Tag: Robin Pedro

After the Promo and the Interview now it is time for the full length.

Enjoy all the dutchies and their indoor hills!

If you don’t know Ziggy Schaap by now you might not follow European skateboarding. Over the years he has been a Dutch mainstay, first and foremost as a photographer but now it seems he has found his way through the world of moving images. We have had the pleasure of premiering multiple of his video works in the last 2 years and with his latest video on the horizon, we wanted to ask him some questions.

Images by Ziggy Schaap & Martijn van Velden.
Interview by Roland Hoogwater.

Facetime rings… Ziggy picks up.

Hey man, how are you?
I am good, just came home, slept in Rotterdam, about to start working. Skatedeluxe costumer hotline! If you want you can call me via the Skatedeluxe line (laughs).

(laughs)… Let’s shoot, first question: Why did you make this video?
Why did I make the “No Service” video? Well, basically it was to get people to skate outside of the skateparks. Indoor parks are cool to practice and film for Insta but they do get repetitive and you can’t really make something there film wise.
So this project provided me with something to do during the winter time.

So I started thinking and concluded that there haven’t been many videos that have been filmed completely inside a (multiple) parking garage.

To me skating a parking garage is pretty Dutch. People do it often especially in places where there are no indoor skateparks and it rains a lot over here.

I also thought it would be fun to limit myself to one particular type of thing and the number and sorts of spots a garage provides.

Makes sense, so how many places did you visit during the making of this video?
We went to different cities… I think we started in Den Haag skating with Justin Wagenaar en Sebastiaan Vijverberg around station De Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië. That day we skated 2 or 3 different locations and that is when I got the idea for the video.

So during the filming, a lot of people heard about the idea and decided to join our sessions.

I think the video is mostly Den Haag because we found a large number of underground garages there but we also went to multiple in Rotterdam, one in Amsterdam which was filled with spots, Utrecht, Leiden where we have the deepest underground garage in Europe, Antwerp, Tilburg & Haarlem.

No service_pascal moelaert_martijn van velden
What was the best spot?
Hard to say probably the whole area where we started in Den Hague because there a multiple spots, it is not a place where people really live, so fewer complaints but it depends on what you like.

The thing is there where “spots” but a lot of the places you can skate are curbs and mannie pads. Which some people can skate great but others don’t really like or can’t. So it depends on the skater.
How did you know which cities to visit? Or did you randomly go to places to check?
The one in Tilburg, for instance, I knew because I had filmed a “day in the life” there back in the day. Bram van Halteren showed me that garage because it was raining and we wanted to show his skating during his DITL.
Inside there is a long near perfect ledge and to top it all of, the police came and said that they liked what we where doing so we could stay and film uninterrupted.

We all knew a couple and as the project went on people like Bastiaan van Zadelhoff went in a couple to check for spots but we also went randomly looking for spots or used Google-Maps. In Haarlem, for instance, we visited a place and afterward, we googled Q-park and sometimes people add foto’s to the google thing and we found some spots that way too.

How long did the whole process take… start to finish?
I think the first clip was filmed at the end of November the start of December. So, a little over 2 months, which is pretty fast for a 12-minute video.

Plus a 6-minute promo.
True, I like that too but in some ways, it is not really a promo because I basically used all of Rob Maatman’s footage in the video so he is not a real presence in the promo. They both have their own vibe.

 

No service_ziggy schaap
What about the vibe of the project, obviously a parking garage is mostly void of sunlight.
Well, it did really take shape during the making of it but the VX camera truly has a different look when you take it inside. The video quality becomes crusty but at the same time that fits the environment because these places were dusty, oily and generally dirty. We often came home with our hands black with all kinds of dirt.

What about the limitations? Was filming on a sunny rooftop allowed?
We discussed that multiple times, the clip is called “No Service” because underground our cellphones would not be working but in fact, we were filming on a garage rooftop where we had 4g and 4 bars of connection. Only Rob really has outside clips but I felt it worked within the video, I did think about taking it out but it ended up feeling right to leave it in.

Is this video your version of Yoan Taillandier’s Minuit, where people start in the night and the last clips end when the sun comes up?
Maybe in some ways, it is, I actually edited some parts inspired by that video. An example is after the first part there is a segment where it shows the guys leaving the garage (3:08) and then we see some rainy shots and that ends with the guys going back inside. I don’t know if people will see that inspiration because it is abstract but it is there.

Now they will (laughs). What about the crew?
I never start anything with a crew in mind, it always seems to grow organically.
I actually never really filmed a project with Rob Maatman and Robbin de Wit before and that is always exciting to film with new people and see what they bring to the table.

What about time, because of the lights there is less of a sensation of time, did you guys get caught up in some real late night sessions?
Well, a lot of the times we went in when it was light and because our cell phones did not really work we often ended up skating together for a way longer time. Obviously, we would still be able to tell time but you don’t really get disturbed by messages as much as you normally would.

no service_jelle maatman_ziggy schaap
In a way, you are more together when you don’t have people looking at their phones.
It did feel like that at times, also you had to be at the meetup-spot on time because you could depend on a quick message or call.

With the amount of fencing and security at some of these places, it was important to know the right way in. Even though we would obviously, drop a pin before going in things were not as usual.

Last year you released “Alles Wisselt”, The End & Memories all three have a concept behind them, this one does as well. Is that a coincidence?
Well… I have too many ideas and often I end up just doing something. “Alles Wisselt” and “No Service” both had a plan behind them but The End & Memories just happened. They are connected but not outspokenly so, for me they have to do with Love. “The End” has that song “Skeeter Davis – The End of The World (1962)” which is about the feeling when someone leaves you. Memories has a Leonard Cohen song which looks back on relationships of the past singing “won’t you let me see your naked body…” but with this video I kind of left that idea for a bit.

