I went down to Bregenz, Au and Innsbruck for a few days in November to shoot some stuff for an ongoing series I'm doing with Spatziba called Talking Headz. The idea is to get to know the talent a little bit better without putting them in a chair and do a contrived standard interview. To do that we left the tripod at home and chatted with Gigi about things that came to mind during a couple of days in his hometown of Bregenz and Au, the village he grew up in. Most professional snowboarders make a living spontaneously travelling the globe to find good locations to film and photograph their tricks. These tricks end up in dvd's which sell (or used to sell before internet torrents took over) in snowboard / outdoorsy stores and core magazine and sponsors catalogs etc. And in these videos (of which I made a handful somewhat successful ones this past decade) there is little or no room to portray the riders personality. I tried to incorporate that in past movies but it's a though sell and a lot of kids who board don't care much for it. Now since we watch a lot of videos online me and the Spatziba crew thought it would be a good idea to make little short clips of the riders that were personality and lifestyle driven. Gigi had just come out with a movie with Volcom in the fall of 2010 and Nike, who sponsor his feet, had a launch event for his boot planned and invited me to come document it and try and make something worth watching. Those three days resulted in these four episodes, hope you like them and I hope to do more of these. I wouldn't mind making a Tiger Woods series in this format. Or Jay-Z...
First Episode:
Second:
Third:
Fourth:
Here are two photos from my 360 degree camera. Yes, you can always buy another camera.
Haven't been blogging here much, duh. But that might change, I think. Anyways.., here's a clip I just did, about 2-3 more to come before x-mas.
About Talking Headz: Spatziba goes under the skin of snowboarding personalities. 90% commentary, 10% action. First man out, Gigi Rüf. Presented with the help from Nike Snowboarding.
Two weeks ago, we went down to Austria to hang out with Gigi for a few days. Me personally have always been a fan of Gigi so, when we had the opportunity to make this mini series called Talking Headz with Spatziba and dive into his archives, I jumped on it. We cruised around his hometown Au, Bregenz (where he currently lives) and made a stopover in Innsbruck where Nike had organized a soccer tournament to launch his new boot (which has soccer influences).
Kevin Pearce was severely injured about a week ago when he hurt himself in the Park City pipe.
Kevin's family has set up a Facebook page where they let us know how he's recovering. 20,000 people have joined in just a few days.
Then ABC News stepped in with a story about how dangerous snowboarding is and how the IOC who in their minds are "the leaders of this sport" need to evaluate how they get less injuries in this dangerous sport. I, obviously, got pretty upset by watching yet another tool on tv talking about snowboarding without having a clue what she's talking about. This wouldn't happen in any other "traditional" sport, trust me.
Not that I expect much else from people working with sports on national tv. Heck ESPN doesn't even know what they are doing with the X-Games and they've owned and operated it for 15 years or something and they STILL don't get it.
The olympics is, in my mind, about the best performances in each sport. This isn't the case in snowboard, for a number of reasons. Reason 1: The Swedish olympic (or national team who are supposed to find and support the best snowboarders in the country) team for example havn't supported the best riders. I mean in the last olympics they got €2,000,000 or something to get some good riders to the olympics. I could have saved Lexmark or whoever paid for it (hopefully it wasn´t taxpayers) that money since no Swedish person could have gotten top 10 in Torino even if half the people in the contest fell. The best riders from Sweden, like Ingemar, Hampus, Jakob, Chris, Johan etc never got any backing (of relevance) by the Swedish national team to grow as snowboarders. Not that they (well Ingemar could have been a podium contender) were olympic material, but that didn´t stop the Norwegian national team to help the likes of Mikkel, Torstein, Fredrik, Andeas etc to become better riders.
Reason 2: Halfpipe doesn´t show who the best snowboarder is. It´s probably the easiest discipline to judge and pretty interesting for the endemic viewer who doesn´t know/care about what snowboarding is. Yes, boardercross and slalom are easier to judge, but I don´t consider the slalom people to be snowboarders. They are skiers on a narrow snowboard with ski boots, with skier mentality. And even if halfpipe did determine who the best snowboarder was the IOC definitely aren´t the best ones to portray it. Just take the Vancouver halfpipe.. not the best resort / location to have it. The mountain doesn´t like snowboarders and if it rains I bet they will still force the riders to drop in. Does skiers get that treatment? Eh, no.
Ok, Shaun White is a great snowboarder. Maybe the best. But he´s not on my top 10 list for snowboarders I like to see. Same with Travis Rice. Some might say he´s the best, but he´s not on my top 10 of riders I like to see come down a mountain. I´m not saying I´m right because there is no right or wrong. But snowboarders I like watching are, Gigi Ruf, Nicolas Muller, Jussi Oksanen, Jake Blauvelt, Devun Walsh, Travis Parker, Hampus Mosesson, JP Solberg and others. They probably can´t physically do what Rice and White does, but imho you can´t categorize snowboarding like you can figure skaters. The IOC and 90% of the people watching the olympics will never get that and that´s ok. But it´s not ok when ABC News put this bitch Christine Brennan on tv to talk about snowboarding. And it´s not ok for the X-Games to crown the gold medalist by having Americans text in their votes before the riders even drop in to do their trick. So basically I´m fucked for even thinking that someone who has a suit job will ever understand my pov, which is a healty pov, cause I know better than them.
I love how people say I blew the shot. Sure I lost the lip, but that shot was the intro for he biggest snowboard film of the year (Stomping Grounds) and has paid my bills and taken me around the world for the past 13 years.
I got word a few weeks ago that Rome or/and Transworld photoshopped their "Team Shoot Out" cover. For what reason? I don´t know.
But I just watched Videograss where LNP has a part and saw the video footage. And yes, the cover was obviously photoshopped. Isn´t there an ethical rule to altering photos that run in magazines? I thought there was (at least in Sweden), but I guess this is just like touching up Gisele´s body. Except someone put a logo on a container. Amusing imho.
Or was in Scott Serfas (the photographer) who was behind it all? Maybe he got some free hot dogs?
I know I´d would put a Taco Bell, Chipotle, Baja Fresh, Rubio´s, Barbacoa or La Salsa logo in a shot if I got free food. What´s up Slake, why no free mexi food in return for logos on our DC shoot?
According to NPPA: - Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects. - Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage. - Any change to a news photo - any violation of that moment - is a lie. Big or small, any lie damages your credibility.
I did just get a response from the Rome team director which answered my questions about this amusing hot dog matter. Transworld used Rome to get free hot dogs. Too funny. Hopefully Transworld won´t be too upset about me writing about this manner, they gave me the material. Not like it´s not newsworthy.
