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By Alex Brown
Posted Thursday August 21st 2008
Hollywood director Bob Gordon, who has worked on several RedBull commercials and Hollywood movies, more recently noticed kiteboarding and had envisioned it into one of his masterpieces. I had been emailing back and forth with his producer, from production agency 13Keys, about flying out to the Pacific Islands to offer my service as a stunt man for his next job. On the 2nd March, I flew out of London, with some of my good friends from New Zealand, England and the US. We heard all sorts of possible stunts we could be doing, like hanging from helicoptors and carving down volcanos.
We landed in Hawaii and grabbed our bags, and with the sun setting over the ocean, we were picked up by one of the PA's and driven to our rider mansion located near Kona on the Big Island in Hawaii.
Production crew; the famous jaws filming helicopter from Maui, friends in Maui; Kitebeach
For 5 days we took early starts and practice runs down the still-active volcanos around the island. The filming itself felt like a military operation. I was lying in a field on the intercom, helping direct Wes Mattywew, Butch and Sean; with helicopters flying over my head, crews running about setting up 35mm film cameras, and members of Bob Gordon's team yelling instructions around to get shot after shot.
At the end of the shoot we threw a wrap party at our place. Some girls came over and we had a heavy evening. The swimming pool was foaming with detergent that had been dumped all over one person; another guy passed out and was antiqued with syrup and flour. There was a stand-off with 2 riders, one with a full ash tray ready to be thrown, and the other with a bong full with dirty, used, smelly and green bong water. I wish the camera was out ... both of them ended up covered in ash and stale water! Two people ended up hooking up in the shower with another one of the girlies finding her way into another rider's bedroom. Welcome to Hawaii.
After the shoot ended I flew over to Maui to get some surfing in. I was originally only going for a few days, but ended up buying a Ford van with full on bed action in the back. I lived at kite beach in Maui for a few months, making use of the PERFECT conditions everyday. I did scout for land spots, but didn't have much luck after I broke the strap on my board.
Look on YouTube for the video, we can't post it due to copyright BS, and there is a clip on www.bobgordonfilms.com also.
Later,
Alex