Jaded Updates Round 1

We just finished the first round of updates to Jaded Multimedia. Check out everything we've been up to this year on our work pages. New reel for Jeremey is coming soon.

TeamJaded Zombie Apocalypse: a long (overdue) update

First off, apologies to anybody who got used to the daily updates in October. I had a lot more free time then, and I was experimenting with what a daily TeamJaded.com would look like. The updates slacked off because Abby and I got married on November 1st. Yes, you read right. Thank you. After the wedding we headed to Rome for our honeymoon. Both were awesome. So let that be the first status report for a post that will include many. I'll link to pictures of the wedding and honeymoon when we have them.

I could have jumped back to daily updates when we returned, but I chose not to. Before the wedding, I was spending a little too much time scouring the web for anything to move the site just to satisfy the few people who randomly stumble here looking for Mac Dre information. And the updates about local skate events were purely self-satisfying. I don't think any of it was worth the time. If I'm wrong about that let me know.

TeamJaded.com is not a daily blog. I'd love to say that it will be, or could be, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon. It is time for Abby and I to put our energy towards tasks a little more important like:

Earning some cash
Getting Jaded Multimedia off the ground
Updating JadedMultimedia.com
Moving Make It Happen to the next phase
and Starting Pre-Production on Mulch (much more on that later)

TeamJaded.com will continue to be what it has always been: a place where we share things that we think our cool. It will also continue to be the spot where we post updates about our company and our projects.

If you read the blog, then you know I was laid off from my web 2.0 gig in October. I used those first couple of weeks off to handle wedding details (and blog). After the honeymoon I started looking for work. It's been difficult. I'm tempted to blame the recession. All the major players in my network are laying off (Current, Rev3, CNET). Luckily Abby is still employed so we have some income. However, San Francisco is an expensive town. If I don't get some cash flowing quickly, then it's going to be difficult for us to achieve anything on the list posted above.

In some ways we're in a similar, if not slightly better position to the one we were in when we got back from the Make It Happen road trip last January. So please indulge me while I revisit that time. It will help to establish where we are and where we've been.

Abby and I left for the Make It Happen road trip in September 2007. We planned to travel the country and also shoot a collection of stories loosely tied to together by the concept of D.I.Y. We called the project Make It Happen. We honestly had no plan for what we were going to do with those stories when we were done. We were in Current TV "pod mode" and so we pre-produced them like pods. However, we both wanted to produce feature length documentaries. So half-way through the trip, and without any of the planning necessary, we decided that's what we were doing. Four months into the project, we were exhausted and broke. Out of cash, we headed back to San Francisco with our Civic running off fumes and hours of footage that we didn't know what to do with.

Some positive things about the trip were that we spent a lot of time with our families in Colorado and Louisiana. We hung out with some of our best friends in Austin, TX and New York City. We also worked with some incredibly eccentric (Lost Film Fest), creative (Okay Mountain, Bling Kong, Austin Craft Mafia), and inspiring people (Chuck Perkins, Lowcard).

...And most importantly, we got engaged on the Brooklyn Promenade.

We also learned a lot about ourselves. We learned about how to plan a long project and how not too. We learned our professional limitations. We planned too many shoots in too short of a time without considering how exhausting the road trip would be. By the middle of the trip we were burnt out. I believe the remainder of our work suffered because of it. That was a hard lesson, but we grew from it. We also became better crew people. When I look through the tapes, and then look at my work now, the improvement in shooting, lighting, and sound is mind-boggling. I believe that Abby feels the same way.

I wish that I could go back in time with the skills I have now and do it all differently. That is not to say that any of our footage is bad. I am incredibly critical of my own work. I can always look at what I've done and find ways that it should be better. With over a year between now and when we set off for America, it's glaringly obvious to me what could have been, perhaps should have been done differently.

But I digress, Abby and I were also forever spoiled by our life on the road. Since we've been back we've both been ancy about civilian life and eager to hit the highways again. If we did, I'm not sure that we'd come back. Adjusting to the "real world" nine-to-six lifestyle has not been easy. I'm actually thankful for my lay-off for giving me a break from it.

What we did not learn, was how to fund a project as large as the one we undertook. For that matter, we did not learn a method to sustain ourselves long enough to finish it.

In January 2008 we got back to a rainy Bay Area broke and in need of shelter. (Full disclosure we could never have made it back without the financial help of our friends and family, especially my Dad.) Nobody would rent an apartment to us because we couldn't provide proof of income. The last paycheck we had received was from Current TV for the Sisterz of the Underground and Displace Me pods. Neither of us had earned a "real" pay check for months. So, in San Francisco where renting an apartment is similar to applying for a job, complete with references and background checks, the landlords were just not having it. We were terrified that we'd be completely out of cash before we found either work, or a place to live.

