Lewis Marnell

Most skaters know that Lewis passed away recently.
I stumbled upon this new clip today.
The fact that I'm in Australia made the clip seem even more important.

So my new start at blogging is getting off to a slow start.

And it's not that I haven't been wanting to. It's because I'm in Australia, one of the worst countries (developed obviously) in the world when it comes to reliable internet.

I'm here hangin with Ken Block and the Hoonigan Racing Team anyhow.

See you soon. 

Btw, I'm in a weird time zone. A 1/2 off time zone! That's a first, super confusing actually. 

Best thing P-Rod has ever done IMO.

I'm not a big P-Rod fan but I liked this clip. Big ups to Network A for making it happen. Here's a behind the scenes clip.

Ty Evans talks about Pretty Sweet

I was fortunate enough to get a seat at the premier of Pretty Sweet in LA. It was a cool experience and I had a feeling it would be one of the last big skate video premiers ever and I have mixed feeling about it. Mostly good though. I understand where Ty is coming from and what he as a filmmaker wants to accomplish. I also understand some of the criticism and I relate to some of it with Brainfarm and the snowboarding world. At the end of the day it's just us cruising on a board sideways and if you like watching a raw Off the Grid clip (I love these), Killian Martin dancing in slow mo with dolly shots, Pretty Sweet clips or snowboarding through gyro cameras it's all there. If you don't like it look the other way. When I grew up I recorded anything snowboard and skateboard related on tv, anything. Then I watched it until the vhs tape wore out. It's fair to say that's not the case anymore. Especially with snowboarding. Anyway.. here's the interview: http://www.jenkemmag.com/home/2013/02/20/ty-evans-answers-your-questions-about-pretty-sweet

Dinosaur Jr

I've always liked Dinosaur Jr. Pretty sure the first time I heard them was in an Alien Workshop video called Memory Screen in the late 80's and I've been hooked ever since. Or was it in Speed Freaks / Mike Vallely?

 
I was a huge fan of the crisp video footage blended with super 8 and other lo fi filming.

Mike Vallely's part from around the same time.

I sat for hours hitting record on MTV's 120 minutes to maybe capture a Dinosaur song. This was the first video I saw of them.



Since then they've been in closely connected to skateboarding. Just look at them skating / bmx:ing in this video.
My first cd I bought (1990) was Dinosaur Jr's Green Mind, as well as a Janes Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual.
I even used a song in a snowboard movie called Afterlame in 2004. 3:54 into this clip. Anyway, been listening to their new album a lot lately. Some songs sound very pop / Foo Fighter esq but others are closer to the Dino Jr I like. This song especially. Been thinking of what I can film that would fit it. It deserves a good visual presentation.

Maybe this time..

I see that there are still almost 100 people (or spam computers) visiting this blog daily. Even though I haven't posted anything in about 18 months, or maybe a handful of times in the past 2-3 years.. Since I flood my Facebook friends with links and stuff it seemed like a good idea to start posting here again where it doesn't bother people. If you like out planet and space things I encourage you to watch this. It's 20 min and it's awesome.

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

Steve Jobs

He was a true visionary and I'm not going to get too personal with this. Anyone who knows me and works in my field of filmmaking knows that he made a huge impact on my life.

Apple's and Google's homepage today.




I watched this a few years ago. You should too.






Old Apple commercial:


The guy who made this had an interesting day yesterday.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/hong-kong-teens-tribute-to-jobs-a-cyber-hit/190687-11.html

Here are some articles I've read and would like to share for those who care.

This guy wasn't a fan until.. you'll have to read the whole article:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/steve-jobs-eventually-made-me-think-different/18883

Tributes from co-workers, presidents:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-has-died/

Short background on him and links to other things of interest:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/us/obit-steve-jobs/index.html

Pixar related:
http://img.ibtimes.com/www/articles/20111006/226459_steve-jobs-died-pixar-disney-john-lasseter-toy-story-george-lucas.htm

Lots of stuff at www.junkyard.no at the moment.

