While I can no longer drive a couple of hours in any direction to find these crazy mountain adventurers, it appears that I will, once again, be able to indulge in a cinematic feast featuring all things extreme sports, thanks to a selection of creative film-making geniuses brought together by “The Banff Centre”.

In a couple of short weeks time, the 2011 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour “Radical Reels” will be rolling into Brisbane on the 24th & 25th of November at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in the Valley, bringing with them a selection of the best sport films from the 35th annual Banff Mountain Film Festival.

This years reels include breathtaking action from the worlds of bouldering, snow skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing, base jumping, downhill longboarding and white water kayaking! I was blown away by how good the last festival was that I saw in North Vancouver last December, so I’m REALLY excited about getting the chance to see it again here in Australia.

Just check out the trailer below and tell me it doesn’t get you interested?!?!

Tickets are just $30 and are available, along with all the details on other stops throughout Australia on the official website at:

http://banffaustralia.com.au/

For my friends in Vancouver, the World Tour is headed your way on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of December. Check out the “Alpine Club of Canada” website for ticketing information.

What you are about to see below are three such themed short films that were launched today on Vimeo by a trio of talented Aussie lads – Rick Mereki, Tim White and Andrew Lees who spent 44 days travelling 38,000 miles across 11 countries linked by 18 flights shooting a terabyte of footage in order to create the 3 stunning short films below.

Boy, I would have LOVED to have been part of this. *sigh*

Anyway, grab a comfy seat, check out these fantastic short films, and be prepared to have your travel bug stimulated.

On a side note, stoked to see my old mate “Julio” from Gap Adventures Peru mentioned in the credits. Well done champ!

As part of the festivals “Arts” program, a 72hr Filmmaker Showdown is held, participated in by a number of creative production teams shooting and editing 3-5 minute short films that are shot within 100km of Whistler and presented to an 1,800-strong audience at the Whistler Conference Centre.

This year’s event marked the 9th year of the competition’s existence and boy did it produce a fantastic “Best-in-Show” winner. Titled “Poached Earth”, the short film documents the existence, life and struggles of the “hot tub poacher” – individuals who sneak into resort and private hot tubs along Whistler’s famed “hot tub alley”. A great, creative piece from a talented group of film makers – no doubt about it.

For their troubles, the production team of Patrick Henry, Justin Hannewyk and Jonny Fleet received $10,000 in cash and $5,000 in prizes. Not bad for a few days of high-pressure fun! Check out the presented version of the film below.

The following post is broken up into two mini walk-throughs that will show you how to easily convert and import optimised iPhone-ready videos onto your device using a free program called “Evom”, and also how to import just about any video format to your iPhone without first having to convert them to iPhone’s mp4 format using a great, free iPhone/iPod Touch application called “VLC Media Player”.

Converting & uploading video using Evom

1. Download & install Evom

Download “Evom” for free from “The Little App Factory” website.

2. Install Evom on your Mac

Install the application on your Mac and crank it up. You may be met with a message asking if you would like to “Download and install video components?”.

DO IT – the application is next to useless without them.

3. Select your video to convert/import

This is perhaps the easiest part of the whole process, but you may need to be a little patient depending on how big the video file is.

Simply drag your video file from the desktop into the Evom application window where prompted. Alternatively, you can simply “right click” on the video file and choose to open it using “Evom”.

NOTE: It’s also possible to drag in URLs from the location bar in your web browser for videos on popular video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo – very convenient!

4. Choose where your video should be sent

Next, you’ll be prompted to select where to save the converted video file. For the purposes of this walk-through, we obviously want to send the file to our iPhone/iPod Touch, so select that option and hit the “Convert” button.

The window you are presented with next will show the progress of the conversion. Depending on how large and long your video file is, this process may take up to an hour or longer for full-length feature films etc.

Once the conversion has completed, Evom will launch into the second phase of the process by sending the converted file to iTunes. You can note this action in iTunes’ status pane.

When the transfer process is complete, you need only do an iPhone/iPod Touch sync to get the video onto your device and you’re good to go. The completion of the conversion and transfer will be reflected in Evom’s transfer window.

Adding video to iPhone’s VLC Media Player app

While the Evom video conversion and transfer process listed above is simple and effective, there is a dead simple way you can cut out the need to convert the video altogether using VLC Media Player and iTunes’ File Sharing feature. Sounds like it could be complicated, but trust me on this one – it’s EASY, EASY, EASY!