Alright, what about the music, this video features only Dutch music.
The first Instagram trailer did not have a Dutch spoken song but even at that stage, I knew I wanted to finish the video with a Herman van Veen song.

So two weeks back we were editing and Bastiaan van Zadelhoff put on some crazy Dutch tunes and proposed only using those type of songs. To be honest, between the rainy days, skating indoors it felt right to use Dutch music with this video, it strengthened it as a whole.
Did you learn anything weird about parking garages during the making of this project?
The Netherlands is known as a flat country but through this project, we found out all our downhills are hidden indoors.

Gx1000 could have happened in the low countries.

Closing question, you had a goal to do something in the winter and stay out of the beaten path (indoor skateparks) but at the end of the project, the sun started shining again. Where there ever times where you reluctantly entered a dark garage when you really wanted to skate outside?
That happened for sure! (laughs). We really had a couple of days where we would have skated outside had it not been for this. People were complaining “it is great weather, do we really need to go inside?” but we all knew we needed a bit more to finish the project so we did stay true. In the end, we really did survive winter the best way possible*.

I believe you, thanks Ziggy!

*Editors note:
Besides flying to a warm country

no service_pascal moelaert_justin wagener

Want more? Check out Ziggy’ full length “Likkie Wax” that we launched together last year.

 

 

Next week Ziggy Schaap will be premiering his new video “No Service”, today we have the promo to hype you up. Tomorrow we have a full interview with Ziggy about his upcoming project, past projects, and even the future.

Now, get a coffee, sit down and press play to watch some underground ripping.

Last September we organized ‘Creating Lines’, a three-day event that took place in Rotterdam. We highlighted and discussed notable changes and differences between the older Dutch and more specific Rotterdam styles of skateboarding. We did this in an attempt to bring skateboarders of all different generations, sorts and areas closer together.

A big part of the Creating Lines project was an exhibition about Rotterdam’s skate history, a premiere of our full-length skate video ‘Momentum’ and various panel discussions about the history and future of skateboarding in the Netherlands.

‘Momentum’ consists of five main video parts, made by various talented Dutch filmmakers. They were given 6 weeks to make a short video, in which they had to incorporate the theme ‘change’. Besides having a part in the video, Jan Maarten Sneep also managed to glue together the entire thing. He spent many hours watching and editing classic Rotterdam skateboard footage to create several Memory Screen montages for the video. These videos showcase the changes in skateboarding throughout our history. All the main parts of the video will be shown right here on Place Skateboard Culture the coming weeks and the full project can be found via our socials.

Intro text by Martijn van Hemmen.

Filmed,edited & text by Jan Maarten Sneep.

 

Tim Zom, Frontside Bluntslide, Photo Bastiaan van Zadelhoff.
Tim Zom, Frontside Bluntslide, Photo Bastiaan van Zadelhoff.

Part 1:

SUPER ZOOM ELECTRONIC 010 

 

 

 

The making of SUPER ZOOM ELECTRONIC 010

With change being the topic, I focussed on the change in video cameras over the years. After having filmed for a number of years with various HD cameras, I went back in time for this project, back to the VX-1000 from 1995, and the Canon Super Zoom Automatic 1014 from 1973. I didn’t use these cameras in the traditional way instead I utilized the technical possibilities of 2018 and combined them. For example, I recorded the VX images on an SD card instead of tapes, and I used my phone to film through the viewfinder of the Canon 1014.

I had purchased this old Super 8 camera some years ago, during the making of The Bombaklats video to be exact. But after I received a number of bad cassettes, I did not have that much confidence in using it anymore. Partly because when filming with the VX-1000, we regularly film the tricks with our phones through the viewfinder so we can watch a clip back without overusing the camera. Via that technique, I came up with a new idea. I attached a phone case to the super 8 camera so that I could film through the viewfinder and it worked! Meanwhile, we are on Duct tape prototype number 4, and the images are sharper than ever.

The Super Zoom Camera in action.
The Super Zoom Camera in action.

This spot, right next to Rotterdam Centraal, is inspired by Dirk Middelkoop in the Boombap video. He does a line there in which he comes from behind the pillars and does a big Fs Blunt on the curb. I always thought that looked so sick, Robbin de Wit agreed.

The first time we went to this spot together, while Robbin was checking out the spot, it started to rain a little bit – no worries the spot has a roof over it-  but not even fifteen minutes later it turned into a huge storm, the hailstones poured past us, and the streets filled with water in no time. We were dry, happily covered, but skating was no longer a possibility. It turned out to be quite the storm, later on, we heard that this storm caused a lot of damage to the city of Rotterdam.

A couple of days later we went there again but now with a larger group. I, myself would never think of trying a back noseblunt on something like this but you can always ask Robbin to do one. It took him a while to figure out what he wanted to do at the beginning of the line but once he did it did not take that him long to make the line. Ziggy (Schaap) was there and made this lovely picture! The spot, the trick, and everyone in the background.

Robbin De Wit, Backside Noseblunt, Photo Ziggy Schaap.
Robbin De Wit, Backside Noseblunt, Photo Ziggy Schaap.

Combining art and skateboarding can be very tricky and a lot of projects often slide into the trap of making artistic versions of skate obstacles.
Opperclaes created multiple public installations based on certain keywords that they saw connected to skateboarding and skateboarders.

“The project ‘Character Type’ was an intervention in the city of Rotterdam in September 2018 and bridged the gap between public art and skateboarding. The words are a homage to a skateboarding state of mind.”

Together with furniture designer Jeroen van Sluis the project came out quite nicely, to say the least.

Our favourite thing besides the skating is the fact that they first turned words into images and then images into sculptures that were then used to make this video (images) again.

But as always, don’t let us influence you to much see for yourself.