Professional Snowboarders Turned Filmmakers Write, Direct & Produce Feature film: 'When the Ocean Met the Sky"

Professional Snowboarders Turned Filmmakers Write, Direct & Produce Feature film: 'When the Ocean Met the Sky

I first met Phillip Thomas years ago when he snowboarded for a little company called, FORUM snowboards and lived in Whistler, BC. Like many other Canadian hopefuls he was living off of a minimal "Canadian Pro Boarder" wage and in Whistler day in, day out trying to make it big. Next thing he knew he was hit with a blessing in disguise, Phillip blew out his knee for the second time and snowboarding was suddenly out of the picture. After the accident, Phillip packed up and moved to the big city of Vancouver and set his sites on a new profession: film. He wasn't the only ex-snowboarder to head in that direction, Lukas Huffman, the director of ‘When The Ocean Met The Sky’ also spawns from professional snowboarding. At one point being claimed to be the next 'Craig Kelly', Lukas traded it all in for a career in filmmaking. I sat down at Our Town cafe in Mount Pleasant to chat with Phillip about the making of the film, the Kickstarter crowd-funding pursuits and the journey along the way...

Phillip can you tell us a bit about what you just did for the past couple months? 
I filmed a movie, a feature film about estranged brothers that must journey to a remote location in order to receive their inheritance.

Who did you film it with? Lukas Huffman was our director and Daniele Kogenin was our DP and cinematographer (super talented Romanian dude), co-writer Specer Folie along with me. All the actors are friends and talented humans. 

How do you know Lukas Huffman? I worked with him on a couple projects, one while he was in school and the after he graduated another short film that was in the Cannes film festival.

Did you know him from snowboarding? I knew of him, I didn’t know him though. I had pictures of him on my wall, which is kind of weird. I have known him since I was 10 but he has known me for about 4 years now. 

So both you and Lukas Huffman just successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign? Is running a time sensitive, socially broadcasted crowd-funding campaign never racking? Yes, they are never racking. We were sitting right at the edge for so long. Our goal was at 25 000$ which at first seemed a bit steep and a bit hard to achieve but we thought ah whatever we will give ourselves the longest amount of days. At 7 days left we had 7000$ dollars pledged and it seemed like it would never happen. There is always someone working on something, so people just assume it just another thing. So when we came out with a little teaser, which Lukas took three days to cut people really started to realize that it was the real thing and took our their credit cards to help fund the project.

Did anyone buy the grand executive producer package? Yes, but off the Kickstarter so we didn't have to pay them the fee. 

I always think about the amount of money that website makes off other people's campaigns. I put in 25$ to support your project, does that mean I get to be a super producer? I don't have much money so I gave you as much as I could… That’s awesome, that is the beauty of Kickstarter is that if you get a thousand people to give 25$, then that there is a great amount of money.

So now that some people bought in on Kickstarter, who are all the producers involved? All the producers are: Mark Sollors, Lukas Huffman, and myself. We also have a celebrity guest executive producer who is helping us by lending his name and giving us some advice. Leonardo Eddie, who made Brazil's highest grossing movie of all time, which was a part of the City of God series. 

Would you say Leonardo Eddie has been a bit of a mentor? I worked with him on one of his TV shows and we talked about it then. He is hard to get ahold of, but super keen and fun to get along with. We had more money to film our movie then he did to film an entire TV show in Brazil, which made it fun for him to work on it with us.

What about Lukas, is he a mentor to you? Yes, I have learnt so much from Lukas, it is crazy.

Do you think mentors are important in life, not only in filmmaking but for anyone pursuing their passions? Yes and no, I think it is important to learn hands-on and by teaching yourself. What I have learnt most from Lukas is information about writing and story structure. Lukas went to Columbia for filmmaking and is very skilled at knowing how to break down the movie to it will be the best it can be.Whenever we bicker about making the movie I give in to him cause in most cases he is usually right or has the facts to back up his arguments. When it comes down to it everything he’s doing is the right way.

Did you run into any roadblocks while filming the film? I assume it is kind of like renovating a house.. Yes, you peel off the layers to find more mold underneith. For us the first thing started with the fully packed car dying on the way to the ferry. I had two hours to tow my car,get another car, transfer all the gear and make the next ferry on time. ( Big thanks to my girlfriend for picking up the car from the mechanic and paying for it while we were on the island filming). And even after all the issues we actually ended up filming a full scene and pick up shot that day. It was a terrible way to start, as it was just a little taste of what was to come... The car we ended up borrowing died on the way home, I had to get this borrowed electric SUV supercharged so that we could turn it on get it on the ferry turn it on get off the ferry; It was that or scrap another day of shooting. I was the only one doing the money management the entire time so I was just sweating bullets. 

Did you go over your budget? How many people were you budgeting for? Yes. I am not going to talk about it but yet. It was caused from a hiccup with the gear. I was budgeting for 13 people. The one thing I was most off on was food, I didn't realize how much people eat. I overbudgeted on gas, so I just moved the money from gas to food. 

Will 'When The Ocean Met The Sky' be in film festivals? Hopefully! You have to submit the film once it is completed and then the festivals decide if they select the films to be showcased or not. We shot so many different types of scenes so I know that when we go into editing we can piece together different takes to give the film a rollercoaster of emotions in the final cut.

Who edits the film and how long do you think it will take him to edit it? We have an assistant editor named Calvin Sang who is organizing all the shots right now and hopefully he will continue to edit the entire film. It will take about three to four months, as far as our time line is concerned for when we need it done. If you have an amazing editor and simple story it shouldn't take too long to get the cut then start colour correcting and tightening it up.

Will you do prescreening? We will do some for sure, not going to try too hard about getting different age groups in like major blockbuster films. 

When can we expect to see the film completed? Hopefully, but not hopefully by end of February. For sure by the end of February, because it needs to be done by then...

Wrap photo of the cast.. 

Want to learn more about 'When the Ocean Met The Sky'?
 

 

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