Using the facade of trying to be responsible and mature mid-way through the Telus Festival, one would be an unhip square if they haven't clinked glasses and mingled with Whistler's art scene. A walk into the Telus conference center means a walk into State of the Art: a mixed media show of posters, magazines, newspapers, and ads; pencil, spray paint, broken plywood; hip-hop inspiration; jagged, beaded, jeweled; monochrome, black and white, smudged, graffiti-ed; and technicoloured day-glo Warhol-worthy eye-porn. You'll find yourself amongst a mass culture of multi-faceted filmmakers, photographers and art scenesters sharing one common connection: love for mountain living. Encompassing the entire foyer, this immersion is a prerequisite for getting to the three major art events of the festival: the 72hr Filmmaker Showdown, Intersection and the Olympus Pro Photographer Showdown.

Local artist Helen Wojcik and her work are just a few of the things you'll find at State of the Art.

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The 72hr. Filmmaker Showdown

If shooting, editing and producing a three-to-five minute film within a 100km radius of Whistler within 72hrs - throwing in a mandatory prop (this year, an apple) - battling it out with fifty teams to make the cut-off for the nine finalists, and then having it shown to an audience of 1800-plus people sounds like a good time, then you don't want to miss Whistler's 72hr. Filmmaker Showdown. With $10k on the line, this showdown is one of the hardest contests to get involved in. As emcee, Feet Banks - a skier who uses his antics and quick wit to write for multiple snowboard magazines, movie reviews for Whistler's local rag, The Pique News Magazine, and is founder/ creator of Whistler's Horrorfest - explains, that chunk of change is half-a-year's salary for him, and after losing this contest for four years in a row, he has cut his losses and now just hosts.

There were a couple of great movies made by local shreds: Chairlift Time Machine took a few of us for a ride down memory lane; Squamish resident, Max Schwadchuck, produced Board Sitter; Conrad Schapansky threw down one of his most creative movies to date with Master of Fluppets (a must watch if you have ever shopped at Whistler's Re-Use-It Center); Robjn Taylor was back (he won a Lifetime Achievement Award for entering this contest every single year) with a whacked out papaya movie of lust, love, and revenge called the Salad of Justice; and one the films that kicked off the evening was a Zoolander-spoof created by Harley Francis that had the crowd roaring in their seats. This may have been Francis' first time in the contest, but expect great things from him in the future. With a budget of less than $200 and a film crew consisting of himself to edit, film, create, and gather an actor, along with some last minute stunt doubling, he pulled off an entry.

"It was the worst 72 hrs of my life," says Francis, "my actor, Mike Riccardi, was four hours late the first day, one of my lights broke the night before, then Riccardi broke his ankle mid-shoot so I had to throw him in my gear, shoot him in my gear, and then do the snowboarding for him. With people bailing on me, I actually had to cruise the village looking for a female actress. I went into the Beach, gave the girls working the details while trying to be flirty with them - one hour later I got a call: ‘Uh, yeah, I will be in your film."' Talk about low budget, but his actress Matilda, the snowboard reporter, did an impressive job of helping Derek, the male snowboarder, overcome his fear of spinning, um, left in a jib-off. Hilarious stuff.

Jonny Fleet and Patrick Henry needed no introduction at this year's WSSF Filmmaker Showdown after entering six times, making the finals four times, and producing past favourites The Staff: A Ski Bum Musical, followed by The War of 1910 and/or 1924 and now this year's Poached Earth - a documentary-style flick on the art of poaching hot tubs in area that Whistler locals call Hot Tub Alley.

Inspired by all the great memories of tub poaching during Henry's early film career with Gnarcore (currently films for Alterna Action Films), and with Fleet being an active Whistler local and probably poaching a tub as you read this, the two knew that the amount of scavenged and scoured hot tubs in Whistler was incalculable. Being skilled at the fine art of illegal hot-tub hunting, their only consequence had been being chased out by security guards and homeowners over the years - that is, until the making of Poached Earth:

"While filming this movie, as producer I was under the impression we were allowed to be in the hot tub at Northstar (across from IGA), until the end of the day when someone complained to Strata management and security came," says Henry. Turns out the guard was really nice and understanding, but Strata had tracked them down, complaining that they had no idea that this film crew had closed off the tub and pool all day and insisted they pay back any refunds to guests that were unhappy. The crew was nervous, but they also had gotten most of their footage for that day, and ended up moving on to a few other scenes at different locations, and then had to come back to the same pool/tub the next two days.

"We truly poached hot tubs in the making of this," says Henry, "just add in a RED Camera, big jib arm, a bunch of crew and cast. That's the great thing about these films and the Showdown; you go through so much pain and stress to finish your movie. At times you're like ‘why the hell am I doing this?' When it screens in the finals and people laugh and love your film it's all worth it. Then you get handed a big plastic cheque with $10,000 on it, which helps ease the pain from production."

Written & Directed by: Jonny Fleet
Produced by: Patrick Henry, Justin Hannewyk, Jonny Fleet
Composed by: Luke Dunn
Sound Design by: Daryl Mikulinski
Cinematography: Naim Sutherland
Edited by: Kelvin Tseng
VFX by: Jesse Sturdy

More films from this year can be watched here.

[keep reading for coverage of Intersection and the Olympus Pro Photogapher Showdown]