Learning with Louie : The MXP Interview
Sam Morishima accomplished something no other human on earth had before. He taught a Chimpanzee, named Louie, how to snowboard.
The year 2004 saw substantial growth for the snowboard industry. Kelly Clark and Danny Kass both won the US Open, taking home $20,000 each; December by Airblaster and Afterlame by Robot Food were released, both pushing the envelope of snowboard filmmaking and forever changing the world of snowboard media. Many additional snowboard films were released that fateful year in 2004, but none is more iconic than the one we’re here to talk about today. That’s right, baby. We’re talking MXP: Most Xtreme Primate
Most Xtreme Primate isn’t your average team-based, individual full parts snowboard movie. MXP is a movie that follows the story of Jack, played by Louie, a chimpanzee. When Jack gets unfortunately mistaken for a child on a school trip at the airport, he ends up separated from his family and on the wrong plane. Now, no spoilers; but Jack turns up in Colorado, where he crosses paths with Pete (played by David Douglas Drewitz), a young snowboarder, and Jay (Trevor Wright), his punk-rock older brother. While their father, Edward (Robby Benson), is away on a business trip, Pete and Jay get into all sorts of hijinx with Jack, which includes forming a family-like bond and having to gang up to outsmart two crooks and win the boarder-cross championships. To learn more about what it takes to teach a chimpanzee how to snowboard, I called up Sam Morishima, Louie’s trainer during the making of this major motion-picture.
When were you first introduced to Louie?
They called me because Greg and Carol (Lilles) had all these chimpanzees. Including these younger chimps that were able to support the family and bring in income by working on television/movies, things like that. They would bring in the money that would go to helping preserve the rest of the aging chimps, giving them a home to live out their lives. The first movie with them (Greg and Carol’s chimpanzees) wasn’t starring Louie. It was starring his older brother, Bernie, a hockey player. That was produced by the Airbud movie franchise, then followed by a sequel where he would be a skateboarder.
Anyway, one day this van pulled up in front of my house, Greg came out, opened the passenger door, and this little kid hopped out. At least who I thought was a little kid. He was all dressed up in little jeans, and a nice shirt with a baseball cap on. He jumps down, I begin to look at him closer, and it’s not a boy. It’s Louie.
How old was Louie when you first got to meet him? And how were you contacted to train him?
He was really young when I first met him, just a few years old. Maybe two or three. What happened was, one of the older chimps had gotten to the age where they became a bit more untrainable. While Louie was in that age where he was old enough to be able to learn things and be appropriately trained, and such. Anyway, they wanted to make a snowboard movie, the director of the production that is, so they asked Greg and Carol if they could get their chimps to learn to snowboard
They ended up asking a ton of people in the ski/snowboard industry who could train Louie, and no one wanted to touch training chimpanzees. Long story short, one person mentioned they knew someone who was crazy enough to do it, so they gave them my name [laughs]. We got to discussing and talking, and Greg liked the way I talked about training him. I figured Louie would be more like training a two year old. And I had taught lots of two-year-olds. So I said I would teach him just like a two year old, I believed they had about the same mental
Did that philosophy hold true?
When I say mentality, I just mean their personality. Their characteristics and attention span are that of a young child, having similar excitement when doing things. But there are a lot of things you have to be cautious about when dealing with a chimpanzee. For one, their strength is remarkable, and that’s something you always need to have in mind. They need to get along with you. Luckily, me and Louie got along really well. I mean, every time I would come to train him, he would run to me, jump on me, and give me a kiss. If you don't have that relationship they aren’t going to listen to you, or do the things you would like them to do. Similar to a young child
I feel like any movie based so heavily around an animal, safety is always the #1 concern. How was the animal rights side of things? Was Louie treated well?
Greg and Carol treated their chimpanzees like children, they had that kind of relationship with them, and you could feel that. I’ll tell you one instance when I came to their home, they had several chimps in their care. Three chimps right there in the house. Carol was sitting on the sofa reading a children's story to the smallest little chimp, one chimp was playing with the TV, and the other was just resting on the couch [chuckles]. So, it was really kind of like coming into a regular family and watching the parents with their kids. It was really quite heartwarming the way they treated their chimpanzees.
I do remember one instance, when we began shooting, there was a scene for Louie to do a cliff jump. Greg and Carol said, “Nope, we’re not going to endanger Louie on any of that stuff”. And there was an animal rights person on set, there always is when an animal is involved. The funny thing about that though was I didn’t know who she was at first. So, there was this lady always just standing around and watching, I finally had to go up and ask who she was/what she was doing on the set. She explained to me that she was there for the animal rights association, and all this stuff, but then she went on to tell me, “You know, out of all the animal movies I go and oversee, I never have to worry about Greg and Carol. They are so protective of their chimps.”
