Picture North’s Director Henrik Rostrup on His Action Sports Filmmaking Career

Henrik Rostrup’s journey into filmmaking began after years spent chasing a dream of becoming a professional mountain biker and athlete. After competing on the international circuit, he made a pivotal decision to trade in his racing career for a camera, focusing on capturing the sports he loved from behind the lens. His early work in action sports filmmaking quickly became legendary, with the ski film Teddybear Crisis earning a cult following online. The film, which captured the revolutionary spirit of free skiing at the time, was later voted the 3rd best ski film of all time by Outside Magazine.

Q>What was your childhood like, and how did that impact you as a director? 

Henrik> As a kid, I was always active and was fine with being on my own. 

But then, I discovered sports. I was a keen kid, and I think all kids are keen, but I was always tinkering away. 

My childhood wasn't chasing girls or partying, I was just focused on getting good at riding bikes, training, and getting into competitions. I didn't grow up in a traditional Norwegian household, like my kids are growing up now, skiing as a family and all that. I didn't do that until I was 10 and, from that point on, I was like, game on. I'm going to do this as much as possible. 

Getting into sports and meeting friends from all over was my window to the world. I was influenced when I was young, during the golden age of bike movies and action sports films in the 90s when it was fun and, in a way, more innocent. 

Nobody had streaming or YouTube or anything like that, you just found some weird artifact like a VHS skate or BMX video, and it was gold. 

Q>What was your favourite part? Did you like going fast? 

Henrik> No, no, no. 

It was the fact it was community-based because everyone was always trying to do something. It was like a certain genre of music, maybe not necessarily "obscure," but sort of like punk or rock in the 70s. You find this group of people who also like the stuff you do and they become your group, and you're with those people the whole time. Even if you're 15, they're your best friends. 

These niches, you have to fight for it, dig a little bit. It's not handed to you like soccer or college basketball. You have to create something on your own, and then it becomes a little bit of an adventure. 

Q> So, how did you go from bikes to cameras? 

Henrik> Well, I wasn't good enough, to be honest. 

I rode and trained and raced as much as I could, and got into World Cup racing and travelled with my friends, teams, and competitors. 

Back then, and still today, you have to qualify to be elite. I was pretty good, but not good enough to "be there." I wasn't good enough to be there for real. So I had to figure something out because I was still young. I was 19 or something, 20, during the heyday of the VHS and DVD era. 

That time was a pivotal moment because there was a lot happening like the first motocross films coming out. I don't know, how old are you? 

I'm 26. 

Exactly, so I'm 20 years older than you. 

The thing is with YouTube, it's still the same with the sports edits. You had your heroes, but you would only see them around once a year when a new film dropped. And it was the same for skate or snowboard or motocross films. 

Everyone had their group. If you're a Tony Hawk Fan or if you're into motocross, they would go out and film and then come back a year later and release a new film. 

I was like, well, that's it because I had some friends making films at the time, like music videos or skate films after picking up a camera. A year later, I did the same thing, that was my ticket in. 

I stayed in the cycling scene and started to travel and document it. After I made my first video, I was like, well, this is cool, I'm going to try and do this. 

At this point, I was just a kid. I had no idea about filming, no photography background, but I was pretty creative. I was into writing, doing some articles for some magazines, and always trying to make something, but I didn't always know how. 

But then, a friend of mine gave me my first 16mm camera and, at the time, that was a big deal because then you were shooting "for real.” All the amateurs, they were shooting mini-DV video to tape, but I got into shooting film pretty early on and that set me apart because that's all the pros did. So, I started traveling and documenting mountain bikers all over Europe at the time and got fully engaged into making bike films. 

There are a lot of people who come from that industry and, some people go to film school, some people do music videos, but there are a lot of people that come from sports because they shot what they liked. 

Then maybe, they had friends who became pro at what they were doing and you got some sponsor money, then you made a video, then people liked it, then you made another one. It slowly but surely became this new profession. 

Nobody has a plan for it, you just end up doing something you really, really like and then you can keep doing it. 

I'm fascinated by the emergence of filmmakers from the sports discipline. Do you think in these less "structured" sports, like mountain biking, there's an element of creativity there that's hidden until you pick up a tool? Like a camera? 

Any sport, to a certain extent, is visual. But all the really dynamic traveling moments, you know, like skateboarding, snowboarding, skiing-they're really visual. I mean, they're, and I hate to use the word, epic. If you do it right, they're epic, whether landscape or tricks or personality. So there's a lot there to document. 

As a photographer or filmmaker, you can choose your genre. Some people are really into capturing the tricks, which then becomes very technical, and you can become a really technical photographer, which many people did. It's the same with video, you can be really into editing. It's super technical, very detailed and it takes forever to get those shots. 

