Murray Siple is a thrillseeker, though he never knew it could come from bombing down a North Vancouver street at ridiculous speed in a stolen shopping cart driven by a drunken homeless character. Siple grew up in B.C., specifically Kamloops.

When he graduated high school, he moved straight to Vancouver alongside all his friends pursuing degrees and trade certificates but Murray settled down to work at a logging trailer factory. A year into life at a factory and there was a realization he'd made the wrong choice and revisited where his career strengths were at.

He knew he could draw and was fascinated by making pause-tapes off the radio and recording TV samples on VHS, the results always exciting when played back for friends at parties. He decided to go to Emily Carr and was accepted, though he never thought he'd go into film. Like structured at Emily Carr, he went through an expected learning of the foundation art skills. Photography was a clear strength but he "always ended up bored with just a static image". The film and video program and its huge selection of equipment and possibilities became a serious dedication leading him into experimental films, film sculptures, audio and video installations.

By accident or maybe luck, in his fourth year, he hesitantly accepted an offer from a friend to make a snowboard commercial for a local manufacturer, with free clothes and heli-boarding as perks. He left Emily Carr and moved to Whistler to pursue a new calling in a rapidly developing industry.

After a succesful whirlwind of four years traveling internationally and documenting the world's best snow and skateboarders, Siple returned to Kamloops for Thanksgiving to take a pause from the craziness of the Whistler party scene. Ironically that weekend he ran into a few acquaintances (traveling through Kamloops from Whistler) at a local pub. He accepted an invite to listen to a ridiculous stereo in their car and was unaware of the drugs and alchol consumed earlier by the driver.

By the time Siple crammed his 6'2 frame into the back seat of sports car the tires were chirping and the passenger in front of him got caught in the seatbelt before being able to shut the door. A dose of 100km/hr acceleration and a few seconds later the car hit a barrier was launching inverted on a flight 40 feet down to the Trans Canada Highway. Siple and the car landed upside down breaking his neck on impact. After a night of unspeakable medical negligence, the night had left him a quadraplegic.

Siple was air ambulanced out of Kamloops back to Vancouver for spinal cord rehab and was determined to continue film making "Directors sit in a chair, right?" (laughs). He completed a film from his Emily Carr days, 'Kronen Strasse,' shot in Germany about his Grandmother living in a 16th century row house in her final days.

The 16mm film, only in need of editing, was a way for Siple to reconnect to film and more importantly what subjects were truly importantant to him. "I still have a huge amount of remorse for shelving her film and pursuing snowboarders flinging themselves in the air instead" he adds. The film made the festival circuit and affirmed his pursuit of a career as a filmmaker. In 2008, he made the iconic 'Carts of Darkness' for the National Film Board. It went on to win accolades and the title of Best Documentary at the 2009 Leo Awards. People constantly ask him if he misses snowboarding, an obvious inquiry. For Murray Siple, there's always a way to find a thrill.

Tell me about your initial break into making snowboard videos. It's gigantic right now. Did you know at the time it would be so big?

Yeah, when I was a snowboarder in Kamloops (circa 1986), we knew that snowboarding was fresh territory and punk as hell for a sport. After a few years of being subject of art critiques at Emily Carr it was refreshing to find a new audience in snowboarding. The footage that we shot that first night in Whistler was a revelation. Everybody was throwing their hands in the air. They were so excited, and we were making them all rock stars.

The scene in Whistler really took off, and the lifestyle and videos became more and more popular. I went to trade shows and sponsors who didn't know anything about me as a filmmaker were throwing money at me. After four years of that party lifestyle and risking my life as fun as that was, I'd almost had enough. My distributor went tits-up after a bad change in business plans, I didn't get paid for my last film, and I decided to take a break and move back to Kamloops. I knew I was an artist, but I was getting caught up in the commercial snowboard world.

How do you see yourself as a filmmaker?

Well, I don't really see myself as a filmmaker or part of the film industry because I have so many other pursuits. I built and designed my house (along with architects Acton Ostry), for instance, doing my own drawings every day in each season so I could see how light affected the house. When people come here, they are subjected to a sort of 'film' of mine.

I think architecture is more like film than people realize because light is so important. It's tough these days making films, as there's so much organizational stuff to do technically and beaurocratically, and the actual filmmaking suffers. I'm always drawn back to fine art after months doing nothing but pushing buttons. I'm currently gutting my edit studio and bringing in oil paints and canvas just to get back to tangible art making.

How did 'Carts of Darkness' happen? Where did you get the idea?

I actually met a couple of the characters in Carts at the grocery store. I got to thinking about how the other customers saw us as stereotypes, them with their carts of bottles and me in the wheelchair, and I found myself siding with these shirtless, drunken homeless dudes. People tend to take a group like the homeless and put them all in one category and treat them all the same, but you can't.

I'd originally intended Carts to be a Youtube clip and was jokingly calling it 'Bum Carts,' but it ended up a full-fledged National Film Board film. It's now the third most-viewed NFB film ever. People are amazed they can watch it for free on the internet. The concept is brilliant and long overdue. I'm amazed that people will watch a one-hour film on their computer (laughs), but they are and it's truly amazing and awesome that they do.

Is 'Carts' indicative of the kind of films you want to make?

I want to make the kind of films where I'm involved beyond directing and actually a part of it. Where I'm not just an outsider pretending it's something cool to document. That's how I ended up in the cart at the end of Carts. There was no other way to finish it. Make the film "with" them not "about" them. With documentaries on the rise, people are developing more appreciation for reality (laughs).

What's next for you?

I debate daily on continuing on with film even though I've got another idea in the works. I haven't picked one thing to settle on, though I haven't had much opportunity to work with actors, so I'd like to explore that. I do feel as though I'm always editing and gathering info in some form. It's not structured editing, I'm just trying to make mixes all the time, trying to put things together to see what fits. It kind of rules my life too much. For now I'm on a break with an exclamation on nurturing myself.

What is it about Vancouver that makes it such an interesting place to be a filmmaker?

The weather is a major factor here. I'm currently writing about and studying Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). In the film I want to make next, there would be a character affected by SAD. It's temperate here, but that doesn't account for the darkness. I'd like to make a film where the weather is a character. It's a villain that people won't acknowledge. In other [Canadian] cities, it's freezing cold but sunny. People have relationships with their shadows. Here you wake up and have to turn lights on. The industry here lights everything, too, and does everything it can to make it look like it's not like it actually is. But there's beauty in all that darkness.

What would you like to say to aspiring filmmakers wanting to work in Vancouver?

Film is a young medium, that's why I went into it. There's all this room for experimentation. You can take a swipe at something nobody else has ever tried. When stories repeat themselves, it's painful. There's a huge hole for someone to fill about a film about Vancouver, something Vancouver can be recognized for. I'm not saying that nobody's made it yet, but no-one's taken it to the international level that people can reference the city through that film. I hope I have the opportunity to do that. I hope someone does, because it's just sitting there. You need to do it and think about the consequences later.