Madrid
F O T O S
Jan_Federer, Ziggy Schaap
Our Madrid trip happened pretty close before corona started. Right now, it looks like there will be no tours for a while. What’s your plan B for the foreseeable future? More local projects?
Well, Work-wise I’m not hit super hard by corona, actually Skate- deluxe got a lot busier than usual! I don’t have any specific plans but I’ve gotten a lot more motivated to do a camping skate trip or something in nature, because traveling seems to be pretty hard unfortunately.
To get our lazy winter legs back into shape, we spent quite a lot of time at the famous congresso ledges. There we ran into Adrian Del Campo a few times, who basically popped every trick 2m high. At one point he told us that he is rocking 42 pants and we outsized him with Bastiaans 44s, which I think he did not take easy. You think Adrian went to buy pants in size 46 the following day?
Most definitely he did, he really seemed bummed, when he found out Bastiaan had bigger pants than him. I do wonder though how Bastia- an can only Ollie about 3 decks and Adrian can switch heelflip 12…
Haha true. To be honest I was pretty impressd by Adrians Skating. And for me he is a good example on how european skateboarding is getting more and more in the international spotlight. What are your thoughts on „euro brands/skaters take over“?
You must really like this Adrian guy Jan, haha! I honestly didn’t know who he was, until Pascal showed me some of his instagram videos. I think Europe always had a crazy skate scene and been in the spotlight for us, right? It’s just that we get noticed by the US more nowadays, although I think the dudes at the nine club barely know Jaako or Jarne still, which is weird to me. I personally don’t really care about that as much, because skateboarding is a very niche market and should not be too commercial. American skateboarding for the most part is about the big tricks and the NBD’s, European skateboarding is more about creativity and the whole culture as an art form so to say, at least that’s how I see it.
„American skateboarding is about the big tricks and the NBD’s. European skateboarding is more about creativity and the whole culture as an art form so to say, at least that’s how I see it. „
You ́re right! There has always been great creative output from europes skate scene, but it seems to me that it got even more lately. What are some of your favourite euro-skate film-makers past and present?
French Fred for sure is one of my all time favourites as videographer back in the day and as a photographer nowadays. „Sorry“ was one of the first videos I saw and I could still watch this video every day now. I really like what Jacob Harris is doing, because his videos aren’t all about skateboarding and tricks. The Nicaragua video he made was one of my favourites, of course Atlantic drift is always an instant play. I think he really is a good example of European > US difference, where those US videos are usually only trick after trick and some high fives. I also like Pontus’ videos a lot, because you can see he really did document everything in his life happening around him and translated that to skate videos. Nowadays you can see his geniality translated into how good of a brand Polar is.
Another thing I see in euro videos more often is they tend to follow a concept, rather than just randomly filming tricks. Like your „No Service“ edit, which i really like. How long did you film for it and how did you come up with the idea?
Actually I’d rather film for a thought out concept with a deadline too, but things like „No Service“ just come organically. It was a usual rainy day in The Hague (which is 20 min’s from where I live, in Leiden) and we were out skating this parking lot, I think it was the time Justin did this fakie wheelie flip out through the stairwell, where we thought to ourselves that it looked cool and how crazy it would be, to make a video with just parking lots. It was also a good occupational therapy during wintertime and so we didn‘t have to skate indoor parks the whole time. After that, the crew we skated with became bigger and bigger and that’s how „No Service“ happend. We only skated the garages about 6 months usually during weekends!
I’m also amazed by the number of really good spots you found. It looks like you guys don’t even need indoors in the Netherlands?
We have about two hundred indoor parks in the Netherlands, all build for the olympic training sessions, so you can imagine you kind of get sick skating the same parks over and over during wintertime. I mean it’s nice for some guys to have a training ground or a place where you can hang out with people and drink a beer, for sure. But to me the streets (parking lots included) are just the endless playground.
Luci and I got a running gag about living the life as a media guy, which basically means putting your own skating in second place and carrying heavy equipment, while all the others are busting downhills and easily navigate through the streets. What’s your take on the glamorous life as a media guy?
