I'm back from the Australia/ New Zeland Trip. It was a lot of fun to shoot skateboarding with the red camrea. Also got to shoot some stuff for the Love + Guts art show held at Bondi and Wellington. I cut a short video about the art show that you can see along with the two videos I did for the contests at the oakley skate site.

The video I shot and edited in New Zeland has been posted in the community section at oakley's site here Scroll down a bit and there's a list of videos on the left hand side. It's the wellington Bowl-o-Rama video.

Just got back from the Tour of California. It is super cool to be doing stuff with road racing again. I was working on a commerical with Ivan Basso and the Liquigas/Cannondale team.

I was in Sacramento, California for the Tour of California. I was co-directing a Cannondale/ Ivan Basso commercial with my good friend Don Hampton from PA.
Anyway a guy named Terry Cox helped us out. He owns the coolest bike shop I have seen in a while, College Cyclery. He has lots of cool old bikes, great old Schwinns and some cool custom bikes.

Yesterday was the Bowlorama contest here in wellington, New Zeland. The finals were one of the more amazing skateboarding experiences I've had. Dudes were dropping in on eachother left and right. Often there were 3 dudes riding in the bowl at once. Monday we leave for Bondi beach in Sydney, where we'll be for the next contest and art show.

I'm in New Zeland for a week with the oakley skate crew. Today there was an art show with some of the crew's work. Here's Chris Senn Hanging his stuff.

We wrapped up 10 projects in the last 2 weeks. One of them is the Firsthand we did on Nigel Sylvester. It's going to air on Fueltv (channel 618 on directv) this sunday night. Nigel has a fresh vibe about him. Hit us back with your thoughts on the show.

EDIT: schedule is below
Upcoming air times for “Firsthand” – Nigel Sylvester
Sunday – 2/8/2009 8:00 pm ET / 5:00 pm PT
Sunday – 2/8/2009 11:00 pm ET/ 8:00 pm PT
Monday –2/9/2009 5:00 am ET / 2:00 am PT
Tuesday - 2/10/2009 9:30 pm ET / 6:30 pm PT
Friday – 2/13/2009 6:30 am ET / 3:30 am PT
Friday – 2/13/2009 4:30 pm ET / 1:30 pm PT
Friday – 2/13/2009 7:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm PT

We had the chance to knock out 2 new pollution segments on one long trip. Maddy and Taylor are both ripping snowboarders from Steamboat springs, CO. We enjoyed hot springs, maddy's cookies, crazy trampoline warehouses, and snoller blades

I have watched this video about 30 times in the last 3 days. It make me SMILE. It reminds me to be GRATEFUL for everything.
Peace
so

Happy Birthday Duane and Monson. It was the best dance party ever at one my favorite places to party, your garage studio.

Went to Chris Coy’s gig at the Sundance FIlm Festival (it was a New Frontier thing, the experimental arm of the festival) His performance was called (Nasty Nets: Night of a Thousand Megabytes) It was a bunch of his internet artist friends from around the world doing a bunch of wacky stuff. Chris is super clever and is always coming up with and digging into some new and cool stuff.(photos: Chris below with water bottle, above photo some other guy with microphone)

We have 10 projects to finish in the next 2 weeks. Both Tim and I have a full February but today spend some quality time on the couch with my Lady to celebrate. What a great day.
I feel so good about the future of everything. I feel peace. We were all a part of history. God bless us people!
Peace.
(this photo from my last trip to NYC, Brooklyn door)

Had a good time at David Silberberg’s film “Oh My God, It’s Harrod Blank” at the Slamdance Film Festival. Harrod was there and so was his dad the famous documentary filmmaker Les Blank also Gitty and Alicia.

We just got back from colorful Colorado. About a week with 2 snowboard kids in Steamboat Springs for New Pollution on Fuel TV. Weird schedule, but we got it done.
Next 2 weeks we finish up about 10 projects, a little Sundance Film Festival and family time before a busy February.
Peace,
SO

It looks our good friend David Silberberg from Berkley got married and has a film at the Slamdance Film Festival 2009. Congrats David and Gitty on the marriage and congrats on the film David. It is a film about genuine goof ball, artist, and godfather of the art car movement Harrod Blank.
(one of Harrod's cars)
Besides being a filmmaker David is an amazing documentary sound guy. We have worked together on and off for about 10 years.

