Last night was a pretty grande night for action sports at the Newport Beach Film Festival. First up came the new Billabong wake film, entitled 'Out of the Pond' and directed by Chris Heffner. I really enjoyed this flick because it was unique and brought a fresh perspective to wakeboarding. Naturally it feaured some mind-blowing / progressive riding and nearly anything was fair game to jib. For instance, how many soccer goals have you seen hit in wake films? True story...the crew set up a take-off zone, kicker and landing pool for Erik Ruck to session with a goal post in between. Not to be outdone, rail guru Kevin Henshaw showed off his rail riding steez on the monstrous 180-degree C-rail he built at The Projects in Orlando.

The Billabong crew truly thought outside of the box when it came to locations to film. Dream park in the Philippines? Check. Tow-ats in Tahiti? Yup. Launching off snow kickers in Mammoth? Uh-huh. The result was 35 minutes of some pretty sick / gorgeous footy. I caught up with the boys to ask their favorite spot while filming. Both Brian Grubb and Henshaw agreed on Tahiti. Grubb explained: "When we visited Tahiti, we stayed in Teahupoo right after the WCT surf contest came through. It was really scenic and we had quite a few jet skis to use." You'd think during all this traveling they'd encounter some good beer. So I inquired, "What was your favorite?" to which Henshaw said "Hinano, no doubt."

Be sure to check out 'Out of the Pond' during its tour across the country. Or else. Enjoy the pics and additional trailer below...

P.S. Shout out to music coordinator Marc Jetton. He lined up some insane tracks.

Chris Heffner, Brian Grubb & Kevin Henshaw


Henshaw working the RC


OOTP Trailer Part 2