by The Editors on August 30, 2008
As the star of Quiksilver’s new film Just Add Water, Clay Marzo is bringing more attention to a form of autism called Aspergers. It’s also opening eyes to just what is possible for others with the condition.
More than a movie about a rising young star, however, it details Clay’s aptitude and unique personality, and his life with Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that can make school and social situations challenging but also allows him to hyperfocus and exhibit exceptional talent in a specific arena.
Clay’s mother Jill Marzo wasn’t sure the movie at first:
“I was really nervous,” she admits. “I didn’t want to expose it. I worried that people would treat him differently or that he would be embarrassed by it.” Instead, the film and an extensive article in Surfer Magazine yielded e-mails from others inspired by Clay’s unique pursuit of his passion. That, she says, made the journey worthwhile.
[Link: Honolulu Star-Bulletin]
by The Editors on August 28, 2008
The Daily 10 host Debbie Matenopoulos was recently profiled in The Times of South Africa and in the interview she was asked what she thinks about her co-host Sal Masekela. Here’s what she had to say:
. . . he is one of the most incredible, soft-spoken guys she has met, qualities which come from the days when he toured with his father, Hugh Masekela, for whom she has tremendous respect. “We have a lot of fun and he’s talented,” said Matenopoulos.
Can’t say we’d argue with her over much of anything, especially Sal.
[Link: The Times]
by The Editors on August 27, 2008
Back in the day we were always bigger fans of Tony Alva, but obviously Stacy Peralta did things the right way. Now he’s on a podcast with LA’s KCRW.
Skate legend and director talks to Garth Trinidad about an artist with political undercurrents and hypnotic beats, cinematic music from the ‘80s, the haunting compositions of a UK band you can feel “in the core of yourself,” and a track from his own son, pianist Austin Peralta. His latest film, Made in America, is screening this week in LA.
The podcast is probably one that you should not miss. You know, if you’re an old guy who still pays attention to skateboarding. And the movie? Well, it’s documentary about the Crips and the Bloods. We’ll leave it at that.
[Link: KCRW via Transworld Skateboarding]
by The Editors on August 27, 2008
The AST Dew Tour is touting the fact that they had a “record TV audience” on Sunday August 24, 2008 with a 2.7 overnight rating for live coverage of the Wendy’s Invitational from Portland, OR.
This marks the highest rated Dew Tour broadcast in its four-year history along with being the highest rated daytime action sports broadcast in history. Sunday’s broadcast benefited from an NBC Olympic broadcast “lead-in,” the final day of the Beijing Olympic Games.
The Olympic lead-in probably would have delivered similar ratings to a documentary about watching paint dry if NBC had decided to program it, but thanks to the Dew Tour a lot of older American’s are now saying, “those BMX kids are amazing.”
by The Editors on August 25, 2008
Burton Snowboards has teamed up with Vice Magazine for a new 10 episode video program on VBS.tv called Powder and Rails. Drug references sell, right?
The series will delve through the storied history of the sport with an emphasis on how it transformed from a novelty for yuppie two-plankers to something bored skateboarders did in the winter to one of the most anticipated events in the Olympic Games. This VBS series begins with the legendary Fall Line Films releases in the late ’80s, particularly The Western Front. The videos shifted the focus of snowboarding, inspiring a whole generation to forget about contests and focus more on tricks and mountain exploration. They also helped, plant the seeds for the proliferation of professional snowboarders over the next two decades.
Looks like a nice little retrospective that all the bitter old snow shreds will enjoy. Lots of Steve Graham, Jeff Brushie, and Snowboarder Magazine employees.
[Link: VBS.tv]
by The Editors on August 25, 2008
It could be argued that Red Digital Cinema is 59-year-old Oakley founder Jim Jannard’s third lightening strike. He completely rearranged the way motorcycle/BMX grips were made, then moved on and revolutionized action sports eyewear. It would seem that selling Oakley to Luxottica for $2.1 billion would have been a nice place to pause and maybe buy an island in the South Pacific, spend a few years painting nude island girls, and call it a life. Not Jannard.
Instead, he decided to completely re-wire the image capture business with a revolutionary camera designed from the ground up to digitally do what no one had ever done before. Jannard seems driven by an ability to look at stagnate industries and ask, “Why are they still doing things the old way?”