Fortunately the job hunt was not as bleak for me then as it has been lately. I reached out to the Tech TV alumni list and that's all it took. Before the end of our first week back, I had an interview at Seesmic. A couple of days later, we got lucky with the apartment search. We had literally been trudging through puddles auditioning for apartments for days when we finally found a landlord willing to give us the benefit of the doubt about our self-employment. Strangely enough, we landed a place in a much nicer neighborhood than any of the ones we had shopped in before that day. Five minutes after we signed the lease, I got a phone call from Vinvin at Seesmic offering me a Preditor job.

Everything seemed to be going well, except for one tiny detail: Make It Happen was pushed to the backburner. Everything that had been our work, had been our lives for the last six months was pushed aside. Our freedom was gone. Our project was shelved.

Why? Well, in the two months that followed I worked consistent 60 hour weeks leaving me no energy to work on Jaded projects. Abby spent those weeks desperately searching for work herself, because even with the 60 hour weeks, my paycheck simply couldn't support us. San Francisco is not cheap. I don't mean to make it sound like we suffered, we did fine. But we were both scared, and the stress of hanging on in S.F. made us ever more exhausted.

Eventually Abby found work at Harper Collins. Then my hours dropped to a more "normal" rate. When the dust finally settled, it was time to plan our wedding. Make It Happen had already been on the backburner for months, so it stayed there. Planning a wedding is a monumental task, and it took everything we had up until the minutes before the ceremony to make IT happen. Thankfully we did. The wedding went great. Everyone who attended seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves. Abby and I certainly did.

With that said, as the year dragged on I began to feel increasingly bitter about the lack of progress on Make It Happen. I became dissatisfied with the work I was doing to earn a paycheck while our dreams evaporated. Increasingly I felt that we had made a mistake accepting full-time work, maybe even by coming back to the Bay Area at all because it is so expensive to live here.

Abby and I both began to feel that we should have held out for part-time gigs so that at least one of us could have worked on the project. I also began to feel very guilty because I thought the people we worked with were waiting for us to do something with the material. Scott Beibin and Lowcard Rob have each been in touch once. To that I say, it's coming guys, please be patient with us.

I feel their pain. I come from a television background were material is turned around as quickly as possible. It eats me up inside to have all that footage sitting in dust covered external hard drives. BUT, we did everything we could have done. We took the jobs because we had to. We needed the money. For what it's worth, my gig wasn't a bad one, my heart just wasn't in it.

The bottom line is that we chose to come back to San Francisco for a reason. The Bay Area is a hub for documentary filmmakers and also for do it yourselfers. We came back because we wanted to get involved in those communities, hopefully finding support for our work here. That decision carried a hefty price tag, which has kept us from enjoying the advantages we thought the Bay could provide.

That just about brings us to the present.

I've been busy during this time of post-wedding unemployment. Abby and I have talked quite a bit about where we are and where we might be going. We know this: we very much want to produce meaningful content that positively influences the world.

Our primary medium is video, so if we achieve that goal through feature length docs, web videos, television shows, or any similar means it's fine by us. Now is the time to rally our creative energy and move in the direction we want to be going.

We want to work for ourselves. We want to produce meaningful content. We need to cut the Make It Happen stories and publish them in a manner that honors our subjects and also the work we put into them. We want to start production on a new feature length doc about deforestation of the cypress swamps in Louisiana, and the impact that deforestation has on people in the region.

The reality is that Abby is working full-time, and I am broke and therefore looking for work. It all comes back to money. It always does.

Now maybe you can see the similarities between the present and last January. We can't survive off of Abby's checks, not in this apartment, not in this city. So what do we do? How do we move forward creatively in this climate? How do we make progress on our projects when we can barely buy groceries?

What about our company? Jaded Multimedia was off to a good start before we left, but stalled out when we took full-time jobs. We have only about half the gear we need to run a legitimate production unit, but we've been able to rent and borrow when necessary to make it work. Therefore, what we really need is clients. To have clients we need to offer services. We need to figure out what those services are, update our website, and start reaching out to people.

At the moment our method to get the company off the ground is me looking for freelance gigs. I am doing this for the obvious reason of earning income, but also to increase our network, and hopefully learn more about the business side of things. My goal is to land enough freelance work to keep us afloat while building a sustainable business model beneath us. Once that is off and running we can go on to produce the meaningful work that we both yearn for so desperately. With so much at stake, I am cautious about getting into another full-time position that would further compromise our projects. However, it could come down that. I will do what I have to do to bring money into our house.

I have spent the last two weeks reaching out to everyone I know in the Bay Area production community. I've also sent out dozens of resumes answering ads for Producers, Shooters, and Editors on Craigslist and BAVC. So far I've had very little luck.

I applied for unemployment and was denied because they consider Jaded a full-time job. (More on that later.) So far the only gig I've found is a spec "audition" edit, which I'm working on now, and a temp position that I can take when I really need it. I'm also working on a new compilation reel, because the reel on Jaded is no longer fully representative of my abilities.

The good news for followers of TeamJaded is that I'm going to include work from the Make It Happen project in my new reel. That means that I've been digging through all that footage for the last couple of weeks. As I move along I'm setting up Final Cut Pro projects for each story and prepping them to cut after I'm done with my reel.

