Kevin Pearce debuts HBO documentary "The Crash Reel," chronicling his struggle with a Traumatic Brain Injury![Image and video hosting by TinyPic]()
Kevin and his mom, PiaKevin Pearce was not only an Olympic hopeful but some believed he might knock Shaun White -- the king of the snowboarders -- off the gold medal podium in 2010.
That all changed on Dec. 31, 2009, when Pearce crashed during a training run in Park City, Utah.Besides the injuries to his body, Peace would lapse into a coma. When he awoke, he was obviously not the same athlete but also not the same person.
Told he could die if he went back to his sport, Pearce was adamant that he would return.
The Crash Reel, a new documentary from writer-director Lucy Walker (Monday, HB0, 9 p.m. ET) details Pearce's rise, fall and rise again and how Pearce, with the help of his family and friends, carves out a new place for himself.
That now includes the Kevin Pearce Fund to aid others with brain injuries or Down Syndrome.
Besides doing her own filming, Walker got footage from 232 different people to tell Pearce's story.
Walker and Pearce talked with USA TODAY Sports' Reid Cherner about the upcoming documentary.
Kevin, this is your life. How do you think the film was able to capture it?Kevin Pearce: I waited 'til Sundance for the first time to see it and I didn't really have any input on the making of it. And didn't really have any idea how it was going to turn out. It felt like a pretty big risk to take to let someone tell the entire story of your life over a 1½-hour period of time. I am just so thankful it turned out so well.
As a director there are a lot of great ideas on paper that don't turn out to be cinematic. What about this story appealed to you as a director?Lucy Walker: Everything. I was lucky enough to spend four days with Kevin. That is how it began. My initial feeling was it wouldn't be a film I wanted to make . . . then I realized there was ongoing drama galore.
Because he was going to have to quit snowboarding. If he did it again he would die. And this was profoundly troubling and completely compelling. You just wanted to find what was going to happen. Was he going to give up something he loved more than anything or was he going to go back to it and crash and die? I mean you have to find out. You were drawn to him and you wanted to find out what happened next.
Did you find watching the film painful, or having lived it were you okay watching your struggle?KP:
The intense part for me was to watch what my parents and what my family had to go through and what I put them through. But for me, living it, it wasn't that hard for me to watch the stuff I went through. But the stuff that everyone else had to go through because of what I did, that was so hard for me.
Were there things you didn't like or wish had not been in the movie?KP: No. It was more me sounding like an idiot. That was me just not wanting to watch myself. I guess that's pretty normal. For the most part I was happy with all the stuff that was put in there.
As a director did you have any fears in making this documentary?LW:T
here was a long period of time where I thought I was filming someone who was committing suicide. And Kevin would get really badly hurt again because he was at such grave risk. I had no idea how it was going to turn out. I was very worried for a very long time, a year, that we wouldn't have a happy
ending. I didn't care about the movie, I just cared about Kevin. No one was more surprised at how it turned out (while filming). We didn't see how it was going to turn out. You see Kevin fighting to get his career back. There is so much character arc, there is so much story because he's on such a difficult, long journey. But he really grows up with the twists and turns. I was so surprised at how much he would grow before our very eyes. And how much of that we were able to capture. It was privilege to witness and I was surprised at how much there was to witness.
What do you hope people get out of this film?KP: I hope this doesn't sound cliché but I hope that people can see from the film that anything's possible. Anything you put your mind to, your brain to and anything you put all your energy into you can accomplish. A wish can come true.
No matter how hard it is or what the situation is you do have hope and you do know you can come back.LW: I'll tell you what. I can't stop watching the movie. And normally when you are a filmmaker you watched it so many times in making it . . . but this one I must confess I'm just shocked how beautifully it came out. I'm just so grateful that I met Kevin . . . I'm so glad I got to know him and realized what an important film we could make together. When you are a filmmaker you can work really hard on things and they don't come out as thrilling as this one came out. . . . there were so many shots where we said "wow." My hunch that this would be a good film was the best hunch I ever had . . .
We just kept turning to each other saying "this is a movie scene", this is the kind of scene you dream about when you are filming because it is so important and so intense, so completely absorbing. I'm just so grateful I met Kevin . . . I'm surprised how hard it is to tell people how good of a film this is because people that watch it go, "oh, my God it's the best film ever." We get this amazing response but it's tough to tell people what it's about. It doesn't sound like it's going to be the best documentary ever. Kevin's story has it all and we were able to put it together in a way that people are going to be sucked in and have the ride of a lifetime.
if you have HBO, you can watch the film online: http://www.hbogo.com/#home/video&assetID=GOROSTGP40338?videoMode=embeddedVideo?showSpecialFeatures=false/
it's AMAZING and you will definitely cry at some pointShaun White hits NYC for appearances on David Letterman and the Today Show to promote the 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS in Sochi, Russia.![Image and video hosting by TinyPic]()
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When Shaun White straps on his snowboard for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, there will be less hair tucked under his helmet, and a different obstacle in his path.The two-time Olympic gold medalist is best known for his aerial acrobatics in the half-pipe competition, but
he will also compete in the new snowboard slopestyle event that has been added for the Sochi Olympics.
“What’s fun about the Olympics is that there’s a new discipline,’’ White said on TODAY Tuesday. “Every time you see me in the Olympics, it’s been in the half-pipe, but the new event is called slopestyle.
It’s basically a series of jumps in one run and some rail features you slide on, and you make your way down and you basically do as many tricks as you can on those jumps.”
White, 26, has dominated the half-pipe event, winning gold in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics and becoming the first man to ever score a perfect 100 in the event at the Winter X Games in 2012. But slopestyle presents a new challenge.
“I’m all right at it,’’ he said. “I do like to compete in both events, though. It’s fun.”
White’s ability to innovate and master tricks that no one else has tried has kept him at the forefront of the sport.
“I recently was dreaming about snowboarding, and I thought of this new rotation to put on an existing trick that I already have, but it’s random,’’ he said. “You’re setting out to do something and by accident you create a new trick.”
White not only has a new discipline to tackle at the Olympics, he also has a new look. The long red hair that earned him the nickname “The Flying Tomato’’ has been shorn.
In December 2012, he had his hair cut off for Locks of Love, a charity that gives wigs to underprivileged children who have lost their hair for medical reasons.“It was a tough call, but it was a good cause,’’ White said. “It was 12 to 13 inches long, a lot of weight. I can go higher (on the half-pipe) now.”
While White has been involved in various charities and even had his band, Bad Things, signed by Warner Bros. Records last month, his attention is now completely on getting ready for Sochi.
"I'm really excited, it's just one of those things where everything around my life right now is focused on the Olympics,'' he said. "It's a really good feeling that it's coming up, and I think I'm prepared."
He is the heavy favorite to make it three straight gold medals in the half-pipe competition.
“It’s something to strive for to live up to,’’ he said. “I like the pressure.”
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