Legendary sports filmmaker Warren Miller remembered as 'the ultimate ski bum'
Warren Miller spent his life capturing skiing on film in a way no one had ever done before — with stunning imagery and his unique narration.
Miller — a passionate skier and filmmaker — died on Wednesday. He was 93.
"He was the ultimate ski bum," his friend and professional skier Chris Anthony told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann.
"It's been a tough couple days, but also inspiring as well. He had so much impact on absolutely every aspect of my life."
Over his five-decade career, Miller produced more than 750 films on sports like surfing and sailing — but most depicted skiing.
Anthony met the legendary filmmaker when his parents would take him to see Miller's films as a child. He started skiing when he was just 18-months-old, and would go on to to appear as an athlete in dozens of Miller's movies.
'Very creative with his approach to life'
Anthony says Miller's love for the outdoors started when he was a child, during the Great Depression.
Miller knew he wanted to spend his life surfing and skiing, so he raked lawns and delivered papers in his home city of Los Angeles to make some extra money.
Walt Disney's home was on his paper route, and Miller's passion for filmmaking was born.
After leaving the navy at the end of the Second World War, Miller bought an eight-millimetre movie camera and a trailer and traveled from Yosemite to Sunny Valley, Idaho, to practice his skiing and filming.
To finance his travels, Miller would sell shoelaces for ski boots in the parking lot of ski hills.
"He found that if he bought parachute cord from the surplus stores and then he could wax those and then he could go to the parking lot and sell the shoelaces, and be able to afford to buy the lift ticket that day," Anthony said.
He also worked as a ski instructor, lived in a trailer in parking lots and shot ducks and rabbits for dinner.
"He made it happen by being very creative with his approach to life," Anthony said.
'Connection that he created with the audience'
Miller's first film, Deep and Light, premiered in the fall of 1950, and his career in filmmaking began.
He started his own film company, Warren Miller Entertainment, which he ran until 2004.
What made his films so successful was how approachable they made skiing look at a time when it wasn't a popular sport, Anthony explains.
"He was able to bring the sport into a theatre and bring the dream of it, the sensation of being outside and seeing the world and gliding down a mountain," Anthony said.
"You left a Warren Miller film feeling warm and fuzzy inside and you wanted to be a part of whatever that lifestyle was."
It was also Miller's delivery. Before more advanced technology, Miller would travel with his films and narrate in front of a live audience.
"He had a little tape recorder with music on it and he had his mic and he would just fade the music up and down and narrate the movie live. That's how he pulled it off for years," Anthony said.
"What makes Warren's films amazing was that connection that he created with the audience."
Anthony's favourite part of Miller's movies was when he would film ordinary people getting off ski lifts — and often falling.
"Those segments are going to be forever timeless," Anthony said.
"Nobody's been able to make the films with the humour that Warren did."