The Inside Scoop – “SOULSTAR”

Hunter Hess and Owen Dahlberg give us a behind the scenes look at their latest film “Soulstar”

Producer, filmer and editor, Owen Dahlberg, on shooting Soulstar:

Dahlberg – This is a very special project for me. Hunter and I put a lot of thought into every clip, making sure we were only getting shots we were really hyped on! Honored to have witness one of best friends push himself to the limit!

Hunter Hess and Owen Dahlberg

Where did the name Soulstar come from?

Hess – SOULSTAR doesn’t really mean anything ahha. We just thought it sounded sick. We found the name from a mix we would listen too a lot while fimling (the mix was by Knxwledge). Owen and I always talk music, especially while filming. When we were talking names we stumbled across SOULSTAR and thought it sounded tough. We also used the song he mixed for the credits in SOULSTAR (but the original version). So shoutout to Knxwledge, we love you. 

What’s the story behind the uHaul van?

Hess – The U-haul clip idea I had for a while. We were looking for a spot where you could grind something and then hit a moving car (not a super easy spot to find haha).

We had found the bridge in Government Camp during a Hood trip. We thought it looked pretty good but maybe there would be a better spot later down the line (there wasn’t). This particular Oregon trip was very unsuccessful so we were real hungry to get something done. The day before the U-haul clip we actually built a jump on Hood. The day kinda slipped away from us and we ended up not being able to hit it because of lightning. We drove back down to Bend (about 2 hours south). We got up the next morning at 5 am, got our shit together, and drove back up to Hood. We hiked up to the jump and did some final adjustments. It only took a few hours to get a shot we were happy with. It was actually the dub flat spin blunt on the hip in SOULSTAR. By the time we were done, it was only noon. We knew there was some snow in Govy so we went and scopped the bridge. After a bit of debating we decided it looked doable and it would be worth a shot. It was starting to rain, there was some heavy weather moving in, and the day wasn’t getting any younger. We were on a bit of a time crunch. Owen decided to pulled the biggest of dog moves and stayed at the spot to work on the build (solo). Paul and I drove down 30min to go rent the U-haul. It was a pretty funny little store attached to this gas station. We told the employee we were were helping a friend move out. Probably 20 minuets later we were on our way back up to Govy.  By the time we made it back Owen had pretty much finished the spot (again, he was solo!). It took a few tries and a couple of readjustments but we dialed everything in pretty quickly. We probably got the shot within an hour or so. Luckily, there weren’t really many issues at all. Once we got the clip we all packed in the truck and drove back down. We dropped off the U-haul and started the journey back to Bend. I definitely drove more that day than I skied. Just that day alone, made our Oregon trip worth it. We called that clip the $100 clip haha. That U-halu rental was $106 🙂