CHROMA | FULL FILM + INTERVIEW


It's been an incredible year for snowboard videos, with so much talent and innovation coming through in people's riding that it's hard to stand out. Chroma, however, is in a category of its own. A creative collaboration between Severin van der Meer and his crew, the film pushes snowboarding cinema into the fine art category. We figured it was worth taking a moment with this one, so we reached out to Sevi to pick his brain on the process:


Severin van der Meer with a flying handplant– underneath Chroma's fine art feel is Sevi's world-class snowboarding

This has a very experimental feel. How much of that was planned? How close is the final product to the original vision?

We had a concept from the beginning to get the supporters on it but we wanted creative freedom for the whole project to give it the freedom to evolve in the process. We sure drifted off the original plan, so many creative people were involved and brought there ideas and visions into this. It was so cool to see what’s possible when you have a group of motivated people around. Such inspiring two years. Thank you all for doing this with me!

Was this concept collaborative, or did it come from one person in particular?

It was a dream for a long time to make an own project. To get a crew of good people that I’m hyped on, inspire each other and work together on something unique.It all started when I was living together with Silvano, we just loved to hangout together, shoot together and felt like we should keep this going in making our own thing. Some years later I was over filming tricks after tricks just to get a part together that will stand out from others each year. I wanted to work on something that I’m fully hyped on. I don’t want to snowboard to be better than others I wanna inspire people and mainly I wanna have fun doing it. I asked Dave from Hillton if they wanna do it, they where all ears from the beginning and had our backs during the whole process. I met Willem in Japan on a Beyondmedals trip, where it just really clicked with us and I knew that I wanted him to film this piece. He was straight up down and committed all the way to the end. Alex came in after the first year put his magic on to the whole thing and made it what it became.


Severin van der Meer flows through a dreamlike sequence in Chroma


What was it like approaching sponsors for this? Were they on board right away?

They wanted me to do own projects for a while, when I came up with this idea and crew they where all ears and down to support from the beginning, also when we had to extend it for one year.


Was the experience very different from filming a traditional snowboard part? How so?

It sure was different then just filming for a regular part. As we wanted it to have an aesthetic look and had some conceptual parts it was more planned. We had to have an idea of what we wanna do tomorrow or the next week. But for me it was refreshing to work together with such talented people and inspire each other everyday. I’m more hyped than ever to just go snowboard right now. I’m looking forward to something like this again, but for now I just want to snowboard and I don’t wanna care about angles or anything :)


Kurt Herzog plays the old man, a reflective presence that drives the film's ethereal storyline


I took away a message of appreciation for these adventures we have on snow, but I imagine different people see different things watching Chroma. Now that it's in the world, are you surprised by how people interpret the film?

As we kinda wanna leave it open for everyone to take out of it what they see in it, it’s really cool to hear all the different interpretations and thoughts.

How involved were you in the off-snow shoots?

It was all shot close to where I live in Zürich, but this was all Alex magic.

Are you happy with the finished product?

I'm super hyped how everything melted together and turned into something I couldn’t have dreamed of!


From Hillton:

Our reality is a dance between delusion and truth. Where does the dream stop and the memory start?

An experimental short film featuring the snowboarding of Severin van der Meer and friends.

Director: Alexander Tank

DOP: Willem Jones
Photographer: Silvano Zeiter

Production: Hillton
Producer: David Bertschinger Karg
Co-Producer: Severin van der Meer

Snowboarders: Severin van der Meer, Lars Popp, James Niederberger, Christian Haller, Gabrielle Torriani, Nicolas Wolken, Lucas Baume, David Djité, Arthur Longo

Old Man: Kurt Herzog

Additional Camera: Jake Price, Olivier Gittler, Alexander Tank

Colorist: Samuel Muff
Grading Studio: SLGH Zurich
VFX House: Das Alte Lager
VFX Supervision: Robin Disch

Edit: Alexander Tank & Max Neumeier
Editing Assistant: Lou Staub
Title Design: Boris Stoll

Music:
Midnight Music «Windwalkers», Pablo Nouvelle «Chroma», Fabian F. Fuchs «Cirque Chromatique», Holograms «Monolith»
Music Supervision: Florent de Maria
Voice Over: Yumna Al-Arashi

Sound Design & Mix: Robert Büchel
Sound Studio Jingle-Jungle

Sponsors: Ride Snowboards, FW Apparel, Doodah, Laax

Supporters: Octamas, Cinegrell, Kamerawerk, SLGH, Jingle-Jungle Studios

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