The soundtrack is what makes a ski film what it is. The music sets the mood; it has the power to build up the energy of a segment, or quiet an entire crowd at a premiere. In addition to the custom produced theme music of the film’s intro, Level 1 brought a diverse soundtrack to their film “Habit.” The 1970s-PBS-special inspired storyline for the film leads off both visually and musically, as the audience gets brought in to learn about the dangerous addiction we all share: skiing. The nostalgic informational tone drops quickly as Keegan Killbride to the tune of Vince Staples drops into a heavy urban segment. Each of the film’s songs continues on to tell the central story of the skier's individual parts and their contribution to the central theme of skiing habit formation.

Director Josh Berman says that choosing the soundtrack is one of the biggest challenges that the Level 1 team faces every winter. Seeking the input of everyone from the skiers to the interns, the soundtrack is one of the final pieces of the film to get set. This year, songs were getting changed out up to a couple of days before the world premiere. Berman told us about the process saying, “Ultimately, fit is all about the style and mood. Does it feel right.... For example, we used a song in one of the segments this year that was a very lofi punk track from the late 70s in the UK. It was the only recording that existed of this song, it was a shitty recording, but it was a great song. It was in the movie until about four days before the world premiere. We had all accepted that the quality sucked, and it was going to be that way. Once we mastered the rest of the soundtrack it really stood out like a sore thumb. It potentially put more focus on the quality of the recording than the skiing… so it got cut.” Check out the full list of tracks from Habit here:

   

Level 1's " Habit" Tracklist by Segment: