A Cranbrook resident crazy for snowmobiling is on a roll with his filming hobby and has made somewhat of a local name for himself through his series of Winter Nutz films.
Though a lifelong rider, his interest in filming began when he got a small handheld Sony handicam which soon became a must-have accessory while on rides.
His first forays into filmmaking involved short one- to two-minute clips loaded up on the video sharing website Youtube, that showed friends playing around on their sleds.
A bit of editing and some added background music gave the footage some polish and things took off from there, Kelly said.
“I put a quick two-minute video together two years ago and it was sweet. Everyone liked it; I put it on Snowest and Youtube and it got lots of hits.”
He created his first DVD movie, Winter Nutz, which received positive reactions from posters on on both websites, so he made a sequel, Winter Nutz 2—both of which are freely available at All Seasons Motorsports and Peak Performance Motorsports in Cranbrook.
Filming is done informally; he just takes the camera and tripod with him when going out for rides with friends who are the featured stars of of his movies.
He prefers to film free-riding and spontaneous play rather than some of the more extreme styles of riding like chuting, but he does get occasional footage of some chute climbing.
“What I want to do is make a movie that people can relate to, because (what) you see in movies (and) on TV—it’s stuff way beyond people’s imagination—so what I film is stuff that other people can relate to because they ride as well,” he said.
Not only has the online community taken notice, but Bill Boswell with Peak Performance and Darren Pickering with All Seasons have filmed with him, and Andre’s Audiotronic donated a new Sony HDR XR520 camera.
To check out some of Kelly’s work, visit his Youtube account—Kelly14016.
