Update from Chile. The making of Brain Farm's movie "Flight".

About 10 days ago I left Canada for Chile to shoot with Brain Farm for the making of their feature film "Flight". The snowboarders for this portion of the film will be Jake Blauvelt, Scotty Lago and Travis Rice.

We landed in Santiago and stayed in the city to shoot the lifestyle and the travel portion of the film first before leaving to Farallones, a small town near the ski hill Valle Nevado. With a huge house for us waiting in Farallones along with 2 helicopters, this is where we were to base ourselves from for the next month.

Due to a lack of new snow we decided to leave the house behind and fly south a few hours to Termas de Chillan. All our gear following in 2 cargo vans. Unfortunately the expected snow in Chillan never showed. While waiting, we were able to do a lot of fun things that will end up in the TV show, a kind of a behind the scenes and making of the film. One day consisted of flying to a winery for some tasting, and the next to the beach to check out the Volcom Nutcracker surf contest and finally a day of heli shopping.

We are now back in Farallones, regrouping and planning the next week of the shoot. We still have close to 3 weeks left so we are all optimistic that the snow will come. With this group of riders, all we really need is 3 good days to get it all done. Fingers crossed.

Santiago Airport flooding, not sure the bucket will help.

Greg Wheeler films a local act with the Phantom Camera.

Local dancing in Santiago.

A portion of our group overlooking Santiago.

The setting sun from our house in Farallones.

A lot of people followed Travis Rice and our crew around on Termas de Chillan.

A view of farm land on the way to the beach.

A layer of fog over farm land.

Chile's La Gotera point break from the air.

Travis Rice and Madonna. Opening night of gay ski week in Termas de Chillan.

Gay ski week and Jake Blauvelt's birthday made for one hell of a good time.

Team Shoot Out 2010 - We Are The Defending Champions

Last year I teamed up with Rome Snowboards and Bear Mountain to compete in Transworld SNOWboarding's Team Shoot Out and took top honours. This year we defended our title against 3 new teams. The photos and video's have been submitted and we wait the announcement of the 2010 TWS Team Shoot Out winner.

Laurent Nicolas Paquin - elbow rail 50-50 to stairs.

Shoot Out Contest Breakdown

The contest goes down in a two-week window: seven days of build time and seven days of ride time.

Each team is provided with a maximum of 210 groomer labor hours and 240 hand crew labor hours by the host resort.

Each team consists of five riders (including one girl). If the team doesn’t include a female, they can only have four riders.

Rider substitutions can only be made if a team member is injured.

One photographer is assigned to shoot each team for the event.

Each team can use a maximum of two filmers to shoot video.

Each team must create a four-minute final video and submit a gallery of six photos for judging.

Judging is broken into the event’s three main components: video, photos, and overall creativity.

The winning team is awarded the September cover.

The Team Shoot Out winner is determined by adding the judging scores of all the contest criteria for the highest possible points total.

Submitted Photo #1 - Eiki Helgason

Submitted Photo #2 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #3 - Will Lavigne

Submitted Photo #4 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #5 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #6 - Laurent Nicolas Paquin

2 Day Shooting Extension Proves Productive

In the years past our crew of surfers, filmers and art directors have been extremely lucky with decent swell size and sunny dry weather, but that was all about to change. This seasons Ripzone photo shoot in Nicaragua was looking grim. We showed up and the waves were pretty big but it rained all day and night, making the weather less than ideal for shooting. By the time the sun did come out the swell had dropped and the waves sucked. To make things worse, all the rain water flowing to the ocean through the rivers, collecting mud, garbage and sewage along the way turned the water mud brown and left most the surfers with bad ear infections. Just before our departure date the swell models jumped and good surf and weather was in the forecast. Adrian Millar, Ripzone's marketing manager made the call and extended our trip to catch this new swell. And good thing he did because those 2 extra shooting days made the trip worth while.

It was this afternoon that the swell started to fill in. A fun little right hander?

It doesn't get any better looking than this.

Sam Zuegner bottom turns on a set wave at the outter reef.

I am still wondering why Sam is looking back at me? Does he not see that pit?

The tide was dropping really fast, rocks were showing and that meant it was time to come in. Unfortunately its just too dangerous now.

I love sitting back and shooting empty waves, thinking just what could have been.