The other end of the scale, people become pretty proficient storytellers. Like they're on this huge journey with people doing big stuff in the mountains, traveling really far. So there are a lot of different aspects. 

Q> So you have to have a lot of stamina on both ends? 

Henrik> Ultimately, people get used to shooting other people or finding stories, and then some of those films become a blueprint, and it moves from there, like the early sports films. 

They basically set the precedent for GoPro. Without sports films, GoPro wouldn't exist, and without GoPro, YouTube wouldn't exist. It's all piggybacking off each other. To me, it's like Red Bull, sports films, America's Funniest Home Videos. That's what started streaming. 

Back in the 70s and 80s, sports films were huge on IMAX, and they were doing 70mm or 65mm captures of extreme sports, back in the 70s. 

There has always been this interest in seeing those films on a big screen, on a big scale, and really trying to capture the stunt side of it or the personalities of the landscape, but also what humans can actually do. It has the Guinness Book of World Records or Nat Geo appeal. 

The X Games also put people on the map, and a lot more happened around that time, a lot of creation. Film, content creation, and capturing these huge personalities made big brands. A lot came from that era. 

Today it's even bigger thanks to streaming and social media, but in essence, it's still the same. You're trying to document someone's life or a sport or a story and find your way. 

Q> What was the transition from making something more "raw" into the advertising industry? 

Henrik> A lot of people, whether you're a photographer or into marketing, came from that theme because you went into something you really loved and knew. 

If you're photographer, then you became an in-house photographer for a brand, or became a creative for a brand. Or, if you're a filmmaker, you start making films for a brand instead of yourself. 

That happened to me since I started making mountain bike films and did a lot of ski films for seven or eight years and travelled a lot. I worked with friends who worked for brands and eventually started doing projects for them or working with their agencies. 

Slowly but surely, the marketing side of these outdoor brands became more and more developed and digital. There was more stuff to do and that was my pivot into advertising because I didn't want to spend my entire life making ski films, traveling, and just kind of "documenting." 

At this point, I'd had enough and was looking for something else. 

Then I spent 10 years running a small agency and production company, working with different brands and trying to do something a bit more mature. But after that period, and it was a long period, there was another shift. 

This might be something you remember, but there were certain films that would pop up where they were cool commercials, but they weren't super stereotypical. Basically, I would recognise a ski thing that some brand hired someone who made ski films to do commercials for a non-endemic brand for Sony or Philips or something, and we started seeing more of that. 

It's like if Ford did something outdoors and then hired people who did surfing films. Like, what the heck, you know? 

This is 2012 through 15, around that time, when Vimeo had just hit it off and the whole branded content thing really came into play. I remember myself and friends saying, maybe this is our moment. Maybe we can go back into filmmaking because, before then, if you wanted to be a director, there were tons of production companies with directors who had very developed reels. 

Us, on the other hand, only had sports. We weren't going to get any work from them and we'd have to create something for ourselves, you know? 

You would see the style of sports films becoming more relevant. It's also thanks to Red Bull or Out of Flight. They did these huge snowboard films which really broke into the mainstream more than any other action sport films in recent times. And I think people recognised and really liked that because of the new ways they were captured. 

Then I started a company called Atlas. We had this blueprint for youth storytelling, sports, and culture, which was different to how other production companies were viewed at the time. 

So, without putting words in someone's face, it was like Picture North but 10 years earlier. It was that kind of collective, but there were few other companies at the time we could reference. 

Long story short: I got into sports, picked up a camera, did a lot of ski films, and then had a bit of a grey period where I just worked for agencies and had a smaller production company doing commercial work. 

As sports came more into fashion again, I started another company with a friend of mine and that really set us on the map as directors. We created our own career instead of being picked up on a roster. 

Q> I also see that you have creative direction on your website. So, is that a branch of what you were already experienced with? Or is it something you want to do more of? 

Henrik> It's definitely something I want to do more of, and I have done. 

It's not something I'm really able to sell, or even want to sell, in that capacity. It's a very loose thing, but I've done projects that stretch over time for one client. Or, I'm involved in an organisation and we try and elevate something. 

I was working with Helly Hansen for many years being a small piece between the agency and the people at the brand. I was still young at that time, but I was really involved in a lot of stuff they did and learned a lot. 

There was a really lovely Canadian guy, his name was Cory, and he was the marketing manager at Helly at the time and was living in Norway. Later on, he became the marketing manager for Patagonia. 

The stuff Cory did, he just "did.” And everyone else just followed suit. 

I saw how much one person can influence, in a good way. And then you had all these agents trying to sell their ideas and spend money and blah blah blah, while he was like, no, no, no, we're going to go make these films; we don't need a lot of stuff; we're going to do it this way. 