1. Install the free VLC Media Player app on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

At the time of me writing out this walk-through, VLC Media Player is compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the most recent iPod Touches.

2. Add your videos to the VLC File Sharing section in iTunes

Connect your iPhone or iPod Touch to your computer and wait for the device icon to appear in iTunes’ source pane. Click on the device and on the screen that appears, look for the “Apps” menu option. Click it.

Scroll down until you find the “File Sharing” section on the Apps page and click on the VLC icon. You’re now ready to start adding any video file you like to the VLC Media Player application.

Click on the “Add” button and navigate to the video(s) you wish to add. Select as many as you wish to upload to your device and hit the “Choose” option.

If you take a look back up in iTunes’ status pane, you will see your selected videos being transferred across to your device.

3. Start watching your videos using VLC Media Player

Nothing tricky about this part at all. Simply, find and start your VLC Media Player application, select the video you wish to watch and there you go.

I sincerely hope that any and all of the above steps and instructions have been clear and simple enough for you to follow. If you’ve come across any hiccups along the way, by all means shoot me a message in the comments section below and I’ll do my level best to help you out!

To give you all a break from squirting fake blood all over the latest acquisition of second-hand garb, ripped from the racks of “Value Village”, I thought I would share with you a selection of short films I found on Vimeo, that feature an array of creepy characters and contorted content that will get you in the mood for the weekend’s festivities.

Enjoy!

I digress. Woody, Jessie and the rest of the gang are back for the third instalment in the much loved Toy Story series, and if the new trailer is anything to go by, this time they are joined by some new friends including a giant pink teddy, Ken (of Barbie fame) and a toy triceratops voiced by none other than Kristen Schaal (“Mel”, for the Flight of the Concords fans out there).

Toy Story 3 is going to have that extra bit of zing this time around too as it will be offered in a 3D flavour and if you got out to see Avatar in 3D at all, you’ll know that it takes the viewing experience to a whole new level. I was actually lucky enough to catch Toy Story 1 & 2 played back-to-back in 3D recently when they ran for a limited season here in Vancouver. A-MAZING… so I know version 3.0 is going to knock your socks off.

I’m unable to embed the trailer in this post, so you’ll just have to click here to rock along to YouTube to watch it and get a sneak peek at what you can expect when it’s released (into Canadian cinemas at least), in the Summer on June 18th. As always, if you can, make sure you watch the video in full screen at 1080p resolution to get the best viewing experience.

To whet your appetite, here’s a few stills from the trailer, and make sure you throw a vote down in my poll (below the stills) to see what your favourite Disney Pixar full length feature film is of all time.

Take Our Poll

I mean let’s face it, it’s got everything for people from every age bracket. We’re talking “Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, True Love, miracles…”, all wrapped up into 100 minutes of timeless fun and adventure.

When Ryan mentioned to me recently that “The Princess Bride” was scheduled to be playing in Stanley Park tonight as part of a free outdoor cinema program, it didn’t take me too long to pen the date into my summer schedule.

So after work tonight, Ryan, Adrienne, Carmen and I left our place, caught the ferry from Granville Island across to the Vancouver Aquatic Centre and walked a good stretch of the sea-wall around to Ceperley Meadow where the huge inflatable outdoor screen had been erected. We cracked open the red wine, olives, cheese, mini toasts and more and sat back along with hundreds of other obvious fans of this classic (given how many lines were recited en mass, and how many cheers and boos went up at all the appropriate times) as the sun faded and we were left under a clear blanket of stars.

And while I’m on the topic of “The Princess Bride”, let me gently nudge you towards a couple of other pretty cool things you can find on the web right now relating to this great flick.

Cubeecraft Princess Bride Characters

Firstly, one of my favourite sites on the web “Cubeecraft” have released a full Princess Bride set of their famous “Download, Print, Cut, Fold” paper toys. Even if you’re not a fan of the movie, this site will no doubt have a free character download of some kind that will tickle your fancy and bring a smile to your face.

The Princess Bride Game

Secondly, I spent a half hour this morning playing around with the Mac demo of the “The Princess Bride Game”. I’m assuming that the somewhat easy game play is targeted at the younger set, but it’s worth checking out if only for the awesome animated sequences that accompany the game.

You can try your hand at some online demos, download and play a half-hour full-screen demo, or buy the full application for around $20 bucks from The Princess Bride Game website.

