The Art of Flight

Just to warm up: This is definitely the most expensive, beautiful and technically perfect snowboard film I have ever seen (and yes, I have seen many).

The good things first: Already the Intro Logo animations make clear: there is a LOT of money in this film. And fortunately it went into the hands of someone like Travis Rice, one of the riders who push snowboarding to the limit and beyond. This time it's not one, not two, but up to three helicopters and other filming aides that help making an impressive portrayal of the sceneries and of course, the riding. And make no mistake - this is snowboarding at its very best AND core. It is a delight to watch these people do what they do best and the cinematography underlines the challenge of the actions presented. In fact we see things never seen before in the world of snowboarding (even in sports). The picture is super HD, the slow-mo's are extreme to the max, the post production is massive, the music works and the motion graphics & special effects fit in just perfectly.

Now to the inevitable: Please note, I'm reviewing a film here (not a person or the athletic abilities of someone). When "The Art Of Flight" is finished and the lights in the theater are turned on you feel a little empty. Yes, what has just been shown is definitely top notch state of the art, but as a film TAOF doesn't work - at all. In fact there isn't much of a "film" to review here but rather a long snowboard music video flick with no content except for the riding and the extensive use of the RED camera with super slow motion. It's nice to see snow-particles in HD falling at a very very very slow speed but after the 50th time it gets kinda boring and appears like "hey, look how great and expensive our camera is". The story, OK, now we get to the core - there is no story, no conclusion, no real insight (ok, the injury part is interesting but not mind opening) and no character development. It's a couple of riders who have the opportunity to travel to very remote places to snowboard and that's about it. And I really had to laugh at the Marc McMorris shot towards the end because he only appears for a few seconds - to perform the latest state of the art trick, his 1440 Triple Cork. At that point it almost seems like TAOF wants to show off by saying "Hey, and look, we got the latest trick as well".

The Art Of Flight is technically impressing, no doubt. But when it's over it's over because the makers failed to produce a real film and chose to make an overlong snowboard music video.

"The Art of Flight" is "The Odyssey" of snowboard movies. It's epic camera work makes even Warren Miller look like an amateur. Red Bull helps pull out all the stops, to produce the most wild documentation of the world of snowboarding out there.

Travis Rice, John Jackson, and Mark "Lando" Landvik take the world of snowboarding to a new level in the opening scene alone, which sets the tone, and gives you a small taste of what's in store for the rest of the film.

The crew even gives you a small inside look into their lives during the planning phases and cloudy down days that prevent filming.

There's not not too much more that can be said about the film beyond "Epic" aside from watch the film. It's the only way to fully understand.

Great sound track. Ground breaking film.

The Art of Flight.

Snowboarding on the most remote places on earth. Living careless, without fear and just doing what you love. That is what The Art of Flight is about. There are tons of amazing shots of going down off the most deserted mountain slopes of the planet. Anyone who likes snowboarding at all will immediately envy some of these runs these guys make. The camera gets really close and sometimes you feel a little out there as well while watching this. That alone makes the film worthwhile. The film tries to add a little more substance though as we also follow the daily routine of these masters of the snowboard. This is where we realize just how shallow this film or perhaps their lives is. They sit around waiting for the perfect weather, traveling from one remote location to the next. The vocabulary seems to consist of only "Wooo!!!" ,"AWESOME" and the like. The interviews only validate this claim and anytime it tries to go a little deeper we move over to the next footage of awesome jumps over the best snow you ever see. At the end I'm not sure if I envy their lifestyle or not, on the one end they live so careless and relaxed that it's just a dream. On the other end it seems they couldn't care less about the other things in life and are just stuck in their nonstop quest for the biggest adrenaline rush.

Anyway the footage is some of the best you'll ever see and that is enough to make this fun to watch. Don't expect anymore more then that though there just isn't.

Video & Audio Quality

A bit geeky but here goes. Blu-Ray video was averaging around 20 Mbps (peaking 35 Mbps) and audio was averaging around 5.5 Mbps (peaking 7.5 Mbps). To give some comparison a typical Hollywood DVD has video and audio totalling around 4.5 Mbps – yes you read that right, just the audio alone on this Blu-Ray has a higher bit rate than the video and audio of a DVD combined. I invested pretty heavily in good home setup and this Blu-Ray took advantage, the 1080p AVC video and Dolby TrueHD audio are stunning. The iTunes version is 2.7 GB (highly compressed) the Blu-Ray works out at 16 GB approx. As a result you are getting 6X more detail here. 10/10

Film Content

With the money pumped into this production it was clear it wouldn't be an amateur hour affair. Things kick off in Alaska for some pretty mental runs before moving south to the Andes in Chile with some pretty intimidating rocky terrain, moving further south to Patagonia before moving up north again for a second winter in BC.

There is a lot of filler between the action videos. This filler is typically narration mixed with some arty, almost pretentious, video work. Those that don't appreciate this might want less narrative and more action, I found the balance good. On the subject of video, if there are two signature video shots from this film it would be wide-angle slow-motion pointing into the sun – great action, and time lapse of the moving night sky – great filler. 8/10

Music

The main trailer has an amazing tune which is collaboration between M83 and Brain Farm Cinema, sadly it's not used in the film! There is some other electronic, including some tracks off M83's forthcoming album. Some post-rock from Sigur Ros and even a little light rock. Perhaps my expectations were too high after the trailer but it didn't fit as well as I'd hoped. Certainly not bad though. 7/10

Rating

I am clearly no film critic, but in terms of production values this is the best snowboarding film I have seen. The action is great too, it's 1hr 20 of great snowboarding and impressive cinematography. It's not everything I had hoped for, but so close. My favourite snowboarding film to date. 8/10.

I felt like I owed it to the makers of this film to voice my opinion. This is the new pinnacle of action sports films.

First these guys aren't playing around, the action is outstanding and the music score is absolutely second to none. The addition of incredible use of surround and the obvious use of the highest quality cams on the market makes this the best Blu-ray sports film out-period.

I saw one person complaining that it was more like a snowboarding music video, this is how it should be, it's my opinion that they shouldn't have changed a thing. Having spent a fair share of my life playing with amateur filming extreme sports and watching films of others. This film absolutely blows me away... Unbelievable.

The addition of the amazing locales and picturesque screens of locations that viewers can hardly imagine makes this movie almost surreal...

Thanks Curt Morgan, Travis Rice and associates I'm not sure you can beat this but I really hope that you try...