Ben Gore

The first excerpt from the new Far East Skate Network DVD "BEYOND THE BROADCASTINGS" (available straight from them here, and in Europe here) to pop up online is no other than Léo Valls' part, filmed by Shigeta Iha at the service of Takahiro Morita's vision and theory - one according to which, allegedly, early morning energy is especially favorable to purely spontaneous skateboarding. And so that's how, throughout one month back in 2014 (right after the filming of the Magenta full-length video "JUST CRUISE"), filming meet-ups were arranged every Saturday, 5:30 A.M. at the Sunplaza spot in Nakano, Tokyo prior to exploring the neighboring streets and alleyways, in search of the next curb to exploit - and let's not even get into the now world-renowned metaru banksu de gozaimasu... The footage took its time to show up, but the energy only aged like the finest of Bordeaux wines - and here's perhaps an opportunity to remind you, on a side note, about the recent release of "BORDEAUX EXPOSURE III" by Julien Januszkiewicz, here. The - original - soundtrack is by the amazing Yoshiharu Yoshida (of O.P.S.B.), and it's Léo's wife and newly a mother, Lauren, who sings and will teach you some yoga.

Push Periodical, the independent, print photography-oriented skate mag orchestrated by legendary photographer from the U.K. Richard Hart (interviewed by LIVE here), celebrates its five years of existence (only? already?) as a petite entreprise with "5", an exclusive edit signed by just-as-legendary Sony VX-1000 wizard Zach Chamberlin which revisits a past half-of-a-decade mostly spent on the road - or when the San Francisco hills decide to lead you somewhere in between Portugal and Hungary... On the program: nearly forty skaters documented throughout that timespan, whose most footage has found a home in different productions in the meantime and yet, they manage to take a whole new flavo(u)r here - which isn't that surprising as Rich can definitely school anyone on how clementines really make camembert come alive, and that's in spite of all their preconceived notions. Behind the camera, in addition to Zach: Colin Read, Romain Batard, Chris Thiessen, Grant Yasura... And Dan Wolfe, for the final tribute to Keith Hufnagel - of course. The soundtrack is by a longtime friend of Richard's: Brigid Dawson.

With the year twenty twenty comes, amongst many other complete revolutions, the tenth anniversary of France's top plank (and general qualitative artefact) purveyors: Magenta Skateboards, and of their progressive - under every sense of the term - contribution to skateboarding's ever-so-new world order, like a happenstance cultural coup d'état that would have taken the whole past decade by storm. Still the brainchild of Paris-based artist Soy Panday and of brotherly duo Vivien and Jean Feil, Magenta just marked the occasion by appropriately dropping an anniversary-themed capsule (first come, first serve), and also by catching up with Sylvain Robineau again for the span of this short film: "STILL IN BUSINESS", featuring a cast of family members. You might remember Sylvain's works: "WHICH IS TO BE THE MASTER?" and "PARISIEN", amongst many other personal pieces one can retrace the existence of on Dailymotion, for instance.

Also on the menu, and the cake atop of the cherry: this "10 YEARS MIXTAPE" consisting in, well, a sugar-filled recap of the brand's video offering ever since its inception, cooked by Manolo's Tapes, complemented by an exclusive article on the Magenta website here, and even by a brand new Soy Panday interview by Matt Broadley for Parade World, here - all as to better get you ready for the next decade to come!

Eric Nguyen, whose talents - Sony VX-1000 in hand - no longer need an introduction (or if they do, then feel free to check out his past productions here), is back with "SLOPES": just short of eight minutes filmed in between his Texas home and San Francisco that honor both Select Skateshop and the Black Lives Matter movement (represented by several organizations whose respective websites are linked to in the YouTube description of the edit). There, one gets to see the usual suspects again - including Ben Havran and Kyle Cielencki to name just two out of many more, but also some of the kings of the Bay Area hills: Ben Gore, Ryan Barlow, Chris Athans and even Magenta Japanese flow rider Futoshi Tokuyama - who, from the looks of it, was really set on making the most of his S.F. vacation! Also worth mentioning: the appearance of a certain Fred Gall...

Eric's productivity being particularly upbeat, it can even exceed our workflow at LIVE sometimes - therefore we strongly encourage you to check out his YouTube channel to catch up with his recent activity - and more edits such as "CURFEW", for instance!