It was really cool to witness the simplicity of how you come up with ideas and also how to do it, which is really nice. There were a few moments in my work life where I was like, huh, that was nice, that was easy, and it turned out really nice, and it wasn't even that hard. 

Q> Simple is good? 

Henrik> I like that, simple is good. It can be simple. 

Q> Even with so many years of experience as a filmmaking veteran, how do you keep things fresh? 

Henrik> I'm not a veteran by any means, I'm still a child. 

Everything is so weird, right? I mean, for once, we have creative amnesia, that's one thing. 

People can do a lot of different things over a very long period of time. Maybe I'll be a plumber at some point, who knows? Or I'll make a documentary film. Who's to say what it's going to be? 

So, I think that filmmaking in general, some people have the ability to have a really clear vision of what they want to do. And they're amazing script writers at the age of, I don't know, 15, 25, and they do it or have it. 

And then some people stumble around and figure stuff out. 

I'm really grateful that people picked up the phone and sent me on my way. There's so much happenstance with where you end up before you even start making stuff. 

I think that's how you keep it fresh. 

It's funny because that exact question came up, this was some years ago, at Roger Deakins' seminar, the British guy, and he had a little talk. He's an older gentleman in his 70s or something and he still kicks ass. 

He was on stage and this friend of mine, after the speech was over and it was time for Q&A, asked, "well, Roger," and he didn't want to offend him, "you're, like, old. I mean, you're older, but how do you stay fresh? How do you keep it fresh?" 

And Roger's like, "well, I mean, I just kind of, do what I do." 

It wasn't like he had a plan, but my friend wanted to know the secret. What's the key? 

For me, I have no key, there's no key to what I do. Working in the commercial space, for me at least, you're hoping people are going to give you a break. Even if you do something really, really cool and people really, really like it, you could still never see the same opportunity ever again. 

I think that's fascinating. 

Q> Speaking of breaks, how do you rest? What do you find is the most restorative activity outside of anything that could be considered work? 

Henrik> Well, right now, I'm waxing skis, which is not really resting, so I apologise. 

No, I thought you were cooking something. It sounded like you were chopping some onions or something. 

I wish. I have kids who do ski racing, and we're going to a training camp tomorrow with them. So, I need to prepare all these freaking skis which is about as boring as, actually, chopping onions. 

It doesn't make you cry? 

No, it doesn't. Only on the inside. 

Anyways, the funny thing is, sometimes you rest too much because you're in between work and you're just pitching. 

It's a different kind of rest. Sometimes, resting can also be shooting, if that makes any sense. 

I spoke to a friend of mine living in California who had been pitching forever and finally, he was getting on a flight to go to a shoot. And he was just like, "it's been forever." He was so happy. The shoot for him was almost like resting. 

If you're a really busy director and working non-stop, and it's even more prevalent if you're a DP, of course you need to rest. You have to say no to work. You have to rest in order to be excited again. 

Other times, you need to do something a little bit different than just the usual. 

So, something fresh. 

Q> Something fresh? 

Sometimes, you need a little bit of distance with what you do; you always have to try and be engaged to create something else. I'm doing that now. I'm creating this magazine project with some friends of mine which is actually not resting, but it is resting in a sense because I'm doing else which is fun. 

We're writing a lot, creating a lot of stories, talking to a lot of photographers and creating a magazine or fanzine type of thing. I'm having a lot of fun, which is also resting. 

You also need a sense of accomplishment because sometimes, you can get a lot of no's. You also need to rest from all the defeat and just do something for yourself, which is important 

I think it's horrible for someone who's creative to be bored or feel like they're doing the same thing over and over again like a formula. It's almost anti-creative. 

Yeah. 

Of course it's fun when people call you and they're like, hey, you want to do this fun thing? And you're like, heck yeah, of course, I'll be over in a second. 

Nothing's better than feeling like people need you, like I'm the only one who can do this. This is amazing, we're going to do something really cool and save the world or whatever. Or save the client or the brand. 

I think everyone's waiting for that kind of opportunity, for someone to tap you on the shoulder, saying, "okay, let's go." 

The road to that moment can be very different. Sometimes you have to work a lot, sometimes you get a random phone call. It's weird. 

Q>There's no such thing as an overnight success? 

Henrik> Sometimes it is, too. That's the funny thing. Well, not an overnight success, I guess. Things are definitely marinating. But sometimes, people just call you and ask, do you want to do this thing, it becomes amazing, and then you never see that kind of project again, ever. 

But it happened, it's possible. 

Sometimes you have to fight it out with a bunch of other humans. 

This industry feels like an unspoken war between creatives. 

