SportScheck "Es beginnt": a winter campaign shot in New Zealand
Why a winter campaign has to be shot in the southern hemisphere during the European summer: the full case behind SportScheck's image campaign "Es beginnt" in New Zealand — crew, Cardrona, logistics, the heliskiing shoot that failed for a missing ski guide, and what brands should learn about influencer content.
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The campaign: what "Es beginnt" was meant to say
"Es beginnt" — German for "it begins" — was a larger image campaign for SportScheck, and explicitly not a product campaign. It was never about talking anyone into a particular sport. It was about the idea that everything starts somewhere, and that this exact moment is the best one: the first turn, the first jump, the first look at a map before anyone knows whether the day is going to work out.
The footage was built exactly that way. We start at dawn, stand next to a car in half-light, look at a map to see where we are heading — and the day runs from there. It was a pure social media campaign, distributed across the brand's channels and across the channels of the athletes involved.
What makes this shoot interesting for any production, though, is not the look. It is the reason we flew to the other end of the world for it.
The real reason for New Zealand: the season is reversed
The practical reason is as banal as it is compelling: we shot the autumn material during the summer. A brand selling winter gear needs the campaign finished before winter starts — which means it needs winter images during a period when there is no winter in Europe.
European glaciers only solve part of that. You get snow, but in high summer it is hard and icy, the background reads rocky rather than white, and spraying powder is almost impossible to get. That is fine for isolated product shots. It is not enough for a campaign that has to sell adventure.
The southern hemisphere solves the problem structurally. During the European summer it is winter in New Zealand — real winter, with snowfall, powder and a running lift operation. That is the concrete booking argument behind a shoot like this: not wanderlust, but seasonal inversion.
On top of that came the editorial reason: the brand wanted to do something special and show its European customers that these adventures actually exist. A shoot on the local hill might have delivered the images. It would not have delivered the story.
The key facts of the shoot
Campaign cases usually get asked the same three questions — who is on screen, where was it shot, when was it — so here they are in one place:
Item | Detail |
Brand | SportScheck |
Campaign | "Es beginnt" — image campaign, social media only |
Period | around 2018, shot during the European summer |
Country | New Zealand, South Island |
Base | Queenstown |
Mountain | Cardrona Alpine Resort, on the Crown Range between Queenstown and Wanaka |
Days on location | only a few — already at the edge of the budget |
Crew | camera operator, camera assistant, production manager, two sports models |
On camera | myself and a second sports model — Ranja, a close friend from the sports scene |
Disciplines | freeride as the focus, plus funpark; heliskiing was also planned |
Luggage | several complete clothing collections in duffel bags |
Reference | the campaign video is embedded at the top of this page |
How I got into the campaign — and who else was on camera
I was booked directly, not through an agency. The main reason was my social media reach: the campaign used not only the production footage but also many clips I produce for my own channels anyway. First contact ran through Alexandra Lang, the brand's social media manager at the time. On top of that there was the agency WHITE RABBIT, which also supplied the video crew.
How a direct booking differs from an agency booking — process, contract, cost — is a topic of its own: Booking a model: agency or direct?
There were two of us on camera. The second sports model is one of my closest friends in the sports world. We ran freeski camps at Fuzzy Garhammer together for years, we are often in the mountains or kitesurfing together privately, and we have travelled together to Sri Lanka and to Mauritius several times.
That is not sentiment, that is safety planning. On a shoot in open terrain, far from home, with a crew that partly meets at the airport, it is worth a great deal to know exactly how one person on the mountain reads a situation, when they call it off, and what you can rely on. That applies in the water just as much as in the snow.
Heliskiing without a ski guide: the most expensive sentence of the whole shoot
This is the story I will never forget from that trip — and at the same time the best teaching example I have on the subject of filming permits.
We wanted to film a heliskiing sequence. I still remember how carefully it was prepared: the pilot calculated the fuel from the weight — which skis we were taking, how much camera equipment was going on board, how many people. That is completely normal in heliskiing and it was done properly.
Then we flew to the summit. We got out, shouldered the skis, everything ready. And at that moment the pilot asked: "Where is your ski guide?"
We said we did not need one, we only wanted to shoot up here. The pilot's answer: "Then I cannot let you ski down — here in New Zealand you need one."
That was a clear planning failure, and it could not be repaired on the spot. We were standing on a summit we could only fly to once, with the whole crew and the whole kit — and we were not allowed to ski it. So we faked the heli shots: we rode about ten metres next to the drop-off point so the shot would cut, instead of getting the full descent into the valley. Then we flew back down in the helicopter.
What every production should take away from that
The mistake was not recklessness or sloppiness. The mistake was an assumption: that the rules there are the same as at home. In the Alps, with the right experience, you can ride open terrain without anyone producing a licence. In New Zealand, skiing down after a heli drop is tied to a certified guide. Nobody on the crew had it on their radar, because nobody had asked.
Since then, this is what I check on every shoot abroad before anything is booked:
Who is allowed to enter, ride or fly over the terrain at all — and does that require a licensed person?
