INTERVIEW – Charles Beckinsale

 

Charles Beckinsale is one of the most iconic figures in Australian snowboarding. He emerged as a snowboarder; a talented teenager whose smooth style and oversized clothing featured heavily in the snowboard magazines and Digital movies of the early 2000s. However some recurring shoulder problems made Charles consider other alternatives for the long term. Fast forward five years and he is now a world-renowned terrain park builder. And he is still turning heads when he gets the chance to snowboard.

Mountainwatch | Alex Horvath

All photos courtesy of Andrew Fawcett Photography

This season, as we all know, Australia was blessed with an impressive amount of snow. Charles did not let it go to waste; he built the best parks in the Southern Hemisphere. Anton’s had the biggest, longest jumpline. High Noon had the most creative jib features. Merritt’s was the most playful mini-shred. He also built the Mile High Slopestyle Course and the One Hit Wonder jump; both head-turners by international standards. TRANSFER was lucky enough to work with Charles on a few ambitious projects too (keep your eyes peeled in next years’ magazines!).

Now that the season is winding down, Alex Cameron and Louis Macindoe finally managed to pin Charles down for a chat.

The two heavy hitters, both Ryan Tiene and Charles are based in Whistler, B.C, Canada each northern hemi season, this creates a great working relationship between the two…

MW: Mate, it seems like you’ve been crazy busy this season. How does it match up against years past?
CB: This season was definitely a lot busier than years past. We had a really great snow year, so we tried to work on as many projects as possible. The fact that the parks kept getting buried made it a bit harder. That’s a rare occurrence here in Australia.

Was there a highlight along the way, or was it all just a blur?
It is a bit of a blur. I feel like the season as a whole was a highlight. We built out all the parks to capacity and we managed to pull off more photo shoots than we have in the past. I really enjoyed working on the Slopestyle Course for the Mile High and the Jump for the One Hit Wonder. Another highlight was building some unique features for the TRANSFER photo battle. I’m really looking forward to seeing it in print next year.

Charles nails a front 3 through the trees over in Canada, even long hours in a cat don’t keep him from pushing his limits every year.

We shredded a few days this year and you were learning new tricks and doing proper technical stuff. I was surprised because I know that you don’t get to ride all that often. Is progression still a big thing for you?
Early season I got to ride quite a bit and I definitely set out with a few goals each season. I still enjoy filming and always want to be keeping up with the current tricks and have something new worth filming so people don’t always see me doing the same old tricks. A lot of the time I build features with a trick I would like to do on it in mind. So yeah, progression keeps me motivated and is still very important to me.

At the end of last Northern Hemisphere season, you built a jump in Whistler that the best skiers in the world were calling ‘the best jump’ of their careers. You followed it up with the One Hit Wonder jump in Thredbo, which received similar praise. What do you think the top athletes like so much about your jumps?
I am always trying to build the big jumps with safety in mind. When I build a jump I try to maximise the air time the riders get so it gives them enough time to attempt any trick they can think up without a harsh impact on the landing. So the riders can attempt new tricks with confidence knowing after they have hit it a few times they can make a mistake without huge consequences. As a rider that is what I would want and it seems the athletes feel the same. I really listen to what the riders want before I start on a project and I think that is key.

Some of the world’s best skiers tagged this jump as ‘the best jump of their careers’, testament to Charles’ skill with a snow cat

Off the back of your features and parks, you’re now gaining international acclaim as one of the best builders around. Is building something that you have committed to in the long term?
Absolutely. I have worked in parks for 12 years now. It started as a job to help me pursue my professional snowboarding but 7 years ago when injuries kept setting me back I decided to get serious about park building and learnt how to drive a cat. I got into building from there, now I’m looking at it long-term as a way to keep living a lifestyle I love and stay in an industry I am passionate about.

The big international brands always send their riders to NZ or South America during our winter to shoot catalogues. Are you hoping they might start sending some our way soon?
That is definitely a goal of mine. I think Australia is greatly overlooked by film crews and international brands. It would be nice to accommodate some of the park shoots companies are looking to do as I feel we have a unique backdrop here in Australia. It’s a lot different to what people are used to seeing from the likes of North America and New Zealand. I feel it’s the next step to drawing attention to our little scene and attracting some of that North American and European off-season business.

A very stylish hit on a backcountry feature in Thredbo circa 2007.

You’re marrying your long-term girlfriend in the spring – will being a married man change anything about your snowboarding or building? Is Amy down for a few more back-to-back seasons?
Amy and I have been together for 8 years or 16 back-to-back winters. She has been amazingly supportive of my strange career choice so I’m pretty driven to make it pay off for us. We are getting married late October then we are off to Mexico for our honeymoon and a yearly dose of summer – I’m looking forward to that!