As soon as Tim got done with Breckenridge I headed there for the Winter Dew Tour. I am very stoked on the Dew Tour. It was fun to check out the first Winter Dew event. I did a little shooting for the Weekly Update for Fuel TV. Thanks to Fuel TV for all the work. It was fun and very very cold. It is all good to see snowboarding but it was great to see free skiing get some coverage. (photos: in the tent before ski slopestyle and Kyle Smaine [we did a New pollution segment on him] in the Super pipe)

Oakley and Fuel TV have teamed up to do a week of the daily habit in Breckenridge, Colorado, and Matty from Oakley brought me along to shoot and edit some web spots about the event. You can check out the videos here There's also a video from the Russia trip on the same page. The photo is Pat Parnell, Gretchen Bleiler, and Matty Swanson.

Dave Boyle.
New to the oi family.
I didn’t know he was a brilliant filmmaker.
I thought he was just a kid that know how to use Final Cut Pro.
Dave just cut our Nigel Sylvester Firsthand in world record time.
Very very impressed.
Here is a trailer from one of his feature films.
He wrote, directed and acted in this movie.

one of the cool things about the Baja shoot was that we got to hang out with our boy Matt Jones. Matt worked at Fuel and we did a lot of New pollution segments for him while he was there. There we 6 of us shooting at Baja and we each had a Red One package. It was the first time I really got to shoot with one for more than just a few shots. It is a lot of camera to lug around without an assistant. We've used the Red on a few commercial spots, but we always had another operator, so it was cool to get real hands on time with one.

Tim was awesome to invite me on his Baja 1000 gig, his second year my first. We were shooting the Volkswagen, Red Bull truck for Oakley. It was cool to be shooting a Volkswagen because Volkswagen has a lot of history with the race. The new Touareg clean-diesel vehicle is groundbreaking. It is fast, quiet, uses less fuel and has very low emissions (they even use the word “green” if that word could possibly be in the same sentence as Baja 1000). It looked amazing cruising the Mexican desert at 100 mph+. As Fuzzy Hall said the race is the wild wild west, it is unbelievable to watch firsthand what goes on during that race. You see hordes of Mexicans fans just feet away from speeding cars that are bouncing up and down side to side, it is not surprising that fans occasionally die watching this race. Thanks James Masters it was fun.
(These photos: the new Volkswagen Touareg just before the race and an old Volkswagen Bug, still racing.)

ROAD TRIP WRAP UP


Just about got stuck in the mud outside of New Harmony. Steve's Awesome driving skills got us unstuck.








Untitled from oi documentary services on Vimeo.

We are on the road with David Law doing a commercial for Fuel TV. It is a simple idea, pushing a skateboard through beautiful places. The challenge, nothing man made in the frame but the road and David’s board (and clothes). So far we have been in Goblin Valley, Capital Reef National Park, Hell’s Backbone by Calf Creek, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Big Sur, and now Point Reyes ‘Station, California, north of San Francisco. (photos: photographic horse play as the sun sets in Big Sur and David in Capital Reef)

Had a great time in New Jersey shooting a New Pollution segment on Little Sean. This kid was a super rad and an amazing BMXer. This kid’s outlook on life made me smile. (photo: Matt “Pretty Boy” Beacham and Little Sean on the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore)

I decided to try something new while we were in New Jersey and I booked us into a bed and breakfast instead of the usual corporate hotel thing . We stayed at the Cottage on the River and it was amazing. It is a very comfortable house on the bay. From our window we could see the boats in the bay just a few yards away. The place is run by Sally and her husband Phil. They are super cool and had made us feel comfortable. We had our own bathroom so there was plenty of privacy and there were nice common areas too. The breakfasts were perfect and the place is just so peaceful. Sally even let us do our final interview in the living room of the house. In times like this I think Sally and Phil should have our money and the Marriotts will be just fine without it. (photos: the place and Matt our host with Sally and Phil)

sean is rad and super easy to film, steve and I have had a great time shooting with him. One more day, then home for a few days before heading out on the next fuel spot shoot.