Freeskiing
Blank Canvas: Nico Porteous’ world first video project
It may look effortless, but months of hard work went into Nico Porteous’ new project, Blank Canvas. The Kiwi freeskier has revealed the project and opened up about what its all about.
3 min
Nico's Blank Canvas
Keep reading to find out how Blank Canvas was made.
Much like Nico Porteous’ freeskiing career, Blank Canvas is full of triumphant firsts. It’s the first time CGI surreal animation has been used in the world of skiing. The first time someone has ‘freeskiied’ in the middle of a rural Southland farm. And, it's the first time we’ve been able to step inside the mind of a world champion ahead of the Olympics to uncover what goes into making a gold winning free ski run.
But what was it really like to create the three-minute-masterpiece? We went behind the scenes with the man himself to hear more about the insane studio production, how art and music play a role in what he dubs his “creative process” and how the project unleashed a new passion – a new career path in the pipeline, perhaps?
The Mountain is Nico's artist canvas
© Miles Holden
Blank Canvas is about me and how I look at the mountain as my canvas…
You know, every day I go up skiing and I pull up to the carpark and I see the mountain in front of me and I think, alright, what can I do in this playground I’ve been given. I think of skiing as more of a creative process, you know? The same as how an artist looks at his or her canvas when they start painting. It’s my creative outlet. That’s how the base of the idea for Blank Canvas came about, alongside the Hunt Cinema boys we came up with this idea to bring CGI into skiing. Full proper CGI hasn’t been done in skiing before, so I think that will shock people. The fact that there’s snow forming out of the ground and I’m skiing pretty much in a grass field in the middle of a Southland farm I think will trip people out.
The challenges we faced in the process of doing it were pretty intense…
When you’re shooting something in one location and then going 200km’s away and filming it not even on snow, there are challenges you face like light for example. We had to make sure the light was perfect on the mountain so that it would match the light on the farm, we had about an hour window for each shot and it had to be perfect. It became quite stressful, especially in some of the halfpipe shots when you’re pretty nervous – you’re doing some big tricks and you have to do it now within this hour time zone to make sure that it lines up perfectly.
A new passion formed in the process
© Miles Holden
It’s actually crazy when you see the work that went on behind the scenes, especially from the camera guys…
It was really mind blowing. You know, they had to take down every single little minor detail of the shot. How far away they were from the object, the height off the ground, what angle they were on, everything. It was a massive piece of work from all sides and everybody involved dedicated a lot.
Working with Fat Freddy’s was incredible…
You know they’re New Zealand icons and they’re legends in the music that they’ve produced. To be able to work with them and to be able to use one of their songs in the final edit I think sort of just ties it up as the ultimate kiwi project – with the farming, skiing in New Zealand, and then also using someone like Fat Freddy’s Drop and their iconic music, really just complimented it all.
Nico hopes fans will be inspired by the piece
© Miles Holden
Music is a massive part of my daily life…
I’m alway skiing with music in my ears and I like to think I’m pretty good at picking the music that matches my mood on the day. I use it as a bit of a tool to help me ski. I take inspiration from the music and then implement it into how I want to ski that day. I think it’s super super cool and I couldn’t really imagine a life without it.
I think the one thing that I would want people to take away…
Is really just to give them a bit of an idea about how I look at skiing, you know? I look at it like it’s my blank canvas and it’s my form of creative expression. I think it would be amazing if we could help the general public understand why we ski and a bit more about freestyle skiing and the fact that there are no rules and you can do whatever you want. You go out there and be yourself and express that in your skiing.
9 min