Lowcard and Lost Film Fest will be the first on the list. I cannot make any promises as to when that will be though. It depends on this spec job I'm working on, and whether it turns into a source for regular work. It also depends on how long it takes me to cut the comp reel, and if I can get other work coming in the meantime.

However, there is some PROGRESS ON MAKE IT HAPPEN.

I'm also researching documentary funding. I'd like to get back to researching the Louisiana documentary soon as well. I failed to mention that I started research on it a few months ago. Abby and I really want to do this one right. We are going to invest a lot of time into planning and research before we hype the project. With that said, we are doing that planning around everything else. In addition to all of that I'm trying to get into classes at BAVC to expand my motion graphics skills. (More on that later as well.) Abby is doing the honorable work of earning an income.

So that is where we stand. I hope you all understand that although it doesn't look like much is going on with us, there is actually quite a bit bubbling below the surface. We need help though. If you know of gigs in the Bay Area please pass them along. As always any tips about funding films is greatly appreciated. And any web designers out there who might like to contribute their skills to us for free, we very much want to revamp the blog and website.

Until next time...

Lowcard 26 tonight

Lowcard Issue 26 and Dan Pensyl Worst Skater of the Year Party.
Tuesday 12/9. 9:30 PM to close.

Argus Bar, San Francisco

Tim Brauch Doc

Give it a minute to load.

Our friend Pete Koff of Homeslice Productions sent us this trailer. He's been diligently shooting interviews and gathering archival footage for the Tim Brauch Doc for months (and TeamJaded has helped out little). Keep your eye out for this one. Tim Brauch was an inspiring professional skater who passed away at the peak of his career. Pete has a genuine passion for Tim's story, and it comes through in his production.

Damn Am 2008 Video

Props to Hidehiko for coming through with the goods once again.

Green Bible

This is a Jaded Company update. Abby and Jeremey produced this video for Harper One to market the Green Bible. Jeremey Lavoi directed, shot, and edited. Abby Berendt produced, directed, and edited. Joey Rabier shot and set up the studio. Thom Blythe served on the field crew, created the motion graphics, and starred in. Abby also coordinated the whole project, including the website, which was designed by our friend Mr. Erik Jessen.

Mini Ramp Massacre

...And also going this weekend. Creature presents Mini Ramp Massacre at the Log Shop in Pacifica. 640 Crespi Drive. 650-738-5664.

Hightower is playing, and Thrasher is premiering Brutality to close it out. Be there.

Clips from the last Creature ramp jam.

Skate Nintendo

Click the image and head to Skate Perception for a rad video concept.



Then do me a favor and digg it, because I think it has digg written all over it.

Keep A Breast: Shot in the Pit (Boobies)

When:
Saturday, Oct 25., 2008
8:00pm

Where:
San Francisco: October 25th at 8 pm
The Barrel House
80 Tehama Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Performances by Tommy Guerrero & the Get Rad 6, DJ Epcot and DJ Sosean

Keep-A-Breast is a non-profit dedicated to ending breast cancer. Their official mission is:

"...to help eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support. Through art events, educational programs and fundraising efforts, we seek to increase breast cancer awareness among young people so they are better equipped to make choices and develop habits that will benefit their long-term health and well-being."

Their most popular campaign involves the breast casting of art, music, and action sports celebrities. Yes that's right. Plaster casting the breasts of female surfers, skaters, artists, and musicians. After the casts dry, they're painted and auctioned off on Ebay.


Since that campaign has done so well, they've branched out launching... "the Music for Awareness program earlier this year, challenging musicians and promoters to step out of the box and make a difference through benefit concerts supporting the Keep A Breast Foundation’s youth outreach efforts. This program provides bands with a unique way to inspire fans and increase breast cancer awareness and prevention."



"Shot in the Pit" is a showcase of photographs taken by Erin Caruso at Vans Warped Tour. Caruso "has donated over 45 images to the Keep A Breast Foundation. Unite the United will facilitate an online auction of images from the exhibition alongside music memorabilia and celebrity breast casts including Katy Perry beginning November 26. 100% of the proceeds generated from the touring exhibition and the online auction will be donated to the Keep A Breast Foundation’s youth awareness and outreach efforts."

This is definitely a worthy cause. So come out and support it. RSVP HERE! And if you're not in San Francisco, the show is touring around so check out an event near you.

Los Angeles: November 5th at 7 pm
The Key Club
9039 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 274-5800
Tickets $8.00 at the door or advance sale
Performances by Good Old War, Love You Moon, I And The Universe and AM Vibe

New York City: November 11th at 6 pm
Angels & Kings
500 East 11th St (between Ave A & Ave B)
New York, NY 10009
(212) 254-4090
Performances by DJs Rob Hitt, Erica Dagley and Prince Terrance

Irvine: December 4th 6pm - 11pm
Fox Head, Inc.
1621 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92606
Performances by The Feelings Mutual (ex- Hot Like A Robot), DJ Blackass & Special Secret Guests

Tyler Trick Tip from the Archives

That was some TeamJaded lagniappe that I found yesterday while searching through old footage for my new reel. It was produced as a trick tips pilot for the Yahoo! Current project. Unfortunately that project tanked before this piece made it to air. I guess it's probably better that way, Tyler didn't need to be on national television lower thirded as Sweat Dog.