How long did you have to spend with Louie before taking him to the real slopes? What did the training process look like for him?
I believe it was about 3 months. We took it step by step, firstly, machinery. Animals do not like motors. These motors give out certain vibrations, and the chimpanzees are really sensitive to detecting these things. And for them, they view it as something to stay away from. They don’t like the frequency noise, it’s not natural. So, we couldn’t just put him on the ski deck right away, we started letting Louie get used to it as a non-machine. Let him use the equipment, and the safety bars, without it being on. He would climb all over it, just like a jungle gym. He would play with it, and play with it, over a course of several days, until he was comfortable with it. You have to have a lot of patience, it’s just like working with a child.
Eventually we got him Louie comfortable with the machine being on, and then we were able to have him feel the ski deck move. Being able to stand right there with him, hold and position him properly as the deck moved on. Which is another advantage of the ski deck. I get so many students that say, “Oh, I can’t do it on the snow, I fall” and all this, because they haven’t developed some of those fundamental skills.
Was there any “off hill” training other than the use of the ski deck?
Oh yes, we did, and the “endless slope” was only a part of it. Once we were able to be right there, in front of him, and position him while the deck was on, Louie was able to start to feel his edges. He could feel how to make it move one side to the other on the ski deck. And we were right there with him. And trying to do that on the snow. Trying to chase him, on skis or a snowboard at the same time, is way more difficult.
Once we got Louie comfortable with the ski deck and the equipment, we went out on Greg and Carol’s property where they had little hills and slopes. We got carpet, these huge carpets, to lay on the hills. Since Louie had gotten used to the ski deck, which has this sort of carpet on it, that feeling was very similar to him. But now the carpet wasn’t moving, and he was physically moving down the carpet.
Did you guys make any special modifications to Louie’s snowboard set up?
Chimpanzees don’t like to have any part of their body held, so, for instance, when they come to understand they need to put their foot into a snowboard boot. Then have that boot attached to a board. That’s kind of scary for them. That’s why I came up with the idea of using the K2 Clicker, do you remember the Clicker set up? Or are you too young?
[Laughs] No, no, I remember them
So, I used the Clicker bindings, and then I had to make him comfortable with the snowboard boots. I made it so we cut off the back of the snowboard boot, making the boot sort of slip-on, like a slipper. That way Louie could feel less restricted in the boot, and able to slide in and out. Then we could take that boot, and click it into the Clicker bindings. That was perfect because the Clicker’s didn’t have a hi-back. Those were some of the critical things we had to figure out so Louie could feel comfortable on his board
What was Louie’s first reaction to the change from the indoor slope to the real snow?
It was definitely strange for him. For one, you don’t want chimpanzees out in the cold, and they don’t want to be. They’re very sensitive to it. They can get pneumonia or a cold quite easily, it’s not their natural environment. For them, it’s more deadly. So, we had to be really cautious and Greg and Carol were very protective. But it was cool, we got a lot of little snow gear for him, and we made a special tent for him. A small, little warming tent, with a heater, to keep him warm. So every ride, one ride at a time, we would grab him, and take him into the warming tent. Along with extra clothing in case anything got wet, we could just change him out. Everything was for the safety of the chimp, that was really important
Where did Louie’s first on-snow training take place?
Well, they asked me where we should train him. I told them we needed to take Louie to a small resort. One that isn’t so crowded, and ask them if we could borrow a side hill. There were two places, Soda Springs, and Donner Ski Ranch, in Tahoe. They were small, more family oriented, and they had user-friendly slopes. And more importantly the slopes didn’t have a side slant, we just wanted something straight down, with no other off-shoots. We didn’t want Louie to have to navigate more than one slope, and Soda Springs ended up not having too-bad of a slope
We introduced him to the slope, had the warming tent and all that, and made a little run. We had Louie try it, keeping him warm and dry the whole time. We had some very nice days, so everything kind of worked out there. We would put him in a child-type harness, where we would have a little leash on him.
Did any complications arise from bringing Louie from the carpet set-up onto the snow covered slopes?
Well, the thing is, we couldn’t get him on the ski lift. It wouldn’t work with a chimpanzee. He would probably try fighting himself, or bite you to try to free himself. As we talked about earlier, they don’t like being held down. He would probably try climbing all over the lift and cables to get free. So chairlifts were out. At Soda Springs, we would have to hike, and come-down, then hike, and come-down again. And to hike up we had to carry Louie, it was a lot of work.
Norm Sayler, who was the owner of Donner Ski Ranch at that time, loved the idea of the movie. He would always tell us that the first person to ever snowboard in Tahoe was at Donner Ski Ranch. So, Norm gave us a whole ski lift, and whole slope, that they would close-off from the public for Louie to use. But we couldn’t use a ski lift as I said, so he gave us access to a snowmobile with a carriage on the back. Now, this was very important, we had to make the length of the carriage twice as long, to keep Louie at a comfortable distance away from the motor. That became our private lift.
