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Icicle TV contributor Rex Flake talks about his friend Oly Mingo’s recent film, Flow.- Oly Mingo’s latest film project Flow: The Elements of Freeride has been slated for the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. With audiences numbering over 330,000 in over 40 countries, this is truly an awesome achievement for Oly, Creative Director at North 40 Productions in Wenatchee, Washington.
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To absorb the rhythm of nature is the universal ride. A synthesis of rider and mountain, forest and air.
Pure style of expression across a living landscape.
Freeriding is the differential perception of a rider in flowing symbiosis of these elements.
Flow is a philosophical conception conceived of more than five years ago when Oly and I first set out to frame flow in the context of mountain bike freeriding. The trick was to capture the essence while avoiding the cliche; to set genre aside and delve deeper into the forces that shape our world. The main idea is that flow is not a superficial action “on-top-of”, but rather an intrinsic expression of nature. It is experiencing the energy synthesis from sun to tree to falling leaf, from scurrying squirrel and crawling ant to rolling rock… A physical principle that all the natural world is unified in motion.
Oly was able to capture these ideas with his own vision in creating Flow: The Elements of Freeride. Oly not only directed but also planned, filmed, and edited the project. Of course the film also results from a collaboration of other highly skilled filmmakers, allowing it to attain cinematic flow with beautiful imagery through the lens of talented film producer Charley Voorhis of Voortex Productions. Add to that the assistance from do-it-all photog/designer/graphic-artist Nathan Getzin, and the striking audio of mix-master sound engineer Chad Yenney and there’s no wonder it turned out so well.
Flow has already won many awards including: Best of Northwest at Leavenworth Film Festival, Audience Choice at the Bend Bicycle Film Festival, and Grand Prize winner of the Chasing Trail competition. As a Banff selection, a much broader audience will now view this film, many who no doubt share similar views. For those who don’t, Flow invites a new understanding of the inseparable connection of rider and nature and offers opportunity to reflect on the delicate balance between all elements. The Banff Mountain Film Festival will also contain many other priceless gems of mountain adventure and is scheduled to screen locally at the Leavenworth Festhalle on November 19 at 6pm.
– Rex Flake
