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

Amazing skating over at my Spatziba blog

Right here:
http://www.spatziba.com/skate/amazing_skating_from_sweden_1427

Spatziba Posted My Swedish 2007 DC Trip

Click here to see the post:
http://www.spatziba.com/snowboard/dc_goes_to_northern_sweden_1373


If you wanna see even more pics and words go here:
http://pierrewikberg.blogspot.com/2007/06/bjorkliden-sweden-shoot-mid-may.html

Met David again today.

Got a call around 11 yesterday morning (yes I was still sleeping) from my friends Vincent and Åsa who wondered if I can shoot an interview with David Lynch in about an hour.
I said yes.

He´s in town to talk about Transcendental Meditation and I must say it was quite intriguing to listen to him talk about it.
Charismatic man indeed.

Vince snapped some photos as well, good day.



I am a huge Twin Peaks fan and I loved his movie Straight Story (top 10 I´ve ever seen). The rest of his work is good too, but those are my favs.
Straight Story made a real impact on me. I had never heard of it and a Swiss friend happened to have the dvd with him while we had cabin fever on a mountain in Norway. He didn´t even recommend it, just said: "I bought it at some airport and it was kinda slow, but you can watch if you like".
Two hours later I had this feeling within that I´ve never had from watching a movie. That´s why I rather not know too much about a movie when I see one. Trailers and reviews kinda ruin the experience for me. I never read the back of dvd where some Warner Bros dude tries to sell me the movie in 10 rows of text.
Go watch it, preferably with your phone off and no Facebooking during the movie:)





This clip with where Angelo Badalamenti explains the workflow between him and Mr Lynch gave me goosebumps. Truly amazing.










Today he came by the Veda House (which happens to be 100 meters from my place) to raise a flag to celebrate that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came to Sweden 50 years ago to teach Transcendental Meditation and some casual meet and greet.

There was a small crowd loitering around and no press which I thought was pretty cool.




I helped my friend Åsa (her parents run Veda) to film a short interview for the Veda House website.


Yesterdays interview was for an upcoming tv documentary / show by Annika Dopping.

I must say that I´m quite intrigued by this meditation stuff. The way he speaks about it makes me want to try and learn it.
Who wouldn´t want to have more creative thoughts and excelled intuition?

Here´s a clip Swedish TV4 did on him yesterday:


Swedish public tv´s version:



Mr Lynch has a great website as well:
http://dlf.tv

I like this camera commerial.

It´s true. You don´t have to be a technial photographer to take good pictures.

You've never seen anything like this.

I was never good at jumping on a tramp with a skate. It was fun for a few minutes but that was it. My friend Eddie did it a lot when he was a kid. But this dude... omg. Just watch.

Gotta love kids

The kid call 911 for anything but an emergency.

http://www.videobash.com/video_show/911-kid-2918

Pretty good ad concept

I will probably buy Panda after this.

Saw a protest today.

It´s the day after the Swedish election and people in Stockholm went to protest against the Swedish Democracy party (right wing, nationalistic, racist party) who got 5.7% of the votes.

Ken playing with his car again.

While I was watching this 7 min clip over 100 people had made comments on it. That has to be some kind of record.


If you´ve been living under a rock and haven´t seen Ken´s past clips I´ll post some at the bottom. Enjoy.




Ken also had 2,000 people give him feedback on a 45 min old post. Also some sort of record?



Last year:




Two years ago:





I shot this last year one afternoon when we tried out a new toy:


Shot this in 3-4 days in NZ in 2007, hectic and fun days.


Top Gear did this sweet piece last year:

Went to Oslo last week.

After indulging in some gin&juice I decided to go to Oslo straight from the bar.
My friend Stian Solberg was running a 3k and the weather was supposed to be good for a while (doesn't happen often) so 4 hours after leaving the bar I was in Oslo.
Here's a 5 min video I shot with a Casio FH-100, fun camera.






And photos.