As an accomplished snowboarder who has plenty of experience in all facets of snowboarding – the streets, the resort and the backcountry – how do you feel about riders specializing in just one particular aspect of snowboarding? Do you think having riders focus solely upon certain areas of snowboarding will ultimately push the tricks possible in those niches?
I think it’s the way it’s headed. It’s a good thing for progression and the diversity of the sport. Obviously if you solely focus all your attention and energy to one area of snowboarding then you are going to progress more in that direction than if you spread yourself to all areas. The level of tricks in all aspects have evolved so much over the past five years it’s getting near impossible for riders to stay at the top of the game as all round riders. But that’s what makes it that much better when you see someone like Pat Moore who can hold it in the backcountry, the streets, the park and on transition. I hope we don’t lose that kind of all round rider to more specialised snowboarders.

Charles has always been an all round rider who is at home on a jump or a jib, his classic strong signature style oozes from this front board in Mt Seymour, Canada.

The Internet is saturated in web-based snowboard edits; everyone is doing it – from the average punter to the most recognizable pros. Coming from the VHS generation and having starred in both snowboard films and web edits, what’s your stance on the web-edit-revolution?
It’s a new era. Everything is about instant gratification. It’s rad that we can see things almost as they happen through web edits but sometimes it seems they are just getting put out for the sake of it and not because the riding is amazing. It makes it way easier for riders to promote themselves. But there is so much on offer now in the way of web clips that it’s almost numbing compared to the stoke you would get waiting for your favorite riders to come out with their parts they had been working on all season. We used to witness progression in massive doses that would leave your jaw on the floor. Videos like Absinthe’s ‘Pop’ with Travis Rice or Romain De Marchi or Forum’s True Life with JP Walker, Peter Line or Devun Walsh. Now if someone does something epic it tends to go in a web clip and is seen instantly and so the movies lose a bit of their wow factor. Actually I think there will always be a place for both. It’s a topic people could go back and forth on all day but as long as what’s getting put out there is quality shredding I think it’s a good thing no matter how you receive it.

Whistler B.C is the playground for many of the top freeriders in our sport, it is easy to see why Charles chooses to live there

Do you feel like there is a shelf life for a professional snowboarder? Skateboarding seems to glorify its original contributors but snowboarding not so much – particularly here in Australia. You were mentored from an early age by guys who pioneered freestyle snowboarding in Australia – do you think that the kids today have as much respect for their elders as they did when you where coming up?
When I was a grom, the web wasn’t a big part of snowboarding. All you saw were the local magazines here in Australia so all you knew was the local scene and the local level of riding. Unless you got your hands on a Mack Dawg Film or a Transworld Snowboarding mag you had no idea of what was happening outside of our little Australian industry. So guys like Coppo, Quiny, Wherley, Damon Haylor, Freddy Fawcett and Nick Gregory were all you knew and those guys where like rock stars to a kid like me so getting to ride with them was like a dream. Now that the kids see the international standard of snowboarding through the web it makes the Aussie scene a little less impressive in turn leaving the Aussie pros a little less amazing.

As for the shelf life side of it, guys like Devun Walsh, Terje Hakonsen, JP Walker and Jeremy Jones are all well into their thirties, still killing it and getting major exposure but that’s due to the fact the riding they are doing is still progressive and relevant. If you aren’t relevant to what’s going on at the leading edge of snowboarding then people lose interest and sponsors pull their support. It’s harsh but that’s the industry. There will always be kids coming up that need sponsor money to progress the sport and there is only so much to go around I guess.

One of the perks of working on the hill in Thredbo, you get first crack at that fresh snow. Pow turn, Thredbo.

You’ve hung around long enough now to be accepted as a legend of Australian snowboarding, you’ve seen and been a part of the different periods that have come to make up Australian snowboarding what it is now – are you happy with where it’s at? Is there anything you would change?
As parks have evolved in Australia so has the level of riding but the offshoot is kids have become more spoon-fed. Back in the day if you wanted to hit a big jump you had to go build it and going out with your mates into the backcountry with a packed lunch and a photographer to go find a spot and set it up was half the fun. I guess I’m trying to say I would be stoked to see kids get out there a bit more and use their imaginations instead of just lapping the same stuff day in day out – it keeps things more interesting.

We feel as if your one of the more successful stories to come out of Australian snowboarding, your story is pretty inspiring for anyone that knows it. You’ve managed to make a career out of Australian Snowboarding, something that is quite difficult. Can you offer some advice to budding riders our there who might want to follow in your footsteps?
Just find a job within snowboarding that your passionate about give it a red hot go and don’t lose sight of why you started. The best advice I got was if do something you love and it will never feel like you do a day of work in your life.

Click on any photo to open a gallery of Charles and friends making the most of his work…

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