North Vancouver-based photographer and videographer Kelsey Toevs left Crankworx Whistler $5,000 richer than when she arrived at the mountain biking festival this year.
She hoisted the novelty cheque in front of a stoked crowd of thousands that packed into Whistler Olympic Plaza on Thursday night, July 27 for Dirt Diaries, the annual filmmaking throw-down celebrating “the creative spirit and storytelling culture of mountain biking.”
Featuring a strong concept, some humour, and mind-blowing riding from Toev’s longtime partner, pro freerider Steve Vanderhoek—plus a quick cameo from B.C. mountain biking legend Brett Tippie—the panel of judges selected Toev’s entry Ready or Not as Thursday night’s winner.
Toevs was the first of five filmmakers to present her submission on the outdoor big screen at Dirt Diaries, after kick-starting production earlier this summer.
The rules, according to Crankworx, are: “Teams must include the Whistler Valley and Whistler Mountain Bike Park in a quarter of their film—from there it’s free creative licence. They choose the size and scope of their team, their supports, their geographical boundaries.” The end result must be between four and six minutes long.
Toevs and Vanderhoek shot Ready or Not in Kamloops, Squamish, Whistler, and on Vancouver's North Shore over a two-month period. It was an intense process that, at one point, even included Toevs’ hoisting herself about 50 feet into a tree to capture the right angle, but as Toevs told the crowd following her win, the project was an excuse to dive deep into a shared passion that brought the couple together more than a decade-and-a-half ago.
“We started doing just, like, really crappy snowboard videos with my little handycam,” she remembered.
“To be here, to be, honestly, up against everyone tonight is wild to me. I was just so happy to be out here competing against everyone else,” said Toevs.
“I am so stoked!” she added with a laugh.
Toevs faced stiff competition from her fellow Dirt Diaries contestants this year, including Israeli biker and filmer Ohad Nir, who won second place and $3,000 for his short film comically imagining how A.I. might craft the perfect Dirt Diaries entry.
Fresh off their 72-hour Filmmakers Showdown win at the World Ski and Snowboard Festival this April, Two Dontas One Proctor Productions—Whistler brothers Kris and Kevin Dontas, and friend Ryan Proctor—were back on the big screen, earning the $2,000 third-place prize for Three Guys on a Bike. In case the title didn't make it clear, the story followed three guys on one bike, and their journey to become mountain bikers. It earned some of the loudest laughs of the evening.
Whistler director and cinematographer Ryan Kenny, meanwhile, kept dialogue to a minimum in his submission Elemental, instead keeping the focus on some insane biking from riders Georgia Astle, Mason Mashon, Braedyn Kozman, Talus Turk, Jonny Eden and Matt Summers for a stunningly abstract look at how the four elements intersect with the sport.
Twenty-two-year-old B.C. born-and-raised filmer Cole Nelson rounded out the field. His film The Empire of Stoke was more full-blown Hollywood blockbuster than simple mountain biking edit, complete with villains, race footage, and a massive crew of riders whipping through the bike park.
Still, Toevs had an edge with Ready or Not, in which a still-recovering Vanderhoek is ripped out of a physio appointment and dropped onto the trails against his will, remotely controlled voodoo-doll-style by a kid with a tiny, plastic toy bike. Turns out, rolling a toy bike through a garage translates to some epic shredding down rock slabs, around berms and through deserts that had the Whistler Olympic Plaza audience hanging onto the edge of their lawn chairs. Things got even rougher for Vanderhoek when the kid knocked over a bag of sand, leading Vanderhoek to rip down some comparably loose terrain, or when a looped Hot Wheels track meant a backflip for Vanderhoek in real life.
So, how do you celebrate a win like that?
“We’re going to Bills,” Toevs told the crowd following her win.
Watch all Dirt Diaries entries from Crankworx Whistler 2023 below.