Who issues the permit: lift operator, landowner, national park authority, aviation authority?
Is local accompaniment mandatory — guide, safety, mountain guide — and is it in the budget?
What happens if the weather kills the date: does the permit still cover the backup day?
Who is liable if something happens — and does the production insurance cover that country?
The long version of these questions — including who is responsible in Germany and Austria — is in the pillar article: Planning an outdoor mountain shoot: permits, safety, responsibilities. For the full production workflow, see the complete guide to planning an outdoor shoot.
Cardrona: why that mountain in particular
We shot around Cardrona Alpine Resort. It sits on the Crown Range between Queenstown and Wanaka, conveniently placed between two towns where a crew can actually stay. Our base was Queenstown.
For a campaign that needs very different images within a few days, Cardrona is close to ideal, because two worlds sit on the same mountain:
Park and pipe: Cardrona runs the largest park and pipe facilities in the southern hemisphere, including a 22-foot superpipe. That delivers the controlled, repeatable tricks — exactly what you need when a shot has to land several times.
Freeride: Right next to it lies the Arcadia freeride terrain with chutes and cliff drops. That delivers the adventure imagery.
The practical advantage is the short distance between the two. If park and freeride are four hours apart by car, a short trip loses half a shooting day per switch. If they are on the same mountain, you can play the weather: when the light goes flat and diffuse you move into the park, where contrast comes from the obstacles; when it opens up you are in freeride terrain twenty minutes later. What I actually deliver as a ski and freeski model on a mountain like that is described in the freeski and ski model article.
What is genuinely different about a long-haul production
A mountain shoot at home and a mountain shoot on the other side of the world are the same craft — and two different jobs in terms of organisation. These are the five points where the difference sits:
1. Weather planning is the hardest part. We spent the entire trip analysing forecasts and re-planning. Conditions on location are different, and so are the microclimates. You cannot transfer your own experience one to one: which face loads up in which wind, when the fog comes out of which valley, when the sun actually reaches a given slope — at home you know that from twenty years, and there you do not know it at all.
2. There is no second window. On a shoot at home you move it to next week. On a long-haul trip there is no next time. We shot from early morning until late evening, had almost no breaks and ate on the run. Every usable piece of weather had to be taken — including the kind you would have skipped at home.
3. On-site logistics is the real cost driver. Several complete collections in duffel bags, everything organised out of a rental car, plus long drives to some of the spots. All of it has to be planned in advance, otherwise you lose half a morning sorting gear.
4. The film and photo crew travelled two days ahead to check the spots in person. That sounds like a luxury, but it is the cheapest line item of the whole trip: two days of lead time for two people is far cheaper than one lost shooting day for the entire crew.
5. A regional spot guide belongs in the budget. That is the advice I give every production since — and it applies at home just as much. Someone who is genuinely local knows at which time of year the sun hits which point beautifully, which access road is already clear at seven in the morning, and which supposedly perfect spot is full of tourists by eleven. That is exactly the role I take on in my own region — more on that in Filming in the Chiemgau, Berchtesgaden and Salzburg region.
The luggage: several collections — and a sponsor in the suitcase
Several clothing collections flew with us: the bestsellers of the brands SportScheck carries as a sports retailer. Among them was Picture Organic Clothing, my own apparel sponsor at the time. That killed two birds with one stone — the retailer gets the breadth of its range on camera, and the brand I already had an athlete contract with is in the material cleanly and without conflict.
That this must not be a coincidence but needs to be agreed in advance is a topic of its own: where an athlete contract collides with a commercial job, and how to resolve it, is covered in Athlete contracts: sponsorship, team riders and how they differ from a model contract.
The production manager was therefore not only a coordinator, but the person holding the plan for which outfit goes to which spot at which time. With several collections, changing light and a single window, that is not a side task. Underestimate it and you end up with three outfits in beautiful light and seven in grey.
The influencer side: own content instead of marketing material
In a larger campaign that works with influencers, it matters that something goes out through the creator's own channels several times — not one post, but a series. In our case that ran through a contractual agreement covering several posts and clips that I was producing for my private account anyway, and which then culminated in the "Es beginnt" campaign.
And what a brand should not do is just as important: telling the influencer what to do — and least of all handing over ready-made marketing material from the marketing department with instructions to post it exactly like that. It is the fastest way to destroy the very effect you paid for.
The right way is the opposite: the creator makes content in their own style and brands it afterwards. That is exactly how we did it. A brand guide as a frame makes sense. A finished storyboard does not.
What absolutely belongs in such an agreement is usage: how long may the brand use the clips, on which channels, in which territories, and does any of it become paid media later? That is not a detail, it is the difference between a social post and a media buy — see Model buyout explained.
My own ski lift in the garden
One of the campaign episodes I shot in my own garden — at the alpine flatshare I lived in at the time, with my own ski lift and my own funpark. That sounds like an anecdote, but it was my training ground for years.
