"Pizza French Fryu Waffles" featuring Max Hammer '12 and produced with help from Tommy Ford '12, Zach Kuster '11 and Zach Schwartz '11 is currently eighth place with 1,428 votes.
In the video, Hammer jumps and swerves as he descends 4,000 feet from the top of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming in a continuous run.
A professional skier and former member of the national team, Hammer said that producing the video stemmed from his interest in film and his love for skiing.
Hammer worked last year on producing an animation film as a senior fellow at the College. He has assisted commercial companies that make ski videos, but this was his first time planning such a project himself.
Kuster, a former member of the Dartmouth ski team and a producer for the project, said he and Hammer started talking last summer when they were bored during the long days of August.
"That time before winter starts to get really excruciating," Kuster said. "We were watching movies and started thinking about making them, although we didn't really have any experience."
When the group heard about Teton's competition and the large cash prize, they started to act on their plans. In January, they sat down with officials at Jackson Hole and received permission to film at the resort.
Hammer said the group's decision to film one continuous run best represents the experience of skiing in five minutes. He added that ski videos tend to highlight the biggest jumps and sharpest turns, cut together in many short clips.
"The responses that I've gotten from other skiers, particularly skiers that watch a lot of ski videos, is that they really appreciate the creativity of it," Hammer said.
Hammer filmed at Jackson Hole after skiing the mountain when he was younger.
"The run we chose is pretty established, so people who have skied Jackson will know it and be able to relate," he said. "They'll also know how hard it is that no one really skis that way from top to bottom."
Hammer said he was wary of how physically taxing the run would be, especially since he had to ski it "blind." The group had permission to film before the resort opened, so his only view of the trail conditions were from the lift ride up.
"I wanted to do more tricks, to be honest, but it was too much when the time came," he said. "I was going too fast and I wanted to make sure I landed everything."
The video begins with scenes of Hammer cooking a waffle inside the cabin at the top of the Jackson Hole and sharing beers at the base lodge with the other producers following the conclusion of the run.
Eight cameramen were positioned around the top half of the mountain for Hammer's descent, then regrouped further down as Hammer took an intermediate lift back up the mountain for a second shot. Several were friends and roommates, who ranged greatly in their camera experience, Hammer said.
Because the very last portion of the mountain was not open for skiing, the group had to come back a couple weeks later in order to shoot the final scenes.
The first round of filming was completed within 30 minutes. There is one background skier in the whole video, as the first lifts had just started to open as the group wrapped up filming.
Ford, a member of the national team and who participated at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, was abroad competing at the Alpine World Cup during filming, but contributed by editing.
Ford worked mostly on shots before and after Hammer finished skiing, while Chris Kirkpatrick, a longtime friend of the group, focused on the skiing footage. Editing his portion required an "intensive two weeks" of work, during which Kirkpatrick and Hammer passed different versions of the video between themselves for review and further editing, Ford said.
Ford said the group tried to match the white balance and exposure for clips shot from different cameras without doing too much work in post-production, to keep the content "raw."
Teton contest participants submitted videos of their top free skiing runs in May and public voting began June 10. Viewers can vote each through July 15.
The top 18 videos selected in public voting and three additional "wild card" videos chosen by a panel will move on to a second round of voting, where the 21 athletes featured will rank their favorites.
One winner will then receive the cash prize and the top 12 videos will be featured together in a Co-Lab film. The winner will be announced Sept. 21.
Other videos may be selected for creativity and innovation, TGR representative Todd Jones said. Category prizes will range from $500-$1000.
