, only skiers and filmmakers imagination, showing the sport and the mountains how they see it. This is, to me, very exciting to watch every year.
You recently worked on the ‘Alex Rider’ TV series through Movidiam, which took you to the mountains of Romania. How did this come about, and what were your memories of the shoot?
This trip to Romania to shoot for ‘Alex Rider’ for about 20 days straight was really great. I never thought I would go there, and here I was lost in the Romanian mountains staying not so far away from the Dracula castle. The job was intense, but I felt that my knowledge of the mountains and filming on snow was very useful because it’s never the same as a “normal” dry set. A really good experience, meeting nice people and making good memories.
How do you approach filming ski sequences? Does that differ when creating for TV/Feature films rather than documentaries?
The biggest difference between filming ski sequences and TV/film feature would be the fact that we are filming with professional athletes and not actors, so we can’t do endless takes. Sometimes we have only one chance to get the shot when the snow is fresh, and sometimes just few because the athletes can’t perform the same stunt all day long and we need to respect that.
There are also few hacks, such as running the camera from a v-lock battery connected and hidden in my jacket where it’s warmer so it’ll keep going for longer. Very important when we need to carry all our gear!
Safety on the mountain is of course paramount. What advantages are there for agencies and other production companies in hiring you and your team over someone with limited skiing knowledge?
I think all the crew really understood the advantages of hiring a good skier when they saw me skiing down the mountain backwards in powder, framing the actor from the front on his way down.
I’ve been skiing since I’m two years old — It’s like walking for me. It’s really nice to be able to frame a shoot at high speed pretty much the same as I would walking.
Apart from that, there are always some spots where you don’t want to go or a pursuit vehicle can’t drive because of avalanche risk. The ever changing mountain situation might be dangerous for people on the set if they don’t have that knowledge.
From GoPro’s to Drones, the filmmaker has more equipment at their disposal than at any other time in history. How has technology changed the way you approach filming?
At some point of my career, GoPro was one of my sponsors and I think I got one of every kind of their cameras. It was crazy to see how fast technology changed, especially in term of format and frames per second in this case. At one point I was asking myself, where is this gonna end? I’m very interested in new technologies — I’m reading articles about new things to come all the time, because in our business technology is very important. I remember when I bought my first drone — still not that many people where using them, but for me it was game changer in our industry. Before, aerial shots where available only from helicopters ,and now I can do one without breaking the bank.
Upland Films is your creative production company based in the heart of the French Alps. Talk me through how you and the team got together, and what you can offer national and international clients.
Upland Films is a production company that I created few years ago after nearly 10 years of being a freeskier and freelancer filmmaker. We worked already for clients such as Black Crows Skis, Monster Energy, ESPN but also brands not connected with sports such as Michelin or Audi. I think our mountain experience is very important, as well as the fact that we have all the gear to film in cinematic quality so it cut costs of rentals. Pretty much everyone I work with now I met through skiing - I had to make sure that people I work with are not only good camera operators or directors but that they are also used to working in extreme conditions. When we film up in the mountains, having a crew that you can trust is the most important thing. Very often one shot means half a day of hiking and preparing the jump etc. I also need to make sure that everyone knows what they are doing for everyone’s safety. We are also very often cooperating with another production company — Blue Max Media. They have similar profile to Upland Films and in joining forces we can handle big international productions. We recently started the fusion between two groups and we are planning on opening 3 different offices around France.
What camera kit do you typically use? Do you have to pack light for ski sequences?
Depends on the shoot but mostly I use my RED, which I think does a great job on snow and for action sports. It also has pretty solid body and is resistant to low temperatures, which is obviously very important.
When you leave the house for a shoot in the mountains, very often you need to be able to hike up with your camera bag and all the ski gear. So when we pack everything, sandwiches are usually the last thing to go in. Very often we stay hungry — catering services are not delivering where we usually film. ;)
Being far in the mountains also means we’re really far from rental companies, so it’s really important for us to own all the equipment needed.
Any tips for lesser mortals filming their home ski videos?
There is no good ski movie without good skiing, so I would just recommend trying to be a better skier. :)
I think it works the same with all elements, make it yours.
