Author: Heath

We’ve been amongst the night for a while now.

Energy is depleting and motivation is dying, but we’re almost there. It feels like we never rest.

There is something very different about filming and living at night, the most obvious factor is the lack of sun and daylight. We see natural light for about 2 hours everyday and most of that time we’re hustling to get up to the next location before dark. It’s a constant struggle and the work has taken it’s toll on the riders.

Billy Hayman Blew his shoulder out on his first run before filming at Hirafu ski resort.

Jake has most likely broken his knee and rolled his ankle

Connor is the most recent victim to ‘Night Fury’.  He was in search of a fresh landing off one of our jumps two nights ago, and found it, just before ploughing into a tree. He came off lucky with a seriously swollen thigh. He’s very lucky he didn’t brake his Femur or worse.

Connor speeding toward the tree

The view from the top of Connor’s tree jump

So it’s just Nick Brown and myself left now. We’ve had Nick Hyne and Mahi Mains come along on some of the recent shoots so that Browna has someone to ride with. Mahi and Nick are bringing a bit more energy to the shoots, and it’s been fun to film with them.

Mahi Mains is getting amongst the darkness

Browna’s still ticking along. The sole focus is to get the riding shots we need now. The story has been filmed, and is looking pretty good. Killing the riders off has been the most fun we’ve had so far. We’ve been using the cable cam a little and some other ideas to produce a real feel to the horror that is’ Night Fury’.

Browna don’t scare easily

Browna’s face says it all,  5 Mush at midnight, time for Red Bull

So we’ve been filming the past few nights for Night Fury.

Luggin 80 kg’s of lighting, a generator, 290m of extension cables, light stands etc into the Niseko Backcountry can be hard, but once again the crew worked well together. It took roughly 2 hours to setup on the first night, but the outcome was worth it and we soon had an idea of what we could and couldn’t shoot in terms of light.Browna rigging the lighting system in our Homac parking lot workshop

NIGHT FURY BEHIND THE SCENES EPISODE 2

I hoped that the lighting would be able to light up a large area, what I got on the first night, while only plugging in 9 of the 10 lights, was far better than I’d imagined. After all I had never seen the the lights we were using till we got to Niseko.

Our first pillow session

The light’s were using are 200w LED flood lights. I was sceptical at first. What it came down to was that we could run ten 200w LED’s on one 2500w generator. The other option was we’d have to buy a generator for every two 1000w metal Halide lights, not an option I was keen on.

Connor and Browna, after the long haul in

Roadside Riding is pretty good in Niseko. The mountain passes in and around the Niseko area have a lot of  features for us to hit, the area has good natural lines and jump spots, the vertical isn’t much as they’re not mountains, but there is an assortment of various types of back country features.

Jake eyeing up our next landing, another Niseko roadside feature

Jake, aka Danny Brown, prior to takeoff.

PART 2 EDIT

We arrived into Tokyo on the 1st of March and it was all go.  There’s no way to escape the masses once you’re here, we were re-awakened by the craziness, starting off with the train ride to Ikebukuro.

Jake after the long haul

We opted for the easy way out this time and got on the bullet train, I had 3 large bags, a camera bag and computer bag and was carrying over 70kg’s of luggage. The others were also carrying their fair share of weight and bags, making the JR line too much work with it’s clogged carriages of sleeping face mask wearing Tokyo commuters.

Luggage for days

We got straight into it. Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Harajuku were the locations we had in mind, and we were testing out the new body mount that Chris from SYRP and myself had put together. I had an idea of what I wanted, and It came together pretty well. It’s been good working with mates, they are keen to help and have really got involved.

Nick strapped up with the doodle cam

Ben and myself have been busy time lapsing and shooting the night in Tokyo as that will play a part in the intro also. Late nights and long days take it out of you but I feel we got everything we needed and more.

Shinjuku from up high

Humanoid Robots, these things are the old versions apparently, fully mobile, with advanced recognition functions

Jake checking out some robot anatomy

View of the base of the Tokyo Sky tree, tallest building in the world.

Connor and Jake hard at work, while the SYRP  Genie powers on in the back ground.