The Youtube Takedown of John McCain

John McCain sent a letter to Youtube asking for special treatment after they took down some of his campaign videos. The videos contained news footage, so Youtube removed them at the request of the copyright holders.

McCain claims the clips qualify as fair use, and they might. The problem is that Youtube's policy is to remove questionable videos without review, if requested to do so by the copyright holder. Then the Uploader must battle Youtube to prove fair use, which is a difficult process that doesn't always favor free speech.

However, Youtube behaves this way to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that McCain not only voted for, but went on record to support. Now he thinks the law shouldn't apply to him. In plain English, he's actually suggesting that Youtube bend the rules for Politicians.

If you've ever worked in the media, or for that matter had your videos stripped from Youtube, then you know copyright issues are bothersome and complicated. More often than not material is left out to avoid tedious clearance processes or worse, lawsuit. These decisions are almost always based on a cost benefit analysis of what the material is worth in potential legal fees, rather than its value to the public discourse.

Of course it would be ridiculous to say all copyright issues come down to that, but I think the paragraph above is close to McCain's position. The way that I read his letter it sounds like he's arguing that he needs to show the news footage to comment on it, and thus convey his message. I understand where he's coming from, and would actually tend to agree with him on that point. Our copyright laws are in desperate need of overhaul. If Mr. McCain wanted to support that overhaul, I'd have a lot more sympathy for his plight.

Instead, it's clear that he sees no problem deleting Joe the Uploader's videos to comply with draconian copyright laws. He simply wants to make sure that the elite aren't subjected to the same ridiculous rules as the rest of us.

Youtube rejected his request.

Almost Made It

I had to repost that. Sorry.

There was so much going on in San Fran this weekend. Open Studios. DocFest. Hood Games. Hella Hella NorCal in Ripon. Oh and lot of wedding stuff for Abby and I.

So we didn't make it out to much, but I did check out Hood Games for a little while with my friends Tyler and John. The place was packed with kids, which made me happy because community skate parks don't survive without support. From the state of the ramps it looked like the park wasn't quite finished, but that didn't stop the kids from ripping it up. After about fifteen minutes of watching them swarm like bees we decided to take the session to downtown Oakland, which was totally deserted.

In other skate community news, Abby and I tried to stop by the San Francisco Skate Association event at Golden Gate Park on Sunday, but it turns out that the event is next weekend. Whoops.


If you're in the city drop by and check it out.

I started the day out at Potrero Del Sol where I slammed doing a kick turn. Awesome. Time to edit my new reel.

Skate Collection

Adams' Brothers Skateboard Collection from Brock Gomez on Vimeo.

This is another video from TBC Party!. Thanks for the heads up Jon. That is a lot of boards. Those guys should challenge the Skatopia board museum to a battle.

Sarah Palin, not down for skateboarding

...I found an article about Sarah Palin giving Wasilla skaters the run around when they tried to get a public park built ten years ago.

She told them Wasilla couldn't afford it and then they found out she was planning a multi-million dollar hockey complex. So they formed a committee and attended city council meetings until she agreed to match funds with them if they raised a certain amount of cash. When they raised the money she backed out of the deal.

Skaters don't know how to give up, so they kept going to city council meetings and bothering Sarah Palin until she finally caved in. Ten years later, the skatepark is still going strong. And there's a video about it on youtube:



...good small town values.

As Described

TeamJaded friend and supporter Jim Horsfield has a new project: asdescribed.net.

He describes it as:

"A sometimes redundant blog site which kicks into action when and if i do something that may vaguely be interesting to someone else.. covering audio visual shenanigans and VJ/film/video production."

Sounds familiar. At the moment he's on a two week tour with The Bays & The Heritage Orchestra in the U.K. It looks and sounds like an interesting gig:

"The premise of the show is that the Bays never rehearse/practice and jam and create their set live in front of an audience. This is somewhat easy to do(!!) as the 4 members of the bays (Andy, Chris, Simon and Jamie) have played together in this way for nearly 10 years."

Definitely worth checking out.

Skateparks SF

I just got back from a brief session at Potrero Del Sol. When I say a brief session, I mean that I literally rolled over every obstacle in the street course one time and then skated back to my car. It was nine in the morning and there were too many people there for me to have the experience I wanted, ie solitary. With that said it got me thinking about skate parks in general, I surfed the web, and stumbled on the San Francisco Skateboarding Association. I think I heard about these guys before Abby and I left for our the trip, now I'm thinking I should get involved. It seems like they're doing positive things for Skateboarding and San Francisco.