Norwegian Junkyard have three posts with my signature on it right now.
Link to the first (of two) DC Mtn Lab videos.
Link to the first (of three) Robot Food video.
Link to the first (of probably three) webisodes of the 2011 Nixon Jibfest.

Watch em if you got some spare time.

Oh hi.

I said I'd blog more, and I didn't.. too hooked on Instagram (my Tumblr blog) to keep up with this thing.
So to the 50 that still come here every day here's something for you.

1 of a few clips I'm doing for Nixon.

Here's the first from this years Nixon Jibfest. You have to click on the url cause embedding is disabled.
Enjoy.

http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1000157760/featuresobf/coming-soon

Made a clip about Ken Block's new rally car.

I went to Wales a few weeks ago to make a clip for Monster World Rally Team.

To quote Ken:
"Despite the fundamental similarities between stage rally, rallycross and gymkhana, my World Rally championship Ford Fiesta just can't do what my gymkhana Fiesta can, and vice versa. But running three cars is a logistical nightmare, so we built one car that can be transformed to suit each discipline."

MWRT thought stop motion would be a suitable technic to show the car.
The stuff was shot in three days, with less than 30 min (might have been 15) to shoot the car in action.
My thought was to shoot the action on film to compliment the stop motion roots instead of HD video. And I like film so why not?
Many ideas we had for this clip weren't possible to shoot, we had next to zero sleep for 2-3 days and it was one of the most gruesome experiences of my life. If only we had another 1-2 days to shoot it.. the reason for only having a very limited time was technical issues / engines etc that were late and what not.

But here's the result. Not close to what we had envisioned, but it's still serves it's purpose. Hope you like it.
Ken picked out the tune from the Scott Pilgrim movie.

Might dust this one off..

I started a Tumblr blog a few weeks ago but it has turned into a iPhone photo blog more than anything.
I´m also trying to maintain some bloggin at Spatziba but I miss the random outlet that this blog used to be.

Today I´m in Stockholm after a brief trip to Wales, Denmark and Austria. Been filming rally with Ken Block as well as doing a little bit of sightseeing.

Noticed that these songs have been on heavy rotation in my iTunes.
The Arcade Fire one has 1437 plays.. retarded.

Hi

Too the few who still visit this blog I just wanted to mention that I started a new blog today.
My thought with the new blog is to share daily photos and stuff with others than my Facebook friends (I keep getting vibed for uploading a lot of iPhone photos).
I might not include as many political and random YouTube videos either.. maybe I can keep doing that here..?

I also blog pretty frequently over at www.spatziba.com/profile/pierre

So here's the new Tumblr blog, I'm also at Instagram "pierrewikberg".
http://pierrewikberg.tumblr.com

WRC Swedish Rally - Day 3

Got to ride along today again. It's pretty wild but for some reason I don't think it's very scary, fun though. Trying to hold a camera still on these roads is not easy.




Filmed for an hour or so on a frozen lake. Pretty nice day on the job. No wind, sunny, and not cold at all.
I also met Mike "MackDawg" McEntire who's in town to film Ken's new car. He was running the most successful snowboard video company back in the 90's but he also made Sick Boys (filmed the first fs boardslide on a handrail EVER and Hokus Pokus (legendary skate video from around 1990).



He was also the first one to hire me to shoot snowboarding back in 1996, so we have a lot of history together, really fun to see him here in Torsby.
More on how I got into the snowboard world here:
http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1000108819/uncategorized/quote-this-pierre-wikberg

We also toured Petter Solbergs giant workshop, impressive.

Day 3 clip here:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=499909352332&saved#!/video/video.php?v=499909352332&oid=139454585764&comments

WRC Rally Sweden - Day 2

Went out to party with some friends in Oslo. While at the bar I met Swedish snow shredders Chris Sörman and Kalle Ohlsson, very random and I got free drinks from the bartender, that's rare at my local watering holes so I was honored to be recognized in a place I haven't been to in 6 months.
Woke up at 6am, ouch, and got in the car to Torsby Sweden (home of playboy / soccer coach Svennis) where we will stay for a few days to try out tires and shoot photos / video of Ken's new WRC car which gets revealed on Wednesday.





