As I’ve been mentioning, this year I’m planning to shoot a full-length feature snowboarding movie with some friends. Will it be shot with 10 thousand dollar video cameras? No. Will it feature professional riders? No. Will it be sponsored? Nope.

But it will be fun.

The first step is, of course, is for us to plan out what we want in the movie. We brainstormed some ideas for themes, visuals, titles, sequences and more. The premise is starting to shape up a bit… it’ll poke fun at snowboard movies with huge sponsors and product placement… and show a group of friends who aren’t pro riders and can’t spend every day riding… but are people who are just like you and me, and still live and breathe snowboarding and the outdoors. It’ll profile each rider, why they snowboard, and some of the activities they do in their every day lives. And it’ll feature Vancouver and the West Coast… and why we love the BC mountains so much. And it may even feature some exotic locations. It’s still up for debate. Oh — and it’ll have a killer soundtrack.

Allan has also been working on some storyboards. I think they are turning out fantastic so far. These are for the opening sequence. It’ll make more sense soon.

In other news, I picked out the Burton Zoom 28L camera bag/backpack as a belated Birthday gift from Allan. I think it is rad. It’s got fully protected slots for my camera and soon-to-be-acquired HD video camera. It’s got a vertical snowboard carrier, a spot for a shovel and ice pick, and a thermal pocket to keep batteries at their maximum life. Not to mention all sorts of other features.

I’m in love with it. It’s going to make shooting while riding much, much easier.

I’ve also been walking around in my snowboard boots for the past couple days and will continue to do so until Thursday. Gotta break ‘em in again. Yes — Thursday I’ll be up at Whistler for Opening Day. WOOHOO! Only 4 days left.

In other news, Canucks Captain Robert Luongo got injured today. Argh! Let’s hope our streak can continue without our star goalie.

In the past week, I’ve…

… gone to one of many open skates at 8-Rinks to try and learn how to skate and (eventually) play my favourite sport…

… had a tequila party night out with coworkers where we tried 4 different delicious tequilas at Subeez…

… went to the sold-out ACMSiggraph Vancouver Blizzard Cinematics presentation at the Vancouver International Film Centre…

… and heard Matt Samia and Jeff Chamberlain from Blizzard present on how they create cinematics for Blizzard games from start to finish. Absolutely fascinating. Plus we got to see some teasers for the new Starcraft II intro. Awesome…

… had my favourite sour apple martinis in the city with Crista at West Restaurant…

… bought the Patron Silver tequila Holiday Gift set — a POKER set! A great gift for anyone at Christmas…

… had some people over for the Leafs-Canucks game last Saturday and we drank way too much for 4 PM in the afternoon…

… and sold my Nkon D80 and both my 70-300 and my 18-70 lens. I also bought the Nikon D90 and picked up the 18-200mm VR lens (gorgeous!) and a 50mm 1.8 lens, and a polarizer. Not displayed in the picture is my Nikon Fisheye lens. Altogether, I’m really loving my new photography quiver!