Recently I edited a video for an IPATH sales meeting. I was pretty excited about it for a number of reasons. I had to make small sections from all the stuff filmed recently and it was an opportunity to use whatever music I chose. Since we were only showing it at the sales meeting, rights weren’t a concern, as they are for the other stuff we’ve done. I found a Brian Eno song, “The Big Ship” that felt quite moving. I’ve played around with lots of slow motion and speed changes in a slam section I edited for a video I did in Cleveland. Back then I was inspired by a popular car commercial at the time. This time I’ll admit that I was brought back to it by the opening of the Lakai video. I found a Led Zeppelin song that I felt contrasted the mellowness of the Eno song and went to town. Ultimately the marketing department liked the idea of showing the video using just natural sound to keep the feel more raw. I really didn’t have time to do any re-editing so I just dropped the sound. I like both versions although some of the slow motion and speed changes feel a little awkward without the music as motivation.

Hopefully Brian Eno, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant don’t decide to sue me for posting this here. Or does Michael Jackson own all the rights to their songs too?

You can view the video here with quicktime player and a fast connection.

Since I accidently uploaded the “no music” version you can view that here.

IPATH Footwear was in Ohio earlier this month for 10 days for a photoshoot. You might be thinking that the equation of a photoshoot for skateboarding footwear in Ohio during the month of November would not produce favorable results. We were in a barn though so don’t stress, everything was fine. Thanks to climate change, or just Mother Nature, it was not that cold, unless you ask Matt who is from Arizona. Surrounding the three day photoshoot, shot by Shem Roose, the team, Adam Alfaro, Jack Sabback, and Fred Gall skated. Matt Price from The Skateboard Mag was on hand to create an article and I was on hand to film it all. The trip was good and it was good to meet everyone on it. It was also nice being back to Ohio in the late fall and I got to see some friends.

I know Matt missed out on getting this sequence so here is a video clip of Adam Alfaro.

In a culmination of laziness I am posting yet another older experiment. The original October Video from 2001 was posted on November 3, 2006 and here is my follow up version from last year. I created a project out of this with my friend Matt Minch and if he ever sends me a quicktime version of his flick I’ll post that and explain. For now this video is the same deal as the other. It’s about ten minutes long, quicktime player is required, and a high-speed connection is recommended. Giddy-up.

Happy Thanksgiving! Once again I find myself wishing I were in Ohio and not this dreaded desert. I’d probably feel just as alone there though. On a positive note, my roommate has turned the TV off. I thought for sure today would be the start of an 84-hour mind bleeding marathon inexorably pulling me into a very uncreative and unproductive vortex of insanity. There’s something to be thankful for!

I had the idea for this project in early 2004 and a general lack of motivation kept me from executing it. Last year I shaped up, enlisted the help of several willing friends, and after a few months of rehearsing and three full months of filming it was completed. My camera had problems requiring many shots to be filmed more times than necessary. Also, it seems that the Cleveland Police have nothing better to do than castigate and harass young men engaged in constructive projects in off the beaten path industrial areas of the city. They definitely provided me with a number of unnecessary headaches. In a speech, Peter B. Lewis once commented on how he feels the Cleveland area does not support its “screwballs.” Probably one of the reasons the area is the largest exporter of young professionals in the country, myself now included. Ultimately I wish I had exploited and shown more activity in the background, however, working on an uncontrolled set in traffic provides more than a few limitations. I would greatly like to thank everyone listed in the credits, especially Junior, Austin Robison, Matt Minch, and Jurgen Koch. This by far was the most difficult video project I have executed and with out everyone’s help it would not have happened. Quicktime is required and preferably a high-speed connection.