Here's the clip from day 2:
http://www.facebook.com/pierrewikberg/posts/132824080117941?ref=notif¬if_t=like#!/video/video.php?v=499350432332&oid=139454585764&comments

On a Ken Block Rally Mission

For the next week - 10 days I'm going to follow my old boss from DC Shoes, Ken Block, around Scandinavia.
He's now a very successful man behind the wheel. If you don't know what he's capable of I suggest you go to YouTube and search for his name.

I'll be uploading videos daily from this WRC event on his Facebook page, so befan him here:
http://www.facebook.com/KenBlockRacing

Here's the video from our first day:


iPhone photos from today:

Sauna view.


Work out with Saydah, MONSTER Rally Team Manager.



View of the Central Station, Opera House and some water.


Icy walk path.





Robin Williams calls biathlons Norwegian drive by's.
Norwegians are very outdoorsy people.

Meeting some Scandinavian snow shredders and Oslo locals for the past days was a huge perk, I really like Oslo (except the homeless people and crack heads / hookers who loiter around the Central Station.

Stay tuned.




Here are some videos of Ken I made for a DC movie in 2007:

Four episodes of a mini-documentrary I did for Nike of Gigi Rüf

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.

Solar Eclipse in Stockholm.

Today most of Sweden got to witness a partial (80%) eclipse. I love these things.
In the late 90's I went to France to see a total eclipse and I will for sure travel to see another one.

Apparently the Faroe Islands and Svalbard will have a total eclipse in 2015 while the north of Sweden will have a partial.

In LA

While biking between Manhattan and Hermosa Beach today I started to think about the Thrashin intro and how much that scene shaped my view of California.
The only thing that changed is that more people push mongo now and roller skates are replaced by inlines and other questionable things with wheels.
Who know Corey Webster (Josh Brolin) would be nominated for Oscar?

Here's what I've been up to.

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).

Rest In Peace Andy Irons

Taken from Transworld Surf:


Andy Irons Passes Away At Age 32

It is with a heavy heart that we spread this news of Andy Irons’ untimely death. Initial reports have him passing away after getting dengue fever in Puerto Rico where outbreaks have been reported. On Sunday, Andy, 32, withdrew from the Rip Curl Pro Search Puerto Rico citing an illness. According to reports which have yet to be confirmed, Andy was so sick he was unable to board his flight from Dallas to Kauai, got a hotel room, and was found there dead by an employee leaving behind a pregnant wife, family, and world full of friends and fans.

Wednesday morning update: Our deepest fears may be true as multiple sites are reporting that there were prescription medications found next to Irons and his death is being investigated as a possible adverse reaction to medication. An autopsy will be performed today and a toxicology report will also be done, although it will be weeks until those results are in. Reports coming in say that he missed his wake up call at the Grand Hyatt Dallas/Fort Worth, and was found dead at 9:46 a.m. Whatever the reason for his untimely passing, his life and achievements in surfing will be celebrated by all that he touched. Once again, our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to the friends and family of Andy Irons.

Andy will be greatly missed by all.

Andy took the ASP World Tour by storm and won the World Championship in 2002, 2003, and 2004. He will be remembered as the one guy in the world who could regularly beat Kelly Slater and his surfing in waves of consequence will live on forever. Just this year, Andy was one of five surfers we chose to have in the TransWorld SURF surf movie, High Five. His part was last (given to the best performing surfer) and perfectly displayed his legendary backside tube riding skills and man-sized hacks.

Our deepest condolences go out to the friends and family of Andy. Please show respect in your comments as this is a terribly sad day for the family and friends of AI.







His name was the most googled word yesterday.




You can view the Facebook tribute site here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/RIP-Andy-Irons/163239043709994?ref=ts