I think it's a combination of the Coliseum, where people are fighting for their lives, and the mall, where people just want to have something and they ask, what do you have? What do you have? What do you have? And you show them something and they move on and it's like, oh, okay, fine, they didn't want it. Fine. 

Then, you're in the gladiator ring and really duke it out. You try your best and you're still not good enough, but you survive. 

I'm doing like two or three projects where it's multiple bids from the same production companies. You have no clue of who's pitching what, so it's like you're throwing stuff into the ether, and you keep on going. 

Looking back, what would you say to a young creative who want to get into the business and keep on going? 

It depends on what advice they want, if that makes sense. 

Is it advice for someone who's in the business and they want something comforting, like is everything going to be okay? 

Or, is it that they want to get into the business and they want to know how? 

How about something to keep yourself sane? 

Well, you have to bleep this out, but the ****** up thing is, the glamour. People are over glamourising creating ads, right? Because ultimately, people have to make a living, which is really important. 

If you want to try and succeed or do something within advertising, it's like being an artist without making the art, yet having the same process. You have to stay with it, and if you're able to stay with it for yourself and feel like you're still having fun, then anything's possible. 

You have to keep on doing it, but pay attention to what you want to do. There are so many opportunities right now and that's the challenge, there are almost too many things to do. 

So knowing your own limitations is good because that allows you to focus on something. There are lot of people who want to write screenplays-go for it. Maybe advertising's not for you, and that's totally fine. 

Speaking more personally, you have to keep it fun. You have to keep it fun. You have to keep it fresh for yourself and be okay with what you do that's the most important part. 

I don't think, even if you're doing super nice stuff, if you're not okay with what you do, you shouldn't do it. That applies to even if you're on the darker side of the tunnel. 

Times are challenging, it's super tough for a lot of people. Unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna change, but maybe it was a little bit too easy before. Who knows? It's crazy. 

Q> When you were starting out, I feel like there was no blueprint, like walking into a snowstorm. But today, it's like a packed mogul course or something. 

Henrik> Exactly, that's a good analogy. 

What do you want? Do you want a mogul course or a steep, gnarly, icy downhill? I don't mind bumpy as long as people are game for it. 

It becomes challenging when people freak out and lose confidence in the process. What we're doing, everyone is so professional. On the whole scale from creatives to agencies to clients to filmmakers, we can do a lot of cool things together. It's about finding that connection. 

Certain projects, you haven't met the people before, but find it really easy to work with them. Then, everything's possible, and it's so great. That's the cool part, we're creating from scratch in a limited amount of time with people you don't know and it turns out great. 

And, for the most part, it happens all the time. 

I just realised we're basically working with strangers all the time, yet all this awesome stuff comes out. 

Yeah, and it's the same in any part of the world. Everyone has the same ambition and, not to get all sappy, but hopes and dreams and all that stuff. 

At the end of the day, we're doing commercials and we're working for our clients. And that's all fun. 

I know everyone wants to make nice stuff and have fun doing it, so it shouldn't be that complicated. 

Sadly, a lot of people want to complicate things. 

Yeah, and I've definitely been one of them. Sometimes you go into it like, we're going to be so-and-so and da-da-da and it doesn't really have to be that way. It can just be something fun and easy. 

You have to find the project you really want to dig into and, for those other projects, you accept it's there to serve the client, and that's fine too. 

We're close to 2025, and even if you don't do them, what are your New Year's resolutions? 

I don't do them. This might sound corny, but I feel like I do a lot of wrong things I try and correct, like procrastinating on mundane stuff. I couldn't do only one New Year's resolution. I would have to have, I don't know, 72 or something. 

I'm always trying to work on something so my New Year's resolutions happen every week or every month, but I like people that have New Year's resolutions. If they last more than the first month. 

Keeping the gym industry alive, at least. 

Exactly, which is important. 

My main comfort idea is you can succeed in so many different parts of your life. If you feel like this is not working for you, it's totally fine. It sucks to find something new to do, but you an also try and stick with it. Then, maybe what you're doing now can be something else. 

Everyone is a sponge at some people, as long as nothing horrible happens. If you're moving on and doing stuff and meeting interesting people, hopefully everything will be okay. 

A lot of people are in a hurry and everything becomes transactional. That's the problem. The challenge is like, okay, I'm here, I want to do this film, I'll write a script, and it all has to happen now. 

Maybe it'll happen in 10 years, it'll still be fine. Maybe you'll do a feature when you're 60, it's still fine. 

It's fine to let things progress on their own. Starting a company or brand takes 5 to 10 years to get off the ground, it just does. 

You might do a project next year, who knows? Stick to your guns, stick to the stuff you like