Flippity Wizardry

Repost from Lowcard. Not sure I comprehend.

Thizzle

Random hits to TeamJaded overwhelmingly come from people google searching "Mac Dre." When you do that a picture of Mac Dre pops up in Google Images that tracks back to our site. (We took that picture from somewhere else and used it as an element in an Austin Blog from the Make It Happen trip.)

With that said, now I'm going to pander to our many "fans" looking for Mac Dre.

Thizzle Dance


Get Stupid Remix


Mac Dre Website.

Mac Dre's Wikipedia Page.

Mac Dre Myspace.

SF Gate article about his death.

Last words, bring back the headstone! And Hope Perkins, paint me that portrait PLEASE!

State of the Mental Economy

Willful ignorance is bigger problem than our economic woes, because without an informed citizenry we can’t make good decisions about our leaders, about the kinds of things that should be taught in school, or about how to manage our money.

When I watched that video I wanted to believe it was a mocumentary… On the other hand, I’ve been to rural Ohio so I guess it’s not that hard to believe.

Wake up people. Do you really want to be on television saying Obama is a Muslim, when clearly one of the biggest “scandals” of the season was about his Christian church leader? America is operating on brain level zero.

The bottom line is that our country is mentally segregated. Lefties on the coasts and in the cities. Right Wingers in the countryside and the suburbs. This sort of segregation is making for awkward elections, a crumbling economy, embarrassing foreign policy, and corporate rape of the globe. If we all congregate to communities that reinforce our beliefs, we all become blind fanatics.

And I'm guilty of it. I grew up in Southern Louisiana, which has its left wingers, but is overwhelmingly lunatic fringe, creationist, right wing. Then I fled to San Francisco, which supposedly has a right wing hiding somewhere, but is overwhelmingly lunatic fringe, left wing. ...Which I love, I do, but after living here a few years I have to say that I miss the arguments.

It sounds crazy I know, but when you discuss an opposing point of view with someone your brain starts working. You have to defend your position so you have to think about it. You have to use reason. You might even learn something and change your mind.

Now I'm arguing with the television and it's not a great conversationalist. Now I'm arguing with this culture of ignorance through my obscure blog that's getting through to nobody, and that is ridiculous.

The people in this video are making decisions about how we should run our country based on information that is hilariously false, and easily proved wrong. They're also basing their decisions on racism, which is deeply rooted in this culture of mental isolationism. I want to make fun of these people, but we have to be better than this. We have to mingle.

What passes for political logic can't be that Sarah Palin is full of the Holy Spirit, even if they did exorcise the witches.

Hood Games

Looks like Hella Hella isn't the only thing going on this weekend. Oakland's Town Park skatepark is open and hosting a Hood Games contest sponsored by Satori, and possibly featuring the 7th Annual Living Word Festival, can't really tell by the flyer.

Here's a video by Tresreyes82 that I found on youtube that tells you all you need to know about Town Park.



Hood Games is a worthy project that directs kids toward positive activities like skateboarding. They did a great job getting Town Park built so go out and support the cause.

I'll leave you with a video produced by Ben Galland, about an old Hood Games event in S.F.


Be there. 11AM De Fremery Park, 18th @ Adeline, Oakland, California.


View Larger Map

Monty Python's John Cleese on Sarah Palin video

Monty Python and Faulty Towers John Cleese on Sarah Palin. Let humor be the cure. I hope this video brings those crazy republican lynch mobs to their senses. Oh wait, they don't watch Monty Python. More preaching to the choir then. Hooray.

What does this have to do with TeamJaded? Well, I cut this video for Seesmic. So even though my name is no where on it, I'd like to point out... if I may... that I crafted this in edit... from raw footage... with no script. And even though that's no great accomplishment like curing cancer or something, I wish my name was on it.

Top ten on digg with 126,000 Youtube hits as of this post and climbing, the name association could have been good for TeamJaded. (Youtube description anyone?)

With that said, this piece is also my farewell to Seesmic. Unfortunately, it's a farewell that most Seesmic users won't notice. Dean, the user who set up this shoot called me the invisible power behind Seesmic production. Flattering, but invisible doesn't help Jaded out too much. So that is my one regret, otherwise I'm totally psyched about moving on.

Seesmic cut "shows" to focus on their web product. I think they made a smart decision. I enjoyed my time there. I learned a lot about the business side of internet, and a lot about video compression, but I was ready to go.

Now I'm gainfully unemployed, or as I like to think about it, free.

Free to pursue Jaded Multimedia after the wedding. ...which is what I've been aching to do since Abby and I got back to San Francisco in January.

Stay tuned things are finally getting interesting.

Credits for the John Cleese video:

Producer: Dean Whitbread
Talent: Vinvin
Shooter: Whit Scott
Preditor: Jeremey Lavoi

Hella Hella NorCal

October 18th. Ripon Skatepark.