I think it’s great to be the media guy, documenting friends while hanging out and doing projects with them. The only shitty part is of course, not being able to skate downhill without thinking about it and in a few situations not being able to skate a spot, because you only have a limited amount of time due to kickouts. In that case, I will definitely grab my camera instead of trying a couple wheelies myself. In the past I would always bring everything like flashes, lenses, vx, lights, pocket wizards, tripods so my bag was super heavy. Along the way I noticed, it was far more satisfying to just document skating with minimal equipment, because you will focus more on the decisive moments instead of just setting up your lights for fifteen minutes, after the trick had already been landed a couple times. Of course for filming it’s a different story. I’ve been trying not to randomly film everything that’s happening, shoot more thoughtful to not waste any of those precious fuji’s.
On Jenkem they recently published an article on how to treat your Filmer. Did it affect your daily work?
Haha, no way! I’m filming and taking photos to have a creative outlet. In some way help my friends to reach more in skateboar- ding. Mainly i’m stoked the people around me are super good at skating and I’m there to document that. I never thought of being a skateboardfilmer for a living or anything, because it will take away a big part of the fun. Of course, I get hired to do some stuff sometimes and I like doing that, but I would never wanna have a full time job being a skateboardfilmer.
Your prime goal for Madrid was to get clips from Pascal. He fil- med a lot of stuff and maybe the worst head slam I have ever seen. What’s the plan with that footage?
Maaannn that slam haha, great intro line though! Roland asked us to do a clip for Place for one of their new projects and Pascal sometimes needs a little extra motivation (and dry weather), so we decided to go to Madrid. It really worked, cuz I think he got more clips in that one week, than he got in the past year or so. We are still filming stuff here in the Netherlands, but due to the current Corona situation and Pascal fucking up his ankle again, the production is slowing down a bit.
A few months ago you released some orange Dot Stickers, which a lot of people are carrying on their boards now. What are you working on and when can we expect something to be released?
Actually what’s coming is still a secret, but I can tell you that the orange dot stickers didn’t really mean anything in the beginning. I just thought they looked cool and were easy to combine. The fun thing was, that everyone had their own thoughts on what it meant and what I was going to do with it. I will definitely use some of those thoughts later, bluf how I thought of the orange dot and what it means, haha. If all goes well, the release of this thing should be in June!
You mentioned, that there is no skateboard magazine in the Netherlands. You would be the perfect guy to make that happen. You are a master in both, video and photography and for sure you got tons of connection to get your zine published. Have you thought about doing it?
I wouldn’t say i’m the perfect guy to do this, but I really miss a printed skateboard magazine in the Netherlands. I would like to do some small zines every now and then, because every time I see those small self published or even self bound zines in bookshops, I feel this urge to make something like that as well, who knows! I just ordered chemicals to develop film, now that there’s time for that with all the Corona bullshit going on. I’m stoked to print stuff aswell!
Great, looking forward to see what you come up with. You guys stayed at bit longer than us. How did you experience Madrid and do you see yourself travelling there again?
I liked Madrid for sure, don’t get me wrong, but it felt like just another Spanish city, you know what I mean? Nothing that really stood out much or that was memorable enough to stick. Apart from the good times with the boys of course, but you can have those everywhere.
For me what really stood out where the locals. They were so open and supportive when it came to providing us with any kind of information and help. Are Skaters in Den Haag as supportive to skate visitors?
I mean, it depends on the person you’re meeting, most of us dut- chies can be really nice and open, but there’s enough people out, that like to keep to themselves a lot aswell. Over all I think dutch people are more planned out, than people from other countries. This is one of the things I like about Vienna so much; sometimes you randomly run into a friend and they would just join you for dinner or a skate session without a doubt. Over here if you run into a buddy, they will probably already have plans.
Btw. did you guys chat with the Congresso Hobo Locals? The one guy told us he‘s collecting farts to shoot them at the parliament, haha i loved the idea. Still wondering what the guy with the laptop was up to. What’s your imagination?
Haha, did he? I mean, the dude was there everyday, shooting paper planes and teaching kids about how he hated the government and stuff. I think the laptop hobo was there all day controlling every move we made at the congresso from some higher power, kind of like god playing EA skate!
„I THINK THE LAPTOP HOBO WAS THERE ALL DAY CONTROLLING EVERY MOVE WE MADE AT THE CONGRESSO FROM SOME HIGHER POWER, KIND OF LIKE GOD PLAYING EA SKATE!.“
