PRO-Files: Gimbal God

When You’re Not Scared to Dream

INTERVIEW: ALBA PARDO

From viral follow-cams to full-blown big mountain productions, Spencer “Gimbal God” Whiting has built a career on hustle, risk, and relentless creativity.

Spencer emerged with a GoPro in hand and a knack for chasing friends down massive park jumps in mesmerizing follow-cam clips. A decade later, he’s behind some of snowboarding’s most striking visuals, blending edgy POV shots with cinematic backcountry projects, all while running his own production company.

His path has taken him from editing “StåleLIFE” and viral park edits to brand campaigns and major contests. But behind the hype are sleepless truck-life nights, glacier missions, burnout, and loss – and one thread tying it all together: he never stopped dreaming.

Let’s start with this past season. What have you been up to?

2025 has kind of been “able to do anything, committed to nothing.” I didn’t have much locked in with specific riders, so I just chased the sun. December was truck life, January was contests, and then Brandon Davis and I went to Alaska for what started as a GoPro trip. That turned into camping on a glacier for 13 days with John Jackson and Mason Lemery. It was a last-minute thing, four years in the making, and it feels like the start of something bigger. We’ve got the footage, but we don’t really have a plan yet.

That sounds very exciting, and we will keep an eye out to see what’s coming.  

People know you for your follow-cams, but your work has evolved a lot. How do you describe what you do now?

These days it’s a little bit of everything – therapy, editing, producing, filming. You don’t need to be the best at one thing, just okay at a lot.

If you asked me on the street, I’d say I’m a filmmaker with a production company. 2025 makes ten years of running it. Early on, it was me paying $800 a year not knowing what for. Then I started working with Ståle [Sandbech], got some deals, and realized it was good to have the structure.

The last five years it’s been, whoa. I hire people, I have multiple clients, I’ve got payroll. Sometimes I front the money myself. You might do the trip in January, but the paycheck doesn’t land until April. So you take out loans, play with the cashflow, and make it happen.

Back in the DVD days, you could sell a film and get paid. Now it’s brand deals, YouTube, Patreon, merch. I’ve even got a color-grading course on my site. There are so many routes, but yeah – surface level, I’m a filmmaker. Underneath, it’s 27 years of not giving up on wanting to snowboard every winter.

From the outside, it looks like you’re just living the dream – epic trips, beautiful imagery, constant momentum. But what are the biggest challenges?

People don’t see the grind. Sleeping in cars. Running on three hours of sleep. Fronting money I don’t have. Dealing with bad weather, egos, sponsors, logistics….

Burnout’s been real. Some years it was physical – at X Games I was working for 11 different people, sleeping maybe one or two hours a night, then riding live for the events. Other times, it was financial pressure or the weight of putting out proper film projects.

What keeps me sane is journaling. I’ve been doing it since 2015. I write the date, where I am, and the first five words that come to mind. When I look back, I see goals I wrote down years ago – like camping in Alaska with John J – and realize I made them happen. That perspective helps when the self-doubt creeps in.

People often describe you as a hustler. Do you identify with that?

The first time I got called that, I was 17 or 18. A company offered me $100, I told them it was $400 and explained why. The guy said, “You’re a hustler – I like that.” At first I took offense, but now I get it.

I love making things happen. I love taking pressure off riders. I’ll handle the logistics, I’ll click record – you just ride. My favorite thing is to line everything up so the crew can just show up and do what they do best.  If it works, sick. If it doesn’t, we do it again.

You’ve also blurred the lines between filmer, producer, and entrepreneur. That’s unusual in snowboarding.

Yeah, maybe entrepreneur is a better title. I’ve always pushed into spaces people weren’t going. You can replicate the shots, but I try not to box myself in. That means a lot of failure, but once you’re not scared of failing, you’re dangerous.

I’ve learned that life is basically one big tree run – you hit obstacles, pivot when something doesn’t work, find high points, and just keep sending it.

How do you balance the creative and the business side?

I’m a nerd with numbers. I actually studied finance before dropping out to film full-time, and it helps. Snowboarding is romanticized, but the reality is that you need capital. Trips don’t happen without money.

Sometimes I’ll take out loans to fund projects, knowing sponsors won’t pay for months. It’s risky, but it’s also why I can pull off things other people can’t. Most people don’t want to front $100,000, but that’s what it takes sometimes.

“Just don’t be scared to f***ing dream.” – Spencer ‘Gimbal God’ Whiting

How do you keep your creativity alive under that pressure?

My “power hour” is 3 to 4:30 a.m. I’ll wake up, journal, voice-record ideas, and start editing. I think most people are scared to start. I’m a procrastinator too, but I’ve learned that once you begin, you’ve got to finish.

Things are only as good as they’re done. If I wait too long, the moment passes. Especially with social media, what you post today might matter, but tomorrow it’s gone. The trick is to keep moving, stay relentless, and finish what you start.

Do you ever feel burnt out on that relentless pace?

Every year, yeah. Back in the day, it was editing all night. Then it became financial stress. Pressure to deliver. More recently, it’s been like, “What the f*** am I even doing?”

And then there’s the loss. So many good friends of mine have passed – this year and in years before. A lot of the time, I feel like I’m just out here doing my thing for them. It reminds me how fragile this is, and that I’ve got to keep pushing.

Burnout comes in stages. But I’ve learned to slow down sometimes, surround myself with people outside snowboarding, and get back to basics. Journaling helps. Training helps. Last year, I was probably the most depressed I’d been in a long time, so I just forced myself into the gym. Once you train your mind to suffer, everything else feels easier.

Looking ahead, what’s next for you?

Honestly, the dream is to get to May without the fatigue I’ve had the past couple of years. I want to take more control of my YouTube, create more project-based work, and maybe bring brands together for bigger collaborations.

I’ve got refundable tickets to Chile, New Zealand, and Australia. Whether I use them or not depends on how things unfold, but I like having options. It’s always about keeping momentum.

You once wrote in your journal about dreams. Can you share that philosophy?

Back in 2015, I wrote “Dreams. This word has always intrigued me. By definition, a dream can have many meanings: A state of mind in which someone seems to be unaware of their immediate surroundings; a cherished aspiration, ambition, or an unrealistic or self-deluding fantasy; a person or thing perceived as wonderful or perfect.

What catches my interest most about dreams is [that it’s] only a dream until it’s made into a reality. I’ve lived most of my life focused on what happens or how to achieve certain tasks. And almost all of my stress in life has come from worrying about why or how. However, I’ve settled on my perfect answer for how to get shit done: don’t worry about why or how and just go out and do what you need to do to achieve your dreams. If you’re standing at point A and want to get to point B, it’s quite simple. Figure out what vehicle you want to drive to get there.

If you have the motivation to succeed in life and the dedication to pursue your passion, then it’s quite simple: you just need to stay hungry and let that hunger drive you towards achieving your dreams.”

That was September 17, 2015. If I were gonna sum up my career in just two paragraphs, it’d be “Just don’t be scared to f***ing dream. And it’s point A to point B. Sometimes it’s a Tacoma, sometimes it’s a Turbo 75, and sometimes it’s a Eurocopter B3. You figure out the logistics that it takes to go from here to there, and in figuring out those logistics, you’ll probably get there.”

Final words of advice?

Don’t be scared to dream. Everyone can give up, but it’s always worth it to push through the suffering, even if it sucks for a while. You’ll learn more from failing than from playing it safe.

At the end of the day, it’s about having the best possible time with your friends, family, and loved ones. The rest are just fun tickets.