Boiling the Fall

I love Boil the Ocean. If you're a skate lifer like myself, that blog really connects. I just got into it recently after shamelessly scanning the TeamJaded FeedBurner for incoming links, and I noticed that they had posted one of our Brooklyn Banks photos. Thanks Boil the Ocean guy, whoever you are. Good stuff mang.

TBC Party! Video

teaser trailer for tbcparty flick from jon rogers on Vimeo.

Our homie Jon Rogers in Baton Rouge, LA sent this TBC Party trailer to us via myspace. Thought I'd post it and show some love.

Goofy Vs. Regular 2008 Footage

I didn't go down to Lake Forest this year for GVR, but Hidehiko did. You can download his video here. Give it a second it's about 58 megs.

(10/10/08 Added youtube embed)



For the full winners list head to SkateDaily.

Lowcard Issue #25 Release Party

Tomorrow night (Friday October 3rd) at 500 Club. 5PM happy hour.

Deathbowl to Downtown

Deathbowl to Downtown screened last night at the Castro Theater. Deathbowl is the latest film from Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski, the team that produced Tent City, Fruit of the Vine, and many other skate related flicks.

The poster says that Deathbowl is about the evolution of skateboarding in New York City, but the filmmakers had something else to say at the opening. Basically they said that Deathbowl is really about every place that skateboarding evolved from sidewalk surfing to street shredding. It just happens to be set in New York.

I like that explanation better, because even though the film made me want to hop a plane for NYC to scout the Burroughs... (You hear me D?) it also made me nostalgic for my early skate days back home in Louisiana. Lake Charles isn't comparable to NYC in any legitimate way, but like the skaters in the film my friends and I operated in an environment that was hostile to us and we made due with want we had. Like the skaters in the film we stayed out all night skating downtown, got hassled by cops, and looked west towards California. Unlike the skaters in the film, we dreamed about New York City also. My formative skate years were in the nineties when "street skating was skating" and it was all Wu-Tang and Zoo York for us.

Deathbowl to Downtown made me want to skate. I don't know what bigger compliment a skater can give a movie. When I walked out of the Castro Theater I wanted to call my friends to get an all night sesh going... but I didn't. I'm old and had to work in the morning. So instead I headed to Thee Parkside for the after party, Thrasher video, and whiskey. Then I headed home and went to bed. Lame.

Highlights from the film:

The portrait of New York in the seventies as a grimy post industrial wasteland and playground for graffiti writers, misfits, and skateboarders.

The evolution of street skating from jocking ramp tricks to stylish Mark Gonzales inspired street ripping that set the stage for modern skateboarding. For that matter all the scenes with Gonz were amazing.

Growing up street skating made me particularly biased to the street section with "plazas for days." Nichols and Charnoski interviewed a Harvard professor who made note of New York City skateboarders in a study about the uses of urban architecture. They also interviewed the guy who designed the Brooklyn Banks, and he didn't seem the least bit annoyed that his creation was one the most famous skate spots on the globe. The guy who designed EMB should hang out with him for a minute, maybe it will rub off.

I won't spoil any more of the movie. Definitely check it out if it comes to a city near you. Screening dates are on the website. You can also preorder the DVD there.

Make It Happen angle. I have no idea how they funded it, but the sponsored by Mountain Due might have had a little something to do with it.



Also dig up Roller Slobs if you can find it. They opened the night with that short and it's well worth tracking down.

Roughneck BART Tour 2008 Video!!!!

High Res version for the those of you with good connections:



Here's the long awaited BART Tour vid. Sorry it took a couple of weeks. I had a lot of footage to go through and Abby and I spent last weekend at a wedding in Louisiana. Congrats Crystal and John.

BART Tour is a San Francisco institution hosted annually by Roughneck Hardware. This year Johnny got the party started at Mission Skateshop with bagels, mimosas, and a memorial for Van Wastell RIP. Skating started down the street at Potrero Del Sol skatepark where Ratface took best trick on the tombstone with an all out assault on the damn thing. Next up was 24th Street BART where Chubbs took the honors for biggest frontside wallride.

I rode BART with the crew up until Embarcadero Station where I hopped out and jumped in the Civic. (lame I know) I missed some crazy manuals and a civilian getting taken out. Luckily Hidehiko Fujiwara was there with the one chip, and so was Satva (check out his vid.) BART got stuck on the tracks so I beat everybody to Walnut Creek. Johnny texted me to let me know what was going down, and asked for beer, so I picked up a case of Coors which made the Civic a popular destination.

Walnut Creek was madness with three best trick contests: stairs, transfer, and hubba ledge; switch kickflip, launch to backlip, and kickflip front fifty respectively. The only name I caught was Justin who rocked the hubba. After the contests Charlie tossed a couple of boards and nearly started a riot. The guy who wrestled the second board from the mob was chased out of the park.

Then it was off to Berkeley with Charlie, Lil' Stevie, D, and Chubbs in the civic for road sodas and quicker transportation. Berkeley went off smoothly and without cops unlike in years past... just good times, bbq, and skateboarding. Jon Stallings took best trick on the big quarter pipe. Ride or Die.

