Yoan Taillandier's present for this end-of-the-year's festivities bears the title "MINUIT EXP. 2" and serves as the announcement of a new Minuit website soon to pop up, or so it seems. What we get is four minutes of his trademark, hard-hitting Sony VX-1000 signature style, here focused on some Bordeaux skateboarding of the 2015 vintage, only seeing the light of day just now. Lots o' Glen Fox, some visiting James Coleman, Lui Araki and James Whineray sprinkled through here and there, Olivier Ente repping the O.G.'s alongside Patrick Houngtry and, also, a rather strong Blobys presence.
Talking things James Coleman, let us invite you to take a look at "HOT PLATE", Marshall Nicholson's new video. And you can also follow Minuit on YouTube, here!
From the Tokyo-based crew already behind (amongst some other madness) the twelve-minute video "PALE" (which you can still watch and rewatch, alongside an interview with filmmaker Kenta Okamoto, here), just popped up a new piece: "PEACE AND LOVE" is a five-minute VX-2000 edit which, as usual, turns out to be excellent on all levels. It's also marking a new chance to see the graceful styles of Ryusei Sakurai, Ryo Takahashi or Naoya Kato, for instance - and also to witness quite the waterfall of crazy spots and improbable kickflips, meeting only to better serve the strengths of Kenta's experimental editing. Just as a due reminder: Kenta's YouTube channel can be explored here!
A couple of weeks back, LIVE was featuring "CLASSICO", the new video with its contents filtered through the eye and VX-1000 of Practice Session's Corentin Ohlmann, in between Paris and Marseille, in a style comparable to the one of "BROTHERHOOD" (the video by Corentin's friend Max Guyot, itself filmed in Nancy and Paris). Our most faithful readers should already know by now, but most every skateboarder involved in "CLASSICO" also happens to double up as a photographer (as their respective contributions to the No Contact Sheets project can attest) and today here they are, presenting you this gallery of clichés they shot whilst on the sessions, be the latter street- or beach-based. Amongst the contributors: Corentin himself but also George Booth-Cole, Max Guyot, Clément Harpillard, Matias Elichabehere, Alexis Jamet, Yedihael Canat and Antoine "Chuck" Jouguet - whose talents also comprise team management, it looks like, since he played a big role in gathering all those images, for you!
To close the curtains on their first "UNSIGNED HYPE" series of web clips, our fellow media brethren over at Place Mag just chose to drop this strong edit of Pascal Moelaert (who happens to rep the POP Trading Co. homies, amongst a few other respectable entities), filmed and edited by Ziggy Schaap. Now this one is definitely worth your attention, brimming with practical applications of ledge science, endless lines, overall good taste and a general stylistic maturity that would for sure suffice to allow Pascal in bars in the U.S., despite really only being nineteen of age. Ah and he has quite the mean switch backside tailslide, too... To top it all off, one can check out a joined interview with the movie participants on either side of the lens, here!
From the mind and screen of Macéo Moreau (whose own skateboarding prowess LIVE has repped quite a few times in the past), this edit of footage of various urban locations orchestrated by Kevin Ozcan's talents - that recently earned him the cover of the latest issue of Déjà Vu Skatemag - just dropped, and it hits hard. Kevin's skateboarding is as surprising as it is gnarly, and so are his spots; a picture only sublimed by some nimble Sony VX-1000 maneuvering and quite the tasteful editing. Any skate clip urging you to turn the volume up instead of down in the year twenty twenty is remarkable, but this particular one especially owes that designation to how brimming it is with motivation of a type that's probably infectious...
The contents of LIVE's front page today owe enough to Ljubljana, Slovenia-based skater, photographer and artist Tomaž Šantl (of Original Copy) that we'd preface them with this acknowledgement; indeed, he is the one who suggested to Luka Demšar and Mark Pogačar Nikolić, of the local Želve crew and brand LYC, to get in touch with us, about their new video production: "DOBRAAAJJ", consisting in no less than sixteen minutes of skate footage logged straight from the streets of the capital, and feels like an exciting, communicative and honest capture of the current energy and motivation of a timelessly and remarkably strong scene that, somehow, frequently eludes mainstream recognition to this day - for better and for worse. The opportunity was just perfect to catch up with the Ljub front for some news, represented by some young blood that does like to stick to the Sony VX-1000, so we all got the ball rolling, and the following interview ensued...