How long did you guys spend with Louie at Soda Springs and Donner Ski Ranch before taking him off to the movie set?
That was only, like, a couple weeks or so, three weeks at the longest maybe, then we took him up to Vancouver to be on set.
Are you impressed how fast Louie learned compared to even some human beginners?
No, it’s about the same [laughs]. The only problem with humans is we develop bad habits. And that’s what prevents someone from learning faster, because you have to overcome your habits. Well, a chimp adapts very quickly. It could be that teaching a chimpanzee was actually a little faster, because they don’t have any biases. And their fear factor is much less than humans, especially a young chimpanzee. They can handle a lot of things that we may consider dangerous or painful. Of course I’m just speculating, I’m not a chimp psychologist or anything [laughs]
Did Louie excel at anything in particular when it came to snowboarding?
You have to be concerned with the way your student deals with fears, as I mentioned earlier. Things that turn them on/off so to speak. Louie was no different. Working with him really just showed me how intelligent he was, and how quickly he could learn. Once, we even got him to run a slalom course. Because, edging. He was able to do his heel edge no problem, and all his practice on the carpet and ski deck made him more comfortable with moving over to his toe edge. All his training started to kick in.
Louie just took on things very quickly, and a lot would bother him like it would bother a human being. A human being you would have to talk-into going down a steeper slope, or something like that, where Louie would just be like, “Sure, I’ll do that”. But, with that, they are also very in-tune to their environment.
For instance, we knew Louie loved to take air. It was wonderful [chuckles]. So, one time we were trying to practice his aerials, and we built this jump on this little steeper hill. We would start him, he would come down toward the jump, but then something weird would happen. He kept coming down right up to the lip of the jump, but then he would do a heel edge and just stop. We would take him back up to the top, have him ride down, and then he would stop again. All anyone could keep thinking or saying is, “Well, why does he keep stopping in front of the jump?” Greg had the idea to get down on the ground to the height that Louie was at and look at the jump, and he goes, “Oh, I know what’s wrong. If you look at it from his height, he can’t tell that there is a landing”. Louie wouldn’t just jump off into oblivion. So, what we did was just move the jump so that he could see the landing, and he took right off. When he was up in the air, on his snowboard, he looked just like Michael Jordan doing a dunk I thought [laughs]
Those were definitely some of my favorite shots in the movie as a kid, just seeing this small chimpanzee flying through the air on a snowboard– or even that scene where he just rides the picnic table. I don’t know if it’s the fear we talked about earlier, but even some humans struggle with that.
I know [laughs]. He took that picnic table like a boss, man.
[Laughs] Yes, he did
They had a couple professional snowboarders (Bjorn Leines included) that were in the movie. One of them was the one to suggest having Louie ride the picnic table. You know, once Louie got that feel, he was able to get in-tune with his board. He knew his edges. He knew his forward balance as well as his lateral movements. For him, it was more natural. His balance was dead-on over the board, he knew how to work his center of mass. And because of his leverages with his prehensile feet, he was able to do a really good grip and edge better. As mentioned earlier, we took away a lot of mechanical leverage from his snowboard that us humans use
Do you have a favorite memory from working with Louie? Any standout stories?
His affection was really cool, because his older brother, I wouldn’t even get near him. Just the differences in personality. Louie’s brother, you know who he reminded me of? He’d be like the Brad Pitt of chimpanzees, really strong and good looking. You know what I mean? He definitely didn’t have as friendly a personality as Louie.
Another neat event that comes to mind is I remember a time before filming, at Donner Ski Ranch. We were supposed to be secluded and isolated, way in the back. Apparently a couple snowboarders heard there was a chimp being trained that day, so these kids just hiked up an across facing ridge. These boarders just sat up on the ridge across us, looking down, and anytime Louie would get on the board they would be yelling, screaming, and cheering, just really excited to watch this chimpanzee board. And I always thought that was really cool, they were all just rooting for Louie.
Do you have a favorite scene in the movie?
One that comes to mind is when Louie rode down the stairs in the movie, inside the house. I thought that was really cool [laughs]. That just showed us how good Louie was at being on-top of a snowboard. He could adjust his balance and be over that board. Even on bumpy terrain, like a staircase. I tell you, now that you bring this up, my memory is starting to kick-in. As well as my feelings. It really was a remarkable opportunity for me. When I was working with Greg, Carol, and the chimpanzees, it was a really wonderful, heartwarming period. Everything was about the care of each other, and the strong caring of the chimpanzees. And you could tell the chimpanzees felt just as strongly for Greg and Carol, even me. It was a perfect harmony.
