Mountain bike film premieres are always good fun, a time to see your riding pals off the bike and enjoying two or ten beers alongside a good bit of riding on a big screen. New World Disorder 9 held the UK premiere in a small cinema in Bath with an after party in Vodka Revolutions.
The event started with a few words from the organiser thanking John’s bikes and Kona for helping organise the event and then the curtains pulled back for the flick. I’d never been to a mountain bike film premiere in a cinema before, it looked a lot more professional and even had some MTB related adverts before the main screening. One of the adverts was for the 2008 Red Bull Rampage, which was held a few weeks ago. If you haven’t seen any footage from this check it out, it was without a doubt pushing our sport to new levels.
The film started off with a Ron Burgundy style news team reporting on a Wacky Racer meets mega avalanche downhill race. What began as an amusing theme for a mountain bike movie became less entertaining as the film went on.
Slow motion was frequently used in the film, which some disliked, but I love to see slow-mo to get a feel for the speed. These slow motion shots were used extremely well in a section at the Red Bull Dirt Half Pipe (originally a BMX event) with some leading mountain bikers showing us how tricks on the bigger bikes are evolving quickly behind those on the 20” wheels. In this section a double lens was used so that you could see the rider in super slow motion from all angles. It was impressive to view as this style of riding has never been caught in that way before. An interesting take on shots was used in many sections, for example head cams were used over jumps and also to look over at a rider doing a backflip on the same jump as the headcam rider which gave a really close view of the actual riding.
The footage was filmed in many areas of the world including the Gobi desert where riders where carving lines into completely untouched mountainous landscapes and boasting about descending 1000 meters in only 14 seconds.
The quality of filming was lost on certain sections, the best example of this was when Gracia had a short blast of riding in which you could hardly see him behind the trees and dense fog, the film would have been of a higher quality if this had been left out.
Of course, it wouldn’t have been a NWD film with out heavy metal with some super stoked everything and Robbie Bourdon attempting massive jumps on his massive bike. Having said that the film did have some great tunes, which when added to the interesting filming techniques made a film with some great riding and a good feel.
New World Disorder 9, “Never Enough” will be available in the first week in November.
