Ladies We Love: Action Sports Filmmaker Darcy Turenne
For years, Canadian Darcy Turenne wandered the world as a professional freeride mountain biker. But when a serious ankle injury put the British Columbia-based rider out of commission for over a year, she decided she needed to find another career path.
Armed with a masters’ degree, she stumbled into documentary filmmaking. And in a few short years, she’s gone from being a pro athlete who’d never used a camera to being one of few female filmmakers in the action sports industry. Her work includes a film about Indonesian action sport athletes, a shoot for Soccer Without Borders in Nicaragua, a music video in the Republic of Georgia, and filming with the artsy ski movie company Sweetgrass Productions.
Currently, she’s producing a feature-length documentary called “The Little Things,” about professional snowboarders and their fight to save the planet. All that, and Darcy, 29, still makes time to ride her mountain bike.
What are some of the highlights of your mountain bike career?
One of the greatest moments for me was getting on the cover of BIKE magazine. And holding my own women’s bike festival—See Jane Jump—was definitely the most rewarding thing I’ve done in my cycling career. Getting more girls on bikes has always been my goal, and the festival confirmed that that was happening, and quickly.
So you’re a professional mountain biker. And then all of a sudden, you wake up and say, ‘I want to be a filmmaker?’ How did that transition happen?
Like most great things, it came out of a time of adversity. I sustained a bad ankle injury and I was told that the recovery would be long and arduous and I’d probably never have full function of my foot again.
After I got hurt, I hobbled to the beach to light a fire, roast some marshmallows, and feel sorry for myself. There was a family walking by and I invited them to join me. They did, and long story short, the father was graduating from a communications MA program at a university close by. The program sounded great so I looked into it and within 24 hours I’d enrolled.
Fast forward a year. I bought my first camera, a Canon 7D, and I figured out how to work it. I’ve always dabbled in visual arts and music, and have been pretty mediocre at both, but it became clear within a few weeks that my gift was combining both through filmmaking. It was all very serendipitous.
For your masters’ thesis in grad school, you made a film about female Indonesian action sport athletes. How did you document that story?
I felt a duty to the women’s sports community to bring awareness to the fact that in most of the world, sports are a privilege, not a right, and that sports advocacy is an important issue. I was drawn to Indonesia because gender roles there are still very firmly cemented in place despite the country’s rapid modernization and because I love surfing.
It took me months to find leads to women who were involved in action sports in Indo. I spent months scouring forums to try and locate girls, but ultimately, I just had to jump on a plane, buy a cell phone, and start pounding the pavement to find the ladies in my movie. Luckily, it worked. I learned a lot from the experience both as a filmmaker and an athlete
What appeals to you about the craft of filmmaking?
Filmmaking is so diverse—it’s a blank canvas for creativity and I love that most about it. There is always a new genre to explore.
I also love that a film is a sum of its parts. It’s about big picture thinking, drawing connections, weaving multiple stories together, and the perfect harmony between visuals and sound. It’s such a challenge to create that perfect balance, and one that I obsess over. I’m very musically driven, so often I’ll center an entire film around one guitar riff that I can’t get out of my head.
Tell us about your current project, “The Little Things.”
This film is a documentary-based snowboard film that highlights the great work of professional snowboarders who are involved in credible environmental initiatives. My Oakley teammate Marie France Roy approached me to direct the project and we’re in the middle of it right now.
It’s a very important topic to me because my undergrad was in environmental studies and I learned a lot about the dangers of shortsightedness and how our world is changing irreversibly at such a rapid pace. We hope this video will inspire others to make small changes to their daily practices that are more sustainable—the film is called “The Little Things” because no action is too small to make a difference when it comes to the environment.
Has being a professional athlete given you an edge in filmmaking?
Oh, for sure. Being an athlete has taught me so much about hard work, goal setting, working in adverse conditions, and getting over fear.
There’s no way I would have been so fearless about jumping into a film career if I hadn’t already set an example for myself with mountain biking. Because I’ve tasted success once, I just figured I could do it again in a different career. Mountain biking has given me a lot of confidence I don’t think I would have found elsewhere.
Also, being the subject of many films and TV shows gave me a head start on how things get done on set (and by set, I mean in the middle of the mountains most of the time).
What’s next for you?
I just finished the 72 Hour Filmmaker Showdown [at Whistler’s World Ski and Snowboard Festival] where I made my first narrative film, and now I’m addicted. So, hopefully more fictional narratives will be in my future, as well as music videos.
Also, I’ll be shooting a bunch of action sports for commercial clients over the summer and riding my bike as much as I can. Things always seem to pop up.
There’s a chance I’ll be directing a shoot in Cambodia for a non-profit next month, but who knows. I’m still so green in the film world that I want to try it all before I decide which path to really focus on. It’s a time I’m cherishing.
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About Megan Michelson
Formerly an editor at Outside and Skiing magazines, Megan Michelson is now the freeskiing editor for ESPN.com and a freelance writer based in Tahoe City, California. She loves stories that explore the cross-section between unique characters and raw adventure and her aim is to live a life filled with as much exploration as possible. Megan is a skier, a runner, a mountain biker, a reader, a chai drinker, a listener, and a very bad— More about this author →
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May 26th, 2013 at 9:57 am
Can’t wait to see more of your work, you go girl!