Snowboarding is just a hair outside of our core pillars, but art is well within. Now Is Not A Good Time, a new snowboarding video about Carlos Garcia Knight, supported by Burton, and directed by Izrayl Brinsdon, is art. 

Shot entirely on film and taking place over many months, Now Is Not A Good Time is a film as focused on stylish snowboarding as it is the person doing it. It is an artistic exploration of what it means to participate in a community centered on a board sport, to exist as a person in trial and strife and joy, and is a vulnerable depiction of Carlos as a person rather than simply an athlete. 

Even if you’ve never locked yourself into a snowboard, Now Is Not A Good Time is a film worth watching. How do I know? I don’t snowboard. I do, however, watch a lot of movies, and this is one that I’ll retain. The views, the airs, the discussions of mental health and personal growth, and the intricacy make this film something a tad more special than your typical banger montage. Now is Not A Good Time will premiere in New Zealand (Wanaka, Queenstown, Christchurch) 21/22/23 of September and will be available online on September 24th.

I talked to Carlos about the emotional center, creative style, and the narrative expression of the film, as well as how un-New Zealand it feels to talk about himself. Read below. 

If you had to describe Now Is Not A Good Time to someone, how would you?

It’s a departure from anything that I’ve done before. Izrayl’s come in with an idea to tell a story through snowboarding and that’s never been my objective until now. It feels a bit weird to tell your own story. I’ve been slightly reluctant- nervous, because it goes against the culture in New Zealand to talk about yourself but I’m very happy with how it’s turning out. It’s been a great process shooting on 16m film. We don’t have the usual luxuries of shooting on digital, and that’s been my favorite part. 

Can you talk a bit about those creative decisions? Why’d you choose 16mm? 

I can’t take too much credit, the director, Izzy, was the one kind of leading the charge. He messaged me kind of out of the blue and was like, ‘hey man, I want to film this project on 16mm film and I want it to be different from anything you’ve done before.’ I think the reason we chose film is because you can overthink things a lot when doing a project like this. We didn’t want it to be too curated. It was more about showing something organically and naturally, and with film, you don’t have the chance to hit a jump thirty times. With film, things became more simplified. It served the story in a way that was more authentic - hopefully.

You can’t take credit for this, but how do you think your own artistic eye has played a role in this project? You film a bunch of stuff, aye?

I think that making snowboard films for so much of my life has gotten me to think about film and cinema a bit more. It’s been ticking away subconsciously. I’ve always had a passion for shooting photos for as long as I can remember. I’ve taken some time off from snowboarding over the last few years for different reasons and I’ve had the chance to really explore that, and I think it really shocked me how much I loved it. As soon as I picked up the camera, I realized that it was a fire that had just been burning away in me. It’s such a nice balance to be able to go snowboarding and have that side of my life, but also do something completely different and creative. I like that those decisions are more intuitive. It sounds cheesy, but filming or shooting film is about following your heart, in a weird way. It’s hard to put without it sounding cheesy. 

To back track, because you shot on film, you mentioned the limitations as opposed to the ease of digital. Are you someone who thrives on limitations?

I was talking to someone about this recently. I think that limitations can really foster a good creative environment. For me, having limitations creates a space that makes you focus and puts you in a place where you don’t have to think as hard - it’s more intuitive. You don’t have the luxury of going again and again. For this project in particular, it’s just me and Izrayl. We didn’t have a big crew at all, I wasn’t riding with anyone, it was just this project. I think that the limitation of a finite resource of attention - no distractions - was really helpful in our creativity. It put the focus on. 

What were your goals starting out in this project? Did they change over time? Did you accomplish what you think you set out to do?

I think the goal of the film is to kind of- I want people to be able to discover the meaning for themselves, I don’t want to say what it’s about. When Izzy approached me [and we began developing this project], his goal became to talk about the stuff that had been happening in my life. If I’m being completely honest, I was in Spain at the time because I had taken time off of snowboarding because my Dad had fallen sick with terminal brain cancer. I was in Spain in this tiny little town that was my great granddad’s vineyard. It’s isolated, no surf, no skate, I had been there for four months because it’s where my dad wanted to go to pass away. Izrayl hit me up during that time and was like, ‘I want to shoot this film, and go through this motion with you,’ and this snow film became more about my life and my dad because [Izzy’s] dad had also passed from cancer. In a way, Izzy and this project helped me process all of this indirectly and put my energy into something positive straight after such an intense period. I talked about it with my Dad before he passed. I wanted him to know that after this time in Spain, I’d be moving onto something positive that wasn’t just about riding hectic things or anything, it was just about moving forward in a way that was as positive as I could.

It’s not a snowboarding film about something beyond snowboarding. There are more layers to it. I think that that is what will make it worthwhile. What do you think you’d like a viewer to take from it?

I’m not sure. I’ve already taken a lot from it. I’ve gotten to work with someone who I could relate to and someone that had a really positive motivation. In a wider scope, the opportunity to share something and be in a vulnerable place that other people can relate to in some way would be cool, that’s what I hope people can get from it. New Zealand is a small place and it’s a weird culture about sharing these sorts of personal things; it’s nice to be able to use this platform in a different way.  

Check out more from Carlos and Burton, here.