Kim Schneider, 53, Warren Miller's chief editor, crafts the movie all summer in the company's Boulder office, rarely sleeping.

When he does, it's in a van down by the river.

JB: Is it true you live in a van?
KS: When I'm here?

Yeah.
Did you see the van out there?

The van... down by the river?
That's home. It's 50 feet from my editing suite. But when I'm not here, I live in Sun Valley. This was after I moved down from Alaska to Los Angeles to work for Warren Miller. That was my dream since I was 12. After a year of my dream job, I couldn't deal with finding a parking spot in Los Angeles. But now that Rachel, my [Boulder, Colorado-based] girlfriend, is out of town, I live in the van.

Then what's the deal with the lady mannequin? Rachel leaves town for 10 minutes and out comes the doll?
You're going to make me a freak in this interview. Don't print that.

I won't. I just think mannequins are terrifying.
This one is art. [Picks up dismembered mannequin part.] This is Cookie's hand.

Cookie?
Cookie is her name. She's art. Look at this stuff [points to boxes of ancient computers and broken circuit boards.] It's junk. I'm not so sure. I take the bottoms of VCRs and turn them into picture frames. [Points to the wall.]

Hmm. That's actually nice.
Yeah. It's art out of junk. Like Cookie.

How'd you get into making ski movies?
I just knew I would. I made little index cards with ideas for ski movies back then. I still have them somewhere. I was making movies on super 8 when I was young. Now my two sons, Kyle and Travis, work with me on this project. One sources music, the other gets my raw files together. They taught me everything I know. But they didn't teach me everything they know.

How'd you get the job with Warren Miller?
I was living in my truck in the Heavenly Valley parking lot in 1974. There was a freestyle comp I was shooting. One day, I stayed late and only a few shooters were left. Then, behind me, I heard a voice. The voice. It said, "Did you get anything good?" Warren was standing behind me. We skied down to my truck in the parking lot. "This is yours?" he asked. I said yeah. He said, "I used to live in a trailer." I said, "I know." Right there, it was a done deal. It didn't matter if I knew anything about movies. He asked to see my movie anyway.

So it was the truck that did it?
Yeah. That, and because I carried a spare projector bulb. Then I offered to work for free. He insisted on paying me. And I've edited Warren Miller films for 29 years.

Is this why you only sleep 15 minutes a day?
That's an exaggeration. But sometimes, like yesterday, 15 minutes is generous. I started work on Sunday morning at 7 a.m. I went to bed on Monday night around nine. But look at me. I'm old. I can't do that anymore. I gotta cut it off sometimes.

For a guy who's so tech-savvy, why do you have thousands of CDs in here? Why don't you upload everything?
It's getting there. It's not the biggest collection in the world but there's probably no more than 5,000 CDs. I've got two Warren Miller interns on the uploading project. They're up to a terabyte of data right now. I don't think they're halfway yet.

How do you keep them organized?
They're alphabetical. I need to keep them organized because I think of songs for movie segments. I've got a lot of time to think about this. Know what I do when I finish making the movie?

Does it involve the mannequin?
No. I'm one of the projectionists on the film tour.

You don't have to do that.
I don't. But I love it. I love watching the people watching it. I end up seeing the movie a hundred times. I could read or do something else but I don't. I just love watching skiers and their rhythm. We have the best cinematographers in the world, and they get incredible footage. If you put the right song with the right images, I could loop it in my brain forever.