It would be easy to dismiss The Art of Flight as just another extreme sports movie with limited appeal and depth, until you actually watch it. If you do, you'll find a passionately made film that aims to bring snowboarding to the masses. It reveals not only the most incredible snowboarding stunts ever caught on film, but also the personalities and stories of several colorful professional athletes and the gorgeous, and at times desolate, scenery of exotic locales. Combine this with an intense heart-pounding soundtrack and you have yourself a unique piece of film-making that you may want to revisit on multiple occasions.
Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of The Art of Flight at Dolby's own screening room at their headquarters in San Francisco and I don't think I've ever heard a subwoofer go so deep, and for so long, as it did during the film. That "point one" channel was just part of the dynamic and immersive 7.1 channel Dolby Surround soundtrack, mixed and mastered in cooperation with Dolby Labs and LucasFilm Ltd. The film-makers and one of the featured athletes were on-hand to answer questions after the film. You can see the full panel discussion here.
Apparently there is a lot of down time, waiting for Mother Nature to grant the film-makers perfect lighting conditions, or at least a break in the clouds. Part of the film highlights this with a montage of video snippets showing the cast and crew at play: blowing up trees, drinking, doing stunts half-naked in ice cold water, setting massive bonfires and generally blowing off steam (sometimes literally).
With up to seven cameras rolling at a time -- from high definition helmet cams to the massive helicopter-mounted Cineflex cameras used to film Planet Earth -- the footage they did capture was extensive. Curt Morgan, the film's director, said they sifted through over 2,600 hours of raw footage to make the 84 minute film. The production companies, Red Bull Media House and Brain Farm Digital Cinema are hoping to expand the film into eight one-hour episodes to air on one of the Pay TV networks. If this project gets the green light, the film-makers will drill deeper into the stories of each snowboarder and into the trials and tribulations met along the way while travelling to Chile, Western Canada, Alaska and Patagonia, to name but a few of the film's exotic destinations. Of course, they'll also get to show us even more of those breath-taking stunts as seen in the film.
The film is now available on Blu-ray Disc and we'd recommend a full system calibration, and maybe an upgrade to the picture and sound, to get the film's full impact. The movie fully exploits the capabilities of the Blu-ray format with a 7.1-channel lossless Dolby TrueHD soundtrack and high definition 1080p resolution to provide a feast for the ears as well as the eyes.
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Note: Special thanks to Dolby for covering air and hotel expenses to attend the screening.