The first lift was a Wankel lift: a petrol-driven surface lift with a Wankel engine, roughly the size of a backpack, running a 200-metre steel cable. You clipped into the moving line with metal hooks and were pulled up the slope. When that machine went into a museum as the last of its kind, I bought an electric rope lift, which I have set up every year at the first snowfall since.
Alongside it came several rails in the garden: partly welded myself, partly taken over from funpark closures in the Chiemgau. We had a very good time there with friends — and I could train on the side without buying a lift ticket for every trick.
For a brand, a setup like that is interesting for a different reason: it is a fully controllable location. No public, no lift hours, no piste service, light as you like — and you can ride a shot twenty times until it lands. My habit of building rigs myself has the same origin; I described that in more detail in Camera angles and DIY rigs.
What came next: the glacier episode in the Stubai valley
The campaign did not end with the New Zealand trip. SportScheck later took us to the glacier in the Stubai valley with a camera crew and shot another small episode there — among others with Marius Quast and other freelancers from the brand's circle.
That is the normal case for image campaigns, and the reason they pay off for both sides: a good campaign is not a single shoot but a series of episodes across a season. The expensive part — concept, look, trust within the crew — is paid for once and then used several times.
What a brand should take away from this case
What SportScheck did well: it was not too promotional. What was shown was clear emotion, a lot of face close-ups, good action, real adventure — all of it produced very cleanly. The product was present, but it was not in front. That is exactly why the content worked on the athletes' channels.
What has changed since: my sense is that UGC content pulls harder on social media today — the hand-held phone footage that creators can offer and invoice themselves. The high-gloss campaign still has its place, but it is no longer automatically what performs best in a feed.
And that creates a budget tension: when large productions are planned for pure social media content, a lot of the budget often sits with the camera crew and almost nothing with the people in front of it. That is rarely malicious, but it is a misallocation if the reach is supposed to come through the athletes' channels in the end.
The core point is the audience. You have to handle it very carefully on social media: people do not want advertising, they want to be entertained. The only thing that works is placing something underneath the surface. I see it even with my own brand BOLSTair: whenever I explain a product there, I get almost no organic views. Turn it into a funny piece of action and it runs very well. Same mechanism, smaller scale.
Planning a winter campaign for autumn? If your campaign needs winter imagery before winter arrives, there are exactly three routes: a glacier, the southern hemisphere — or last year's material. I know all three from practice and can tell you honestly which one holds up. And if it is going to be a mountain shoot in Central Europe, you can book me as performer and local in one person — what the region delivers and when is in Filming in the Chiemgau, Berchtesgaden and Salzburg region. And if a sports scene turns into a prepared action scene, Who is who on a stunt set helps to work out who is needed. Get in touch.
FAQ
Why does a sports brand shoot its winter campaign in New Zealand during the summer?
Because the campaign has to be finished before the winter range goes on sale. During the European summer there is no usable winter in Europe: on the glaciers the snow is hard and icy, the background reads rocky rather than white, and spraying powder is almost impossible to get. In the southern hemisphere it is real winter with a running lift operation. That is not wanderlust, it is seasonal inversion — and the only route to genuine winter imagery in July and August.
Who was on the SportScheck shoot in New Zealand?
A small crew: camera operator, camera assistant, a production manager who coordinated outfits, timing and spots, plus two sports models in front of the camera — myself and Ranja, a close friend from the sports scene with whom I ran freeski camps for years. The video crew came through the agency WHITE RABBIT; first contact ran through Alexandra Lang, the brand's social media manager at the time.
Where exactly was it shot?
Our base was Queenstown on New Zealand's South Island; we shot around Cardrona Alpine Resort on the Crown Range between Queenstown and Wanaka. Cardrona has the largest park and pipe facilities in the southern hemisphere, including a 22-foot superpipe, and right next to it the Arcadia freeride terrain with chutes and cliff drops. That put controlled trick imagery and adventure imagery on the same mountain.
What went wrong with the heliskiing scene?
We flew to the summit, and up there the pilot asked for our ski guide. In New Zealand you are not allowed to ski down after a heli drop without a certified guide — nobody on the crew had checked that beforehand. The shots had to be faked: ten metres next to the drop-off point instead of the full descent, then back down in the helicopter. The lesson is banal and expensive: clarify local rules before booking, not on location.
What costs more on a long-haul production than on a shoot close to home?
Three things above all: flights and excess baggage for equipment and collections, one to two days of lead time for the camera crew to check the spots, and a very tight window in which every piece of usable weather has to be taken. The item most often cut wrongly is a regional spot guide — it costs little and saves entire shooting days.
How should a brand work with influencers in a campaign?
Several times rather than once, and in the creator's handwriting rather than the marketing department's. A brand guide as a frame is useful; a finished storyboard or ready-made marketing material to repost destroys exactly what was paid for. Contractually, the number of posts, the period, the channels and the brand's later usage all need to be defined.
Can you get winter imagery on a European glacier instead?
Yes, but with limits and in a shrinking window. Realistically it runs from about September to May today. In high summer the snow is icy, the background rocky, and the spraying powder that outdoor shoots need is missing. For product and detail shots a glacier is enough; for a full adventure campaign it usually is not.
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