The Art of Flight – Southern Hemisphere Premiere, Auckland…Report by DB.

When I heard a rumour that the Southern Hemi premiere of ‘The Art of Flight’ was coming to Auckland I was super excited to say the least. After months of checking out the trailers and consuming the hype everyone was looking forward to the highly anticipated third release from Travis Rice and the Brain Farm crew. The news that Trice himself was attending got me even more stoked; a night out with Travis never falls short of a HUGE night out!

Saturday rolled round and with a medium to stiff breeze blowing a few of the crew were treated to a pre-show warm-up [thanks to Red Bull] aboard one of the old America’s Cup yachts on the Waitemata Harbour. We sailed our way out towards Rangitoto, back in around North head and past the Naval base where Trice, acting as skipper got us fully leaning with a few savage tacks on our way to the dock. Next stop was Event Cinema’s on Queen Street for the screening, the city was buzzing with the RWC crowds and the Diwali festival going on in Aotea square right next door – the scene was set!

Watching The Art of Flight in a full HD, digital surround sound cinema was somewhat surreal, the ear-splitting soundtrack and amazing photography left you feeling that it was you in the helicopter or standing on the mountain top waiting to drop in. The opening section from Alaska definitely had mouths gaping which to tell you the truth lasted the entire movie. The way the film was shot and edited allowed the viewer to not only experience ground-breaking riding but also portrayed the lifestyle and sense of adventure that goes hand in hand with snowboarding. There was quite a lot of slow-mo and quite ‘dramatic’ narrative which may not be to everybody’s taste but the amount of ridiculous shredding was hard to keep track of, especially from the starring riders, Trice, John Jackson, Mark Landvik, Scotty Lago and the dreamy BC section towards the end with Nico Müller was a standout for me. All in all The Art of Flight has once again bought a whole new perspective to what’s possible in snowboard filmmaking.

As the credits rolled all was quiet as everyone took a moment to process what just went down but it didn’t take long for everyone start hollering and clapping… Travis left the building to a standing applause! Not ones to do anything by halves Quiksilver and Red Bull threw a mega after party for everyone at The Flight Lounge in downtown Auckland with hot air hostesses and all. The drinks flowed seemingly endlessly and the big finale – as far as I can remember anyway –  was Travis celebrating his birthday with everybody in true rockstar form! Good on ya mate!

Burton’s Jay Smith, with Hayley Holt and friend

Team Quiksilver!

Red Bull rider Jake Koia and NZ Snowboarder mag editor Dylan Butt