When the call was made that Mountain Dew New Zealand was producing an ad using its local sponsored riders the boys and girls literally jumped to get their 15 seconds of fame. Basically the idea was to film us having the best day ever. Jenna, Nev and I didn’t miss the boat on that one; if it was to be the best day ever two things were crucial epic powder and a big helicopter to get us there. So a month or so later with basically no idea of what we were getting ourselves into we packed the cars with sum big boards and plenty of MD.

Day one check into the plush hotel on the Queeenstown waterfront, valet parking included! We had a spare day before the filming started so we hit up Snow Park keeping in mind Heli was looming in just one sleep. After a day catching up with crew doing sweet slides at Snow Park we had sound check. What the? To most snowboarders the concept of acting is pretty foreign, lucky for us Nev stepped up to the plate and got the clip – won’t let out any secrets just yet but keep your eyes on those TV screens to see Nev getting sick in a whole new way.

Day two: meeting the directors in Wanaka after a short skip over the hill, the weather wasn’t looking too bad. Being the ghetto crew we are, we only turned with one set of smelly outerwear which wasn’t bright enough. A quick call was made to the biggest outerwear collector in NZ (Holler) and 20 mins later we were decked out. With Nev the star of the show (who’s 60kg and only 5″9?!?!), in a bright red XXL jacket, Jenna and I playing supporting roles in a mellow blue and brown. The call was finally made at 10:30 to get the bird in the air so we got the quick low down on the transceivers and radios etc. We had a quick 10min flight up the valley revealing awesome terrain everywhere. We landed on a ridge and spent the next hour or so getting some epic shots of us either standing there or sipping on an MD. We were bathed in the sun on the ridge and scoped a perfect cliff just above where we had landed and luckily the landing was stashed and hidden from the wind.

Well all good, we jumped in to the slope, got the shot, then as we un-strapped the star of the show drops his brand new board and it manages to jib its way down the rocks for a few hundred meters then disappears out of view as 7 of us stare in despair. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, it ended up taking over an hour to find and we had nothing to do, surrounded by deep untouched powder that was either in the cloud or we couldn’t hit until we got our star back on a board to get in the shot.

Next up we took the chopper back towards TC and filmed from the chopper with us riding all the way to the valley floor. It was hectic riding as the valley was pretty narrow and you had no idea what was going be round each corner but we made it to the bottom where the chopper stopped and we had to do the same run again this time focusing on us getting some rad air. For me, rad air involved flying 30-ft blind into a valley and landing 10-cm short of a 10-ft high rock! My life literally flashed before my eyes a very stupid move but you live and learn. The chopper was great at follow cam. Pretty classic; the filmer was harnessed in but he was more concerned at losing his 50-frames per second video camera.

We had to do another jumping off the ridge shot, but this time filmed off the chopper, it was fun as we just jumped up and the wind from the blades blew us over the edge – coolest feeling. Then Nev revealed to all of us that he actually was Van Diesel’s stunt double by jumping out of the helicopter into the slope wasn’t too big as the guide didn’t quite understand the XXX tattoo on his back, otherwise it would have been at least 30-ft – we had faith though. After that, chopper time was up and we headed back to the cars chown down on some mean kai prepared by the guides.

Nev’s trusty ride was yet again tested when it was run over while lying bindings down in the car-park – it flexed to the days but didn’t snap he thinks it unlucky but after surviving a lone heli run and being run over I’m thinking Blackhole snowboards could be the perfect board to try sum new twirls on. I don’t think either Nev or I will be shooting on a camera this good for a while so it was great to have a chance after the “official” shoot to just do some twirls in front of the camera. I rolled out of a cab7 and reverted causing words of disappointment to come spurting out of my loud mouth at which point I lost my fake tooth. Yeah one of my front teeth has been a non permanent fake since march this year and I’m still waiting till everything settles down until I get a permanent one. So there I am toothless and ruthless on the biggest photo shoot of my life. So jump on the chair-lift as you do- go to unload (huge maneuver) and the suspenders on my pants get stuck in the chair-lift so I’m dangling up there a few feet in the air until my buddy Andrew turns the chairlift off or one of the buckles breaks not sure what happened first but I do know I ended up on the ground and the buckle was gone sorry Holler.

Good times had by all. At this stage I’d just like to thank everyone that made this possible Alana and Jeremy at Brand Spanking, the Three Drunk Monkeys, Chris from MD, my buddies Jenna Brown, Sophia Moore, Neville Lapwood, Tim Ryan, & Holler.

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