BLANK Collective Films

Brand overview and significance

Blank Collective Films is a Sea to Sky–based ski film collective led by Canadian skier and filmmaker Alexi Godbout. Operating out of the Whistler–Pemberton corridor in British Columbia, it has become one of the most respected modern freeski production houses, sitting in the space between small DIY crews and big legacy studios. The collective’s films are defined by a mix of cinematic polish, athlete-led storylines and a decidedly human tone—lots of humour, real decision-making and the kind of downtime mountain life always includes.

Blank started as a tight-knit crew of skiers who wanted to tell their own stories about life in big mountains rather than simply slot into existing film brands. Over the past decade they have released a steady run of features and shorts: early projects like “Before Blank” and “The 7 Stages of Blank,” the storm-chasing anthology “Follow the Forecast,” the Cascadia love letter “Tales From Cascadia,” and more recent titles such as “Feel Real,” “Fortune Hunters,” “Camp Blank,” “Cold Calls” and “One Step Ahead.” Each project refines the same core idea: skiing is as much about the people, conversations and place-based memories as it is about the biggest line in the segment.

Supported by partners including Salomon, Rockstar Energy and a rotating cast of technical brands, Blank has carved out a clear identity within contemporary ski media. Their work appears on film-tour circuits, at festivals and online premieres, and is widely shared within core freeride communities. For the skipowd.tv audience, Blank is the crew you watch when you want modern big-mountain skiing filtered through honest storytelling rather than pure stunt reels—a reference point for what a skier-led film collective can be in the 2020s.

Product lines and key technologies

Instead of skis or boots, Blank’s “product line” is a catalog of films and tours that cover the full spectrum of freeride storytelling. Their core output consists of feature-length movies released each fall, backed by shorter web segments, festival cuts and tour edits. Projects like “The 7 Stages of Blank” and “Feel Real” focus on the inner rhythm of a ski season—anticipation, frustration, creativity, exhaustion and satisfaction—while “Tales From Cascadia” and “Fortune Hunters” lean into geographic storytelling, using a specific region as the through-line for a winter of travel and filming.

Technically, Blank leans on high-end digital cinema tools and a consistent group of directors, cinematographers and editors, but the “technology” that matters most is their narrative approach. They blend long-lens big-mountain shots with follow-cam, drone perspectives and intimate on-the-road scenes to build a sense of continuity through an entire season. Instead of stitching together disconnected banger clips, each film is structured as a journey: a sequence of trips, storm cycles and crew decisions that gradually reveals who the riders are and why these objectives matter to them.

Brand partnerships are integrated into that storytelling rather than bolted on. Salomon’s freeride and touring products, for example, appear as the tools the crew actually uses day after day, not as forced product placements. Likewise, support from lifestyle partners, breweries and magazines tends to show up in the texture of the trip—road stops, après sessions, premieres—rather than in heavy-handed logo segments. The result is a product line that feels cohesive: whether you are watching an early classic like “Before Blank” or a recent premiere like “Cold Calls,” you recognise the same mix of humour, commitment and place-based skiing.

Ride feel: who it’s for (terrains & use-cases)

Blank doesn’t sell hardware, but their films have a distinct “ride feel” in how they portray skiing. If you gravitate toward big faces, complex snowpacks and the culture of road-tripping with a small crew, this is your lane. Their segments often feature fall-line lines, natural airs and pillow stacks in deep snow, but they almost always keep at least one eye on context: radio chatter, avalanche forecasts, sled shuttles, missed windows and the laughing arguments that happen in parking lots and cabins when plans change.

For viewers, that makes Blank especially appealing in a few scenarios. Pre-season, their films work as a realistic hype tool: they remind you how much effort and patience sit behind every dream shot. Midwinter, they are natural fuel for big-mountain and backcountry skiers who want to see lines that look like the terrain they aspire to—technical, committing, but recognisably part of the same world most dedicated riders inhabit. And for park or resort-focused skiers, Blank movies are a gateway into the wider freeride and touring universe, showing how strong fundamentals and creativity translate when the rope drops beyond the boundary.

The tone is also a draw. Blank’s edits leave room for awkward falls, strange weather and jokes that only barely make sense outside the group chat. That balance between serious terrain and non-serious people keeps the films approachable: you can admire the level of skiing without feeling like you are watching superhumans on a different planet.

Team presence, competitions, and reputation

Blank’s athlete roster has evolved with each project, but a few names recur: Alexi Godbout himself, Stan Rey, Josh Daiek, Chris Rubens, Cole Richardson and a rotating crew of heavy hitters such as Sam Kuch, Cody Townsend, Aaron Blunck, Anna Segal and Alex Beaulieu-Marchand. Their more recent projects pull in a younger generation and a wider geographic spread, with skiers from Canada, the United States, Japan and Scandinavia sharing segments.

Many of these riders have serious competitive résumés—World Cup slopestyle medals, X Games appearances, Freeride World Tour wins—yet Blank films generally treat contests as background rather than main plot. The focus is on what those skills enable in the backcountry: big airs into clean landings, technical spine riding, creative use of natural features, or ski-mountaineering objectives tackled with a freeride lens. The crew’s collective experience shows up in the way lines are chosen and executed, even when the tone of the voiceover is light.