Recently, Canon released the Canon 5D Mark II – the latest in Canon’s range of full frame sensor DSLR (Digital SLR) camera bodies and the next body I hope to have in my sweaty little palms sometime in the next couple of years *insert dream sequence here*.

Packing not only a whopping 21 Megapixel full frame sensor allowing you to take blissfully high resolution still shots, the 5D Mark II also has the capability to shoot 1080p high definition video which can be played back/reviewed on the stunning 3.0″ VGA LCD screen on the back.

Now I’ve seen the odd jaw dropping grab of video shot on the 5D Mark II floating around on the net over the past couple of months, but I really didn’t think we’d see a feature film shot on one for a while yet.

Well that was until I came across “Searching for Sonny” while perusing the dubdubdub today. While there is only a teaser available as of right now, just the thought there’s a feature film out there in production being shot with a digital SLR camera is mind boggling. From what I’ve seen so far, the depth of field mixing is spectacular (as you would expect) and the clarity of picture is top notch.

You can check out the progress of “Searching for Sonny” on the official website. The full trailer is set for release in a couple of weeks on April 15th.

Such is the somewhat heavy subject matter of a fantastic Canadian movie Carms and I saw last night called “One Week“. Starring Joshua Jackson of “Dawson’s Creek” fame, One Week goes something a little like this (from the Toronto International Film Festival website):

Joshua Jackson plays Ben Tyler, who has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. At first Ben can’t believe his situation, but when the reality sinks in, he decides he needs to act radically. Although engaged to the beautiful – if slightly acerbic – Samantha (played by the delightful Liane Balaban of New Waterford Girl), Ben is overpowered by the need to capture some unknown yet vital experience before the darkness descends. He needs to hit the road, and to do it alone. Setting his sights on a cross-Canada road trip, he indulges in one heck of an impulse buy – a vintage motorcycle – and sets out for the West.

Travelling from Toronto on the Trans-Canada Highway, Ben takes in some of the nation’s iconic landmarks. This typically means anything claiming to be the “world’s biggest.” It is a testament to the generosity of McGowan’s filmmaking that he can raise both a laugh and a tear when Ben visits roadside attractions like the world’s biggest goose in Wawa, Ontario.

He pushes on. As Samantha tries to reclaim her fiancé in a series of increasingly concerned calls from Toronto, Ben rides west, hitting the intoxicating open spaces of the Prairies and the shock of the Rocky Mountains as he aims for the Pacific Ocean. Along the way he has a hilarious encounter with a highway philosopher, played by Canadian rock icon Gord Downie, and strikes up a touching, tentative relationship with a young woman in Banff.

The cross-Canada road trip is a rite of passage for Canadians and a privilege that tourists fly across oceans to experience. Never has it been filmed so grandly, nor brought so beautifully into a story of inspiration.

I’m not confident this cracker of a film, written and directed by Michael McGowen, is going to be released on mass as I don’t think it’s linked to any of the major Hollywood distribution companies (probably a good thing). But it’s been successfully doing the film festival circuit of late, and a keen eye will hopefully find it playing at more-open minded cinemas over the coming months.

A definite must-see if you can find it!

This comic documentary follows master shit stirrer Bill Maher around the globe as he takes aim with his razor sharp wit at representatives and leaders of various religions, or organised belief systems, around the world.

The film, released last week will no doubt ruffle the feathers of the “bible bashing” set out there, just as Bill himself repeatedly invoked moments of uncomfortable silence from his interviewees, following basic questions put forward highlighting obvious and undeniable flaws in their respective beliefs and teachings.

“How did someone like Bill even get permission to interview these various zealots”, I hear you ask?

That’s an easy one. Director Larry Charles (of “Borat” fame), used the fake working title “A Spiritual Journey” in order to gain access to the documentary’s participants. Nobody was told Bill Maher was involved in the film until he arrived for the interviews. The cameras rolled, the interviews began, Larry and Bill were then, more often than not, thrown off whatever premises they were on, but managed to escape with usable footage each time.

It all combines to form a very entertaining and funny look at what the concept of “religion” does to fellow man. I don’t care what your level or type of faith, you’re going to get a bundle of laughs from this clever documentary, so check your local guides and get along and check it out for yourselves!

PS. As a bonus, since we’re on the subject of comical exploration of religion, here’s a hilarious bit of comedy from none other than Ricky Gervais looking at Creationism. Enjoy.