Thanks to Johnny and Charlie for organizing BART Tour. Thanks to Hidehiko for joining forces with me on the video. And thanks to the artists on ccmixter.org for the music.

Music credits:

Lady Fingers
High Stakes

The Psychosomatiks
Fort Minor Remix
(Editors note: can't find my way back to this url)

Coffeetrim
What Cha Need and
Look at Me

For more Roughneck head over to the new site.

See you next year.

Debates aren't all that's going on this weekend

If you skate and live in the Bay Area the next few days are going to be pretty fun.

The Tim Brauch memorial skate jam is happening all weekend in San Jose.


A friend of TeamJaded named Pete Koff is working on a doc about Tim Brauch who was an influential professional skateboarder who passed away at the top of his career. Abby and I have helped a little with shooting and consulting, so expect more about that sooner than later.

And on Monday... at the Castro Theater: Death Bowl to Downtown the NYC skate doc is screening for free.


...That's right for free. Seating is first come first serve so get there early.

Ratface BART Tour MVP

Ratface and Roughneck Johnny at the first stop of Roughneck BART Tour 2008. Ratface won the best trick contest on the tombstone at Potrero Park, San Francisco. I can't remember what he did... it was a long, fun day full of skating, filming, and Coors drinking. I'm capturing the footage right now. Video coming soon.

Jeremey

Editors Addition 9/26/08 for all y'all who find your way to this post searching for BART Tour 2008. Here's the videos:



High Res from Blip above... Lower Res from youtube below.

Tech to Gnar

TechCrunch is done. Next up, BART Tour.


That's right, Roughneck is at it again, annual BART Tour this Sunday. It kicks off at Potrero Del Sol Skatepark and ends in Berkeley.

Here's some highlights from the past:

2007


2006


See you there.

Day 3 Crunch Log: In Present Tense and Berry Flavors

Photo of me shooting (yesterday) from DotBen's Flickr. The rest of the photos are mine.

10:32 AM

It's the third and final day of TechCrunch 50, and I'm sitting up stairs on the media deck manning the Seesmic Studio solo. Whit and Giselle are using the VIU to shoot Giselle's swag review, so the studio is on break until the camera returns.


Here's bag o' swag from yesterday.

bag o' swag: tuesday
I just had a long talk with a blogger girl named Jennifer who is here promoting a friends start-up called Edmodo... I think. It's sort of like a Pownce for teachers, at least that's what she said. I'm not too sure what that means. She seemed cool though. She was in the demo pit on Monday, and today she's just walking around. How she came to the Seesmic studio was because she needed a place to set her bags and I guess Seesmic seemed like a safe place. We do have a pile of gear up here.


The floor looks calm this morning. I wonder if things will pick up in the afternoon, or if the peak of the conference has passed. We're probably going to break down the studio around 4 and then head to 330 Rich to set up for the Seesmic Party that closes TechCrunch 50.

I haven't yet formulated an opinion of all this. For Seesmic it has definitely been a big deal. It's important for both the company and the staff to be visible at events like this. Subtext to that is Seesmic's deep relationship with TechCrunch, so it was also important that we pour all our coverage resources into the event. However, aside from technical issues, the appropriate amount of coverage has been challenging because we've had to balance what we produce with what the Seesmic community is comfortable consuming. What we've learned is that they aren't too excited about seeing lots of coverage of a convention they aren't attending. I wonder if that will be such a problem when Seesmic has groups...

In any case, we had to scale back with posting, but not with production. And since we still have the microsite to populate, we aren't too sure how to handle the Seesmic timeline... but I'm confident all that will work itself out.

My experience here has been one of production facilitator and TechCrunch observer. I haven't met many people, because I've spent most of my time at the studio making sure our gear is in working order... when it frequently hasn't been. We need to invest in more than half a set of working gear... but enough about that.

When I have been on the floor, I've seen a lot of people trying to fund their ventures and those people are similar to Abby and I. Maybe not in the type of business they are running, but in needing money to get their passion project off the ground.

More than once it's crossed my mind that I should walk around pitching Jaded as a promotional video production company to anybody that needs marketing material for their website. There are two problems with that though. The first is that I'm here representing Seesmic, so I'm not sure how appropriate that would be. The second is that Jaded might be willing and able to produce marketing videos like we recently produced for the Green Bible, but that's not who we are. We are primarily in the business of documentary production. And that brings me to an internal debate that we've been having. It's obvious that we could make money producing that kind of work, and possibly even finance our passion projects through them... but when exactly would we be traveling the world shooting films if we were tied down shooting corporate gigs all the time.

Whit and Giselle are back from the swag review which means the camera is back. So I should prep the studio.

11:20 AM

Studio is set up. Mics are working. Live capture is working. Lets cross our fingers that everything doesn't crap out when it counts like it did yesterday.