On the industry side, Blank’s films regularly appear on major festival programs and film tours. Projects like “Follow the Forecast,” “Tales From Cascadia” and “Cold Calls” have run at events such as the iF3 Festival and quality ski film tours across North America and Europe, often alongside long-standing players. That visibility, combined with consistent brand backing, has given Blank a reputation as one of the core modern freeski collectives: big enough to anchor a film tour, small enough to still feel like a crew of friends.

Geography and hubs (heritage, testing, venues)

Geographically, Blank is anchored in the Sea to Sky corridor of British Columbia. Mountains around Whistler-Blackcomb provide the home base: lift-accessed alpine bowls, stormy tree zones and easy access to touring terrain make it a perfect test lab for both athletes and cameras. From there, the crew ranges out along the spine of the Pacific Northwest to familiar Cascadian playgrounds such as Mt. Baker, whose deep, stormy snowpack and sculpted natural features have long been a magnet for film projects (see the official resort pages at Mt Baker Ski Area and Whistler Blackcomb for a sense of the terrain they work with).

Interior British Columbia is another recurring character. Towns and mountains around Revelstoke BC feature prominently when the crew wants huge vertical, complex avalanche terrain and long, glade-filled descents that keep the cameras rolling for entire songs. Those trips often blend lift-served laps with sled-access and touring, showing how modern film crews stitch together different tools to unlock big canvases.

Beyond Canada, Blank has filmed extensively in Japan and its snow-sure zones, reflected in projects where deep storm cycles around Japan meet the playful style of their athletes. Other trips have explored Norway’s coastal ranges, Alaska’s large-scale faces and select European venues. Cold Calls, for example, strings together storm skiing in British Columbia, deep tree days in Japan, big terrain in Norway and rare high-pressure windows in Alaska. That global reach means Blank’s films double as an informal map of modern freeride hotspots, useful inspiration for anyone planning their own destination list.

Construction, durability, and sustainability

For a film collective, “construction” is about how projects come together over multiple seasons. Blank typically builds each movie around a loose concept—emotional stages of a winter, a specific bioregion like Cascadia, or a simple directive to follow the forecast and see what happens—then lets actual weather, logistics and injuries shape the final story. That approach creates films that feel durable over time: they are less about a single trend or new trick and more about how committed skiers navigate whatever a winter throws at them.

The crew works repeatedly with the same cinematographers, editors and sound designers, which shows in the consistency of colour, pacing and audio. Long, honest line shots sit next to carefully composed lifestyle sequences and voiceover passages that give context without slowing the film down. That consistency also extends to how they present risk: avalanche conditions, missed calls and close margins are not hidden, which makes the films a more realistic reference for aspiring backcountry riders than purely “heroic” edits.

On sustainability, Blank does not position itself as an environmental NGO, but its work increasingly acknowledges the long-term relationship between riders and landscapes. Cold and snowy winters are treated as something precious rather than guaranteed, and many films linger on local communities and the non-skiing fabric that keeps mountain towns alive. From a viewer’s perspective, the most sustainable element of Blank’s catalog is its rewatch value: segments built around character and place tend to stay relevant long after specific gear setups or trick lists have moved on.

How to choose within the lineup

For new viewers, the best entry point depends on what you want from a ski film night. If you love the Pacific Northwest and big, stormy terrain, start with “Tales From Cascadia,” which is essentially a six-part love letter to the region’s volcanoes, watersheds and coastal storms. It shows the crew at home in their preferred environment and is a good barometer of whether the Blank style resonates with you.

If you are more interested in the emotional arc of a season than in geography, “The 7 Stages of Blank” and “Feel Real” dig into the mental side of winter: the anticipation before snow arrives, the mid-season grind, the doubt after crashes or close calls, and the satisfaction of lines that finally come together. These are ideal for pre-season gatherings or for evenings when you want something more reflective than a pure banger reel.

Viewers drawn to personal stories and resilience should look toward “One Step Ahead,” which follows Norwegian skier Bernt Marius Rørstad as he returns to big lines after a life-changing injury. It is less about stacking the heaviest tricks and more about the process of rebuilding confidence in serious terrain. For a global road-trip feel and a sample of Blank’s most recent aesthetic, “Cold Calls” is a strong choice: the film hops between British Columbia, Japan, Norway and Alaska, piecing together a winter from spur-of-the-moment ideas and phone calls.

Once you know you like the crew’s approach, it is worth working backward through earlier titles such as “Before Blank” to see how the group has evolved—from more straightforward action edits to today’s polished, narrative-driven projects that anchor full film tours each fall.

Why riders care

Riders care about Blank Collective because the films feel close to the way modern freeskiing actually happens. The mountains are serious, the lines are real and often high-consequence, but the people in front of the lens still argue about coffee stops, laugh at bad decisions and admit when the weather or their own nerves shut a plan down. For many viewers, that mix of honesty and excellence is more relatable than purely aspirational projects where everything seems to go right.

For the skipowd.tv community, Blank films are also a reference point for where and how to ski. Watching a Blank project before a trip to Whistler, Revelstoke or Japan gives you a mental map of terrain types, snowpacks and the pace of days in those zones. At the same time, seeing athletes with Olympic medals or Freeride World Tour experience treat conditions with respect helps reinforce good habits: checking forecasts, talking through options and knowing when to back off. In a crowded landscape of ski content, Blank Collective stands out as a brand that makes you want to go skiing with your closest friends, take the mountains seriously, and still remember that the whole point is to enjoy the ride.