From The Inside. The ‘A’ Team.
Posted under: What a season it has been for all those involved in the 2012 New Brighton Olympic relay teams. I was lucky enough represent New Brighton Olympic in the senior men’s A team. With a win at the Hagley Relay to kick-start the A-Team’s season, wins at both the Riverside Relay and the Takahe to Akaroa, and a fantastic second place at New Zealand’s National Road Relay, were the teams’ accomplishments for the season.
At this point It’s important to say a special thanks to Leyton for all his hard work involved in organising and helping all the athletes… without people like LT it’s safe to say that we wouldn’t have had a team, the depth of athlete, or the dedicated support…
For me the recent National Road Relay champs was an absolute exhibition of guts and determination by the guys in the team. We knew going into the race Wellington Scottish were the team to beat, but if we could all somehow muster something special then we knew we could get close…
Unfortunately for us, an incredible combination of running by Scottish over the second half of the relay contributed to them just stomping past us on the final lap.
On reflection, the team is, and deservingly so, proud of how close we got to the win. The whole team put everything into their runs and really went for it. It’s easy to be disappointed by the outcome of the race. However, looking at the bigger picture, the guys and I have been discussing the influence this result has for the club. No longer will up and coming distance runners, or athletes arriving in Christchurch look to run for other clubs; NBO will be the pick of the bunch. There’s so much fantastic history from both clubs and all things going to plan I think it’s exciting to see the club setting a tone of a nationally competitive senior team for the future. With these great foundations in place and with the combined hard work of everyone to recommend NBO, the club will develop to become stronger and stronger.
Finally, bring on the 2013 relay season, we’ve got some unfinished business…
For those who haven’t yet seen the video yet, have a watch of the video I put together. It will help to showcase how the event turned out:
South Island Cross Country 2012
A perfect winters day in Christchurch played host to the 2012 South Island Cross Country Champs. The tough 9km course paid dividends to Sam Wreford from Timaru, who recently won the Christchurch Marathon in 2:17. His form proved too much for the other contenders, Brett Tingay and Nick Rennie, although Nick put up a good fight for the first lap or two. Brett Tingay came home strong to finish the race in second, which obviously indicates his Iron-Man training is paying off.
Take the time to view my video of the Senior Mens race below.
Wainui Bay – Golden Bay Floods 2012
Earlier in the year (January 2012), I visited Wainui Bay for my summer break. Prior to my arrival, the bay and surrounding Nelson areas were devastated by torrential rain, prompting large slips and flash floods.
I was fortunate enough to holiday with a few close friends over in Wainui, and to also lend a hand with the cleanup. When we arrived there was still 1ft+ of water free flowing straight through the valley, and we had to navigate our way though carefully. Large hillside slips had also demolished many of the roads on the hillside, with particular devastation to the Totaranui road.
A week or so later as we left, I decided to film the drive out, with the intention of providing the community of people with a few memories, be it devastating even so.
Canadian Paralympic Committee: Running (Unstoppable)
To the millions of runners and sports people out there, this ad is incredibly humbling. My first thought after watching this was, ‘well, I’m damn lucky.’ Sometimes the simple and everyday things able-bodied people can do are taken for granted. But as this ad reflects, imagine the struggle, the commitment and the focused needed by paralympians to compete!
From a production POV, again this ad delivers; the dark colour pallet, the dramatically raw backing track mixed with the real ‘accident’ noises, tie in perfectly with the ads’ purpose.
My only neg is without seeing the video title, I had a hard time figuring out what the ad was meant to demonstrate -obviously it shows the life changing path taken by some paralympians, but what’s the ad really trying to achieve? -awareness?
Anyway, I love this ad, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate it too. You’ll definitely stop and think now won’t you!
HOLIDAY 2012
Here’s the latest of my video creations; a quick 4min reflection of my summer break. Travelling from Christchurch though the Lewis Pass to Golden Bay, up to Whararaki beach then back over to Nelson. Then down the East Coast of the south island, thorough Kaikoura to Christchurch. Enjoy the roads, the scenery, the ocean and New Zealand.
The idea:
How many times have you taken hundreds of holiday photos, all to just leave them in a folder on your hard drive…? What I’m getting at, is so often people take amazing photos and don’t do anything creative with them. My inspiration then, was to film parts of my holiday, and to see if i could put together a fun little film. A film that I can watch over and over, share with friends, and generally get a good buzz from.
Let me know what you think..
New Zealand National Road Relays 2011
The 2011 New Zealand National Road Relays were held early September in Auckland. The course was a savage 77km loop around the outskirts of the Auckland region. Long flats, gut retching hills, and epic descents were some of the treats which made this race so interesting.
I was racing for New Brighton’s Senior Men’s A team. After achieving 3rd place last year (2010) in New Plymouth, our relatively mixed ability team needed to step up. We had a huge range of runners, from a 65+ year old campaigners, to a 16 year old newbie. Overall we placed 7th, which was a great result considering the team’s make up.
As I drove around following the race, I managed to stick my arm out of the window here and there to capture some footage… Enjoy.
Surfing 2.0
With a little help of Final Cut 10 I was able to make this 7 Sec wave seem a little longer… This video of me surfing was really just me playing and exploring some of the new features of Final Cut 10.3.
I shot this using the new Go Pro2. Compared to the original, the 2 seems to offer a sharper picture, and combined with the sleeker interface makes it a far better HD Sports Camera.
Enjoy.
2 ft Surf
Surf stoke occurs for me regardless of what size the wave is. Obviously, like any other surfer, I crave 6ft tubes, but even with little 2ft waves I still have plenty of fun. Like, the other day at Taylors, there were clean 2ft faces, the sun was out, and there was heaps of people surfing and getting stoked on the small miracle mother nature was rolling in.
Here’s a snippet of a small waves I caught.
The KOBESYSTEM
The guys at WK have done it again for Nike; with the creation of this compelling campaign; ‘KobeSystem’. There’re several videos now, all which depict Kobe as an elitist motivational speaker, with no idea how the real word works… Sound familiar with Motivational Speakers? Anyway, this campaign is epic. It involves stars like Kanye West, Serena Williams, Wang Leehom, Tony Robbins, and Jerry Rice … Big budget, big laughs and big entertainment. Also, and I haven’t fully decided how WK did this, but the’ve put ideas together, which are normally mutually exclusive. ie. humour vs. seriousness, informative vs light, quirky and different vs seen before. It’s an inspiringly creative and clever campaign, it will be interesting to see how the world reacts.
Sit back and enjoy the videos, however, remember this:
- This campaign is perfectly cast.
- The editing and production is world class.
- It’s relatable to EVERYONE, at almost every level.
- It would have taken months to prep.
Campaign 9.5/10 -> will bump it up to a 10, if the rest of the world loves it too.