1:12PM

Just ate enchiladas with the team, a guy from CNET, and one of today's presenters TrueCar. I had tiny cheese cake cubes for desert that tasted awesome. I also made it down to the floor and talked to a couple of companies of relevance to TeamJaded. The first was Five Sprockets who pitched themselves as a resource for filmmakers in all steps of production from Pre to Marketing. It sounded like a specified LinkedIn, but they claimed it was more. I asked them about helping filmmakers get funding, and they didn't have an answer for that... yet. Which brings me to Indie GoGo, who have set up downstairs next to the Seesmic booth. Their site is also a social networky kind of thing for filmmakers, but they are cognizant of the funding issue, and even have it highlighted...

hold up...

Loren Feldman just asked me to shoot his puppet interview shtick with the guy who owns Mahalo...

Back to Indie GoGo, the site has been up and running since last years Sundance and they claim to have an active and supportive community who is willing to help with funding. Their representative told me that filmmakers have raised thousands of dollars on Indie GoGo and some distributors are looking at it as a development pipeline. Apparently they were also at DIY Days, but I missed them. I'll definitely have to check it out.




02:10 PM

Headed over to the stage to watch presentations. Loic is on the panel.

03:15

Notable presentation. Footnote... Facebook for dead people.

Things are winding down for our production team. I'm about to break down the studio move everything over to 330 rich for the party.

Signing out.

Seesmic TechCrunch Update Day 2

Taylor Barr, Taylor Barr, I told y'all we made that guy famous. First he posts this video and wins our contest. Here's the team telling the world:

TC50 Winner!Congratulations TB!


And now he's in Wired. This JUST IN they want him to sing the national anthem to close this thing down tomorrow, seriously.
Photo from DotBen's Flickr.


Day two has been slightly different than day one. The first part of the day was chaos... We did a run through with our gear first thing in the morning, everything was working fine, then Loic walked over with Michael Arrington and all of our audio gear went kuput.


First one of our lav's, then our shotgun, then the actual channel 2 XLR input on our VIU. What made it even worse was that we were setting up for Rachael's interview with Ashton Kutcher when all this went down, so she had to interview Ashton and Jason Goldberg with only one lav between the three of them.


I had to ride the levels like crazy, but we made do.


Ashton Kutcher on Seesmic!http://www.blahgirls.com/

The aspect ratio on the first video was a CamTwist issue. If it could go wrong it has. But we are getting through it all, and still coming out with lots of content. Everything is working now of course. The rest of the day has been a lot more calm. We shot another interview up here in the Seesmic Studio...

...but we haven't uploaded it because we're trying to give the Seesmic Community a TechCrunch break. Thomas Knoll says thank you.


All in all there are some interesting companies presenting. I admire all the people who have made treks from places far from the Valley to pitch their companies here. I can definitely relate to them, maybe not on the Tech start-up level, but on the level of wanting to do your own thing and needing the help of money people to do it. Tomorrow I'd like to get out on the floor and chat it up a little more, maybe get the stories of some of these guys. For now, I'm celebrating the wifi and sharing pictures.

Photos for this post came from Giselle and Whit.

TechCrunched 50

I just got in early from the TechCrunch 50 Myspace party. Seesmic is covering TC50 for all three days of the conference, which means the production team is hitting the floor from every angle. This first day was definitely action packed and full of trouble-shooting all the little things that were bound to go wrong like lack of internet, final cut pro capture crashes, broken flip cams, and being really far from the VIP action (aka the subjects of our coverage). But in the end we pushed out some solid content, made Taylor Barr a celebrity, and I think Whit punked Ashton Kutcher.

Check out the Seesmic TC50 microsite for all the content I'm involved with. And check out my friend and coworker Whit Scott's blog, because he's doing a pretty good job keeping up with everything we're doing over there. The Seesmic blog is also a fine place for information.

Hopefully the wifi will be better tomorrow because I'd like to post from the conference. In the meantime I'm going to bed.

The Alchemist Live with Paulo Coelho

I’m not sure if you’ve ever read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, but chances are you have. It’s been on the New York Times Best Sellers List for over 50 weeks (that’s almost a year!). And it’s about to celebrate its 20th Anniversary. So the reason why I bring this up… for the past few months I’ve been working on a project that will culminate in an online event September 17th, 2008.

Here’s the lowdown:

It’s called, THE ALCHEMIST LIVE. Basically Paulo is going to talk to everyone, everywhere about The Alchemist. It’s a historic event because Paulo doesn’t usually talk about his book in this way. It’s going to take place on BlogTalkRadio – The AuthorsOnAir channel- so you can call in from your phone or listen online. There’s going to be a question and answer session with callers, and also a special guest (I’ll let you know who when the date gets closer).

The nitty gritty:

The Alchemist Live
September 17th, 2008
12 noon PT / 3PM EST / anywhere else in the world corresponding with those times!
Phone: (347) 945-6141
Website: www.alchemistlive.com

Here’s a promo video HarperOne produced with Paulo for the event:



Here’s a fun little countdown widget you can share, if you’re so inclined!