One of the deep routed motivations for looking at our connection to snow and its journey to our mountains came from Bryan Iguchi, who I rode with a lot when I was just a teenager.

Shin [Biyajima] rides down with this big ol' Japanese grin and giggle and I'm like what? Two years later, when I started planning the trip, I knew Shin was from the Hakuba area, and I didn't want to come film in Japan without a Japanese rider. Shin had the time and availability, and it worked out perfect.

What is snowboarding to me? I'd say it's when I feel passion. That is, if passion is a combination of utter joy, frustration and rage. It's my life.

I knew I wanted to shoot in Japan early on. Years ago, we did a Japan segment in "The Community Project," and at the time I felt it was one of the better Japan segments ever captured.

When it comes down to it, it’s pretty simple. Adventure is what you make it. And whether it’s the travel, the discovery or just the feeling of letting go, the only way we’ll ever find out is to get out there and do it. Enjoy the ride.

We needed to do "Community Project" to feel comfortable doing our own thing, and then "That's It That's All" was this experiment with camera technology and shooting snowboarding a little differently. "Art of Flight" was that dream of "That's it That's All" realized. Then we didn't want to make an "Art of Flight 2," so we stepped back and tried to take a different approach to create a more multi-faceted film. "The Fourth Phase" has more of a storyline, and it was much more personal for me.

We will never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it. It's this self discovery that inevitably takes us to the wildest places on earth.