Nicaragua Catalogue Photo Shoot

I'm back in Nicaragua again with Ripzone, shooting their spring and summer clothing catalogue. Along with team manager Geoff Andruik and the team riders, I left Vancouver Sunday night on the red eye hell ride to arrive in Manauga early Monday morning. We headed straight to the beach, dropped off our bags and checked the surf. Swell is up and pushing 8+ foot. A little too big for out front. Some of the outer reefs have been going off....so we were told. The ol' should have been here yesterday game again. Either way, there is some surf around somewhere and we have Roberto to drive us around and find it. It's raining pretty hard so shooting is out of the question. We hit up a new zone and found some fun head high waves at a river mouth just north of where we are staying. Due to the abnormal amounts of rain in the area, the river is flooded and running strong. This creates some less than desirable water color in the lineup and it tastes a lil' funny too!

Some days you just have to lay down and enjoy the shit.

Team Rider Sam Zuegner, different strokes for different folks.

The more civilized way to cross a flooded road.

The daily commute in rural Nicaragua is slow but no one seems to mind.

Right now it rains everyday and if your not lucky, it rains all day. Quite surprised to see something so bright and clean.

For a second there I thought Mike Reno of Loverboy was hanging out of our truck. It was only Sam Zuegner. Damn!

Benji Ritchie Photo - TWS September Issue

This photo of Benji was published in the first issue of Transworld Snowboarding this season in the framed section. Its one of my favorites from this season.

Whistler had a lot less snow this year and a lot more sun. It made for a pretty good season since I was able to shoot more (more sun = more photos) and due to the lack of snow we ended up shooting new features, creating more variety from years past.

This new jump was surprisingly a quick build and the riders (Rencz, Ritchie, Lyall and White) were amped to hit it. I spent at least an hour searching for a spot to shoot from (there was no obvious angle for it) before I decided to hike down the steep face on the side for a look. It was a little sketchy going down since the face was in full sun and starting to bake, and with me stomping around there was a chance of it sliding. It didn't.

Mikey Rencz hit it first and tried a cab 9. Holy shit he went big, I thought he was aiming for a landing spot a bit higher. I guess it rolls over so much that landing higher is almost impossible. With a bit of a hand drag, the crew agreed to let him hit it one more time before the others would start in. Again, huge and no land. Benji was up next and threw this cab 9 (the mag says 7 but its a misprint) and stomped it! I think Mikey stomped his next try.

In reality, you spend 10 days in less than ideal light, snow and location in order to get a day like this. The thing is, it's always worth it.

Transworld Team Shootout Winner

Last week at the Transworld Snowboarding Magazine (click for more) head office in Carlsbad CA, photo editor Nick Hamilton and editor-in-chief Annie Fast finally announced the winners of the 1st Annual Team Shoot Out. Since this was all done in secret, neither of the teams knew what the others had built, what the photos looked like or how the video was edited until that night. The 4 teams gathered in the TWS gallery for first time photo and video viewing before the winner was announced. I must say, I was more than surprised when Nick unveiled my photo of LNP on the cover of the September issue and us (Rome Snowboards and Bear Mountain) as the winning team. I would like to thank everyone at Rome and Bear for making this all possible. You all kicked ass and helped make this event a success.

the day before I helped cut and mount the gallery photos

myself, Holly and Christian with TWS arts and crafts

my 10 photos submitted for judging

Frode Sandbech and his 10 photos

Andy Wright and his 10 photos

Video I shot of the awards

TWS Video of the awards

Transworld Team Shootout

There's a reason why you never saw this coming, why you never heard a word about it. Because it was all done in secret. TransWorld's Team Shoot Out had four of the best teams in snowboarding-Forum, DC, Burton and Rome-competing simultaneously at four separate resorts across the west.

Unlike any event in snowboarding, the all new Shoot Out focuses on creativity itself. As media leaders, TransWorld challenged the invited teams to produce the ultimate terrain park shoot and document it in video and photos to showcase the visual power of snowboarding. Let 'em build whatever they wanted to ride, shred it however they wanted and shoot it all in any way they saw fit. -TWS

• The contest goes down in a two week window, with seven days of build time and seven days of ride time.
• Each team consists of five riders, including one girl.
• A TWS photographer is assigned to each team. Burton (Frode Sandbech) DC (Andy Wright) Forum (Ian Ruhter) Rome (Scott Serfas)
• Each team must create a five minute final video (available on iTunes) and submit a gallery of ten photos for judging.
• Judging is broken into the event's three main components: video, photos, and overall creativity.
• The winning team is awarded the September cover of TWS.

Ripzone Spring Catalogue Shoot

For two weeks this June, the Ripzone team and I shot skate and surf action photos for their spring catalogue and upcoming advertising campaign. The skate section was shot in Miami's famous party town of South Beach over the course of four days before flying to Nicaragua for six days of shooting surf there.

local fisherman

watch out ladies, Sam is in town.

our guides Matt and Jerimiah were down for us, oops.