All right, what’s up?! Tell us about yourself?
Photo by Andrew Miller.
I’m Madison Blackley, I was born and raised in Park City, Utah but have called Salt Lake home for the last 16 years. I've been strapping in on a snowboard since 1997!
That’s impressive! Okay, so what do you do when you are not snowboarding?
I like to re-energize myself when I'm off hill by gardening, golfing, hanging with the dogs; I try to take my chances mountain biking and surfing when I can, and really humble myself with those.
Word on the block is you’re quite the stick at golf! I also know you’ve been working on a film project all last season. Can you tell me more about it and how it came about?
So I’ve been filming projects for many years now but for the most part I've been a part of a project or it's been a solo project so I really wanted to try to do something different that spearheaded a coed group of people. There is not a whole lot of opportunity out there for women to spearhead projects that include men.
Typically it's women including women or men including men, so I thought this was really cool and unique to do a project that I had control over and a new type of project that I haven't really seen. It was me and a filmer/editor who I met last season. Lucas Gibbons, who was new to Utah who I showed around and he really inspired me to do something on my own and we kind of just took the leap together.
We got a lot of support from brands who were excited about the project and wanted it to be (Rome Snowboards, Coal Headwear, Deeluxe, Airblaster, Uinta Brewing). This film is a neo western parody that has a storyline and a bit of humor to it. We wanted it to be relatable and engaging to our entire audience and appeal to lots of different people in the snowboarding industry.
We wanted to push the boundaries a little bit with this concept. The movie is called Hinterland, which by definition means a place that is far out or hard to get to, but our interpretation of hinterland is you can find it on your back doorstep, or the hill in your backyard.
Who are some of the riders we can expect to see in it?
Melissa Riitano, Jed Sky, Bode Merrill, Yuki Kadono and more…
That’s a stacked crew! So I heard the film just got nominated for a few awards, tell me more about that
Photo by Factocum Cinema.
Yeah! The film just got nominated for short video of the year at the International Freeride Film Festival up against films from all over the world along with Melissa Riitano and myself getting nominated for standout female snowboarder of the year, which is exciting.
That’s rad! Okay when and where can we see it?
We are having a premiere of the film in Salt Lake City on November 1st at The Midnight Corner. Doors will open at 7:00pm and the film will start at 8pm. After that, it will be available on Factotum Cinema’s YouTube channel for free starting on November 2!
For anyone who watches the film and is inspired by it but may have never snowboarded before, what’s some advice you can share about getting into snowboarding?
Photo by Tristan Sandler.
The best advice is to find a crew or at least one or two people who you can learn from. That are patient and willing to support you, and most importantly fun to be around.
If you can have the best day falling, learning, overcoming, with people who see that as a win and not pressure you to learn at a certain rate or feel as if you're holding somebody back, then that itself will bring you back day after day to advance faster than you’d think possible.