Friday, December 7, 2012

The Art of Flight

Yesterday, I watched The Art of Flight (2011) on Netflix. This movie, directed by Curt Morgan, stars snowboarder Travis Rice and friends and highlights riders from the Red Bull team and others  as they take on unknown territory around the world and conquer the biggest mountains known to man. I've never snowboarded and the last time I went skiing was when I was about 13 years old but this is one of my favorite movies. The cinematography is amazing and there were many risks during the filming. For example, the riders ventured to a mountain in Patagonia that was known as a place "where the devil lives" and they only had forty minutes to make a run before the helicopter gas ran out. The crew had to film quickly and on the way back, they had to swim across a freezing river to get back to a safe place where the helicopter could pick the up. The riders invent new tricks and some get severely injured along the way. The film is amazing and although you may not appreciate snowboarding, you will appreciate the cinematography and the riders' stories about why they do what they do. The soundtrack includes many epic, full sounding songs that allow the viewer to feel the adrenaline that the riders experience. The movie took three years to make and it is one of my favorite movies as of yesterday.

I used to be an avid skateboarder, although I wasn't any good, and I religiously watched skateboarding movies. I stopped skateboarding when I realized everyone around me was getting better while I was the same and I switched over to filming my skilled friends. It's extremely difficult to film skateboarding because sometimes, you only get one shot to capture the trick and everything has to be perfect. Like The Art of Flight, some skateboard videos can be appreciated for their cinematography and directing even if you don't like skateboarding. Below are some of my favorite skateboard video scenes...

Lakai's Fully Flared Intro
These are some of my good friend's videos he filmed/edited. I hope to collaborate with him at some point in the near future.
https://vimeo.com/53915756 (skiing)
https://vimeo.com/30449234 (longboarding)




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