His team of engineers and scientists have created the first digital movie camera that matches the detail and richness of analog film. The Red One records motion in a whopping 4,096 lines of horizontal resolution—”4K” in filmmaker lingo—and 2,304 of vertical. For comparison, hi-def digital movies like Sin City and the Star Wars prequels top out at 1,920 by 1,080, just like your HDTV. (There’s also a slightly higher-resolution option called 2K that reaches 2,048 lines by 1,080.) Film doesn’t have pixels, but the industry-standard 35-millimeter stock has a visual resolution roughly equivalent to 4K. And that’s what makes the Red so exciting: It delivers all the dazzle of analog, but it’s easier to use and cheaper—by orders of magnitude—than a film camera. In other words, Jannard’s creation threatens to make 35-mm movie film obsolete.
Early on camera experts were treating the Red One like some kind of hoax. But most of them had no idea who was behind the camera and that he literally was capable of creating the impossible. Wired magazine’s Michael Behar breaks down the story, which makes us realize that Jim Jannard is probably the most incredible mind to ever work in the action sports business. He never competes. He simply moves the entire industry his way.
“I’m passionate about this because I’m building the camera I’ve always wanted to shoot with,” he says. “When my grandkids and great-grandkids look back, they’re going to say I was a camera builder. I did handgrips and then goggles and then sunglasses to prepare myself. But cameras are magic.”
[Link: Wired Magazine]
by The Editors on August 24, 2008
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Dude’s getting old. But Mike “Mack Dawg” McEntire has decided that he’s through doing the annual snowboard movie and is going to concentrate on other projects. One of which is a documentary on the life and weird times of Peter Line.
One of the more interesting things Dawger had to say was about what Transworld Business writer Mike Lewis called the “Internet piracy of content.”
Any industry that relies on a digital master and makes copies of it to make money dies by the Internet,” says McEntire. “It doesn’t matter what you do, if it’s a digital item that you can put on a computer and send it around then that’s exactly what they do. . . . “People…don’t know how much effort all the riders and film companies put into this. In the end I would have to say that a lot of people [in the industry] will be getting over it fairly shortly too, and then what happens is all these kids that thought they were all stoked for getting this stuff for free are gonna get nothing, well nothing of super, crazy good quality. There’s a handful of people that have been making snowboard movies for a super long time and they’re skilled craftsmen at what they do, and when those guys start to go away then the kids are gonna see that there’s a big difference between that type of production and just some kid with a [camera].”
Turn to face the strange changes. . . . .
[Link: TransWorld Business]
by The Editors on August 22, 2008
by The Editors on August 22, 2008
In an email sent out at 4:20 PM yesterday, August 21, 2008 Skateboarder Magazine Publisher Roger Harrell announced to the skateboard industry that:
Today is my last day at Skateboarder magazine. . . Thanks for all your help and support. Roger Harrell.”
Some who had spoken with Roger earlier in the day said that there was no hint that anything was up. Word is the position will not be filled.
by The Editors on August 20, 2008
Jeffery A. Berg, the chairman and lead investor in Surfline/Wavetrak Inc., lead director of Swell.com, and founder and owner of Airborne Media LLC (publishers of FOAM magazine, Girls Learn To Ride, etc. . . . ) has just been named to the board of a Carlsbad, California-based interactive entertainment company NTN Buzztime.
Between 1995 and 2000, Mr. Berg was Chairman of AccentHealth. He led its financing and strategic development from its pilot phase to a network now providing segmented, patient education-oriented TV programming to over 10,000 medical waiting rooms. AccentHealth programming reaches 11.7 million consumers every month. . . . Mr. Berg has over 20 years’ experience as a professional investor, having founded Matador Capital Management in 1993, and before that working for 9 years at Raymond James Financial as an institutional securities analyst. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Florida and certification as a Chartered Financial Analyst.
For someone so involed in action sports online, we hardly knew Mr. Berg.
[Link: eMedia World]
As the star of Quiksilver’s new film Just Add Water, Clay Marzo is bringing more attention to a form of autism called Aspergers. It’s also opening eyes to just what is possible for others with the condition.
