Candide Thovex’s One of Those Days 2 puts the viewer right behind the ski tips of one of the most gifted freeskiers of his generation. Released in January 2015 and shot on a GoPro, the short film follows the Frenchman through jumps, drops, tree runs and an ice cave, and it reached millions of viewers within days.
The film is a sequel to Thovex’s first One of Those Days edit, and our main film introduction covers its playful spirit. Here we look at the skier behind it and at why the point-of-view format works so well.
Who is Candide Thovex?
Thovex was born in Annecy, in the French department of Haute-Savoie, on 22 May 1982, and grew up in the ski village of La Clusaz in the Aravis range. He became one of the first stars of modern freestyle skiing:
- 2000: Big Air gold at the Winter X Games at Mount Snow, Vermont.
- 2001: Halfpipe and Big Air wins at the X Games in Australia.
- 2003: Superpipe gold at the Winter X Games in Aspen.
- 2007: Slopestyle gold in Aspen with a record score of 95 out of 100.
- 2010: overall winner of the Freeride World Tour.
He has also topped Powder magazine’s annual readers’ poll four times, including three years in a row from 2017 to 2019. His 2012 film Few Words won Powder Awards for best male performance, best documentary and best cinematography.
One of Those Days 2: a GoPro ski film that went viral
The film starts as an ordinary day at his home resort: Thovex clicks into his skis and heads up the mountain. What follows is a fast, fluid sequence of airs, flips, bumps, gaps through trees and a run through a hidden ice cave, all seen from his own head height. Media in Ireland and the United States wrote about it within days of its release, and ski.com reported about 5.7 million views in its first four days.
The clip is an edit of many runs, joined so smoothly that it feels like one descent. Look for what carries your eye across each cut: the ski tips, the direction of travel or a feature rushing towards the lens. That rhythm is as much a part of the craft as the skiing itself.
Why point-of-view skiing footage works
With the skis close to the lens, the viewer has a fixed reference point inside a scene that never stops moving. Snow and trees near the camera sweep across the frame quickly, while distant peaks change slowly. That contrast creates a strong sense of depth and speed.
A wide-angle action camera also flattens slopes and stretches distances, so steep pitches can look gentler and jumps can look shorter than they are. Expert skiers often find the real terrain more serious than it appears on screen. For a case where the camera’s narrow view becomes especially important, compare our analysis of Sorin Radu’s helmet-camera footage.
Thovex’s films after 2015
The series continued with One of Those Days 3, released in early 2016. In December 2015 Thovex produced, directed and starred in a film for the Audi Q7 quattro, skiing on dirt, grass and asphalt with no snow at all. It drew about a million views on its first day and won two prizes at the 2016 Top/Com Grands Prix. A follow-up, “Ski the World”, appeared in January 2017. In 2023 he launched his own ski brand, Candide Skis.
Want to try a little of it yourself? Ski freestyle in a marked terrain park, start on small features and build up slowly. Off-piste lines like the ones in the film belong to riders with avalanche training and local knowledge.
Related reading
- A Steep Skiing Line on Video
- 10 Ski-Holiday Bases: Alpine Towns, Japan and North America
- Robbie Maddison’s Drop In: A Motorcycle Meets a Ski-Jumping Venue
- Afterglow: Skiing Written in Light
- Peter Oswald and the Sheep: A Rescue Photographed in New Zealand
- Ten Ways to Make a Ski Season More Memorable
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