"LOCKSLEY" is the title of the latest video offering from Brazilian brand Perfume ran by Fabiano Rodrigues, in collaboration with Adidas. Fabiano himself tackled the editing duties, too, while the camera was handled by two longtime LIVE favorites: Alexandre 'Cotinz' ('not a filmer anymore!') Neaime (in a way, marking his return to the other side of the lens since "DOPPELGÄNGER") and Hernando "Ñaño" Ramirez, of ASCO Skateboarding. And when it comes to the skating, well, Fabiano knows how to surround himself there too, in the mix with Akira Shiroma, Pedro Prosdossimi, Kali Oliveira and João Freitas. Thirteen H.D. minutes of off-road skateboarding, as expected, based on the free reinterpretation of whatever sort of resembles a spot, notably involving quite the number of bench-to-bench manoeuvers - all at the service of an audiovisual patchwork of quite the experimental kind.
If the eponymous interactive T.V. show was avant-garde in how it trained you to hammer the keys of your now-antiquated phone with a frenzy strangely reminiscent of the youth of today, le sieur Maillard, as far as he's concerned, has been more into the sharpening of his finger skills via practice on the actual piano, as of late. And, while your older-brother-or-comparable is most likely still sobbing from emotion at the souvenir of the closing segment in "CROSSWALK" (the Rennes video by Pacôme Gabrillagues from two thousand ten), the protagonist of exactly that just recorded his first E.P.: "NI LE MATIN, NI L'APRES-MIDI", thirty-one minutes carved onto a vinyl already available from the Dukes of Magenta, who've gone as far as devoting a full feature on their website about the event, here.
And since what goes around comes around, Hugo also derusted his fancy footwork for the occasion of a celebratory skate clip, itself composed by Louis Deschamps of Tonic, for Magenta. In the end, the groove proves to be the same - beat and upbeat!
Already strong of quite the brillant VX-1000 resume comprising montages such as "SHMARA", "LOST" or "BOOF", all well worth your time, U.K.-based skate filmmaker James 'D.J.' Davidson hits hard again today with "MIDPOINT", the newest chapter in his personal saga. And this time around, it is the city of Crawley, West Sussex (that's in England), that gets to shine as both the stage and canvas: the birthplace of Robert Smith (and the hometown of The Cure), the place was prosperous for a while after World War Two only to then slowly fade into a cultural limbo of sorts both the aforementioned Robert and D.J. seemingly agree on regretting. Well, motivation over desperation and here it led D.J. and his friends to film on location, around and throughout lockdown. In the end, "MIDPOINT" is the quintessential, seven-minute proof that they did manage to insufflate some life there - and decipher quite the number of hidden spots!
Corentin Ohlmann of Practice Session is a skateboarder (and one you might have caught in the act via Max Guyot's full-length indie piece, "BROTHERHOOD"), draws John Muscu (amongst other things), and likes to be discreet when it comes to his skills with a Sony VX-1000; well, at least he was before "CLASSICO", his newest skate edit to date, meticulously crafted, adorned with hand- and home-made titles and split in two parts: first a Paris section, then a Marseille segment. Solid filming, spots aplenty and a colorful roster (albeit slightly leaning towards a certain Magenta tint): what you get is seven minutes and a half of the real thing, more fun a workout than one of jumping jacks.
Stay tuned for the photo gallery soon, if the world doesn't collapse or something. In the meantime, you can check a variety of Corentin's former edits on his YouTube channel, here!
Eliott Lockwood is another of those underground VX-1000 adepts and, just recently, he gifted the Internets with "SPACKLE", a tasteful edit of urban skateboarding filmed almost exclusively in San Francisco, featuring quite the crew of homies - includingTrevor Murphy and Wes Allen, themselves already behind "SALVAGE TITLE" and "$3.29" (LIVE even interviewed Wes, here). The ensuing eight minutes should more than quench your thirst for downhills and quirky spots set to a quality soundtrack, and paired up with impeccable filming, editing and hand-made titles all reminiscent of Josh Stewart's classic "STATIC" series; everybody's style is looking on point, and Wes even delivers two back-to-back creative bangers. For whatever's next, one can subscribe to Eliott's YouTube channel, freshly inaugurated, here!
When the members of Japanese crew Ugly Weapon (already introduced on LIVE here) start daydreaming about some vacation time on the sea shore, apparently, their natural reaction is to make another VX-1000 edit of urban skating, most often of the nocturnal kind, and the timeline of which has to be shared by Herbie Hancock and the Beach Boys without an ounce of discrimination. Oh, and by a plethora of locals with killer style, too - have a gander!
