Loaded News

A writeup by James Kelly

Dalua and James leading the pack

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SLIDE VIDEO

Prior to producing my latest longboard film "Slide," I knew that I wanted to try something a little different, something that I hadn't really seen done before in a longboard video. So I spent quite some time dreaming up ideas and thinking about what would make a cool and unique vid. I thought about doing a slow motion piece, but that's been done before and is nothing new... unless I could bring something else to it. With some inspiration from my brother Oliver Dowie, who produces some seriously epic music, I got him to create a 'glitch' track in the thought that it could lay the foundation for a hectic edit and piece of art, fusing with the images so the two become one. After coming up with the concept, it was about 2 months before the video was actually complete. This was due to a number of reasons, but mostly it was just trying to find time to shoot it. Oliver, Dion and I all work full time and are generally quite busy on weekends; plus, it's Winter here in Australia and the roads have been wet. It's not a quick and easy thing to shoot a half decent video; time must go into planning and, of course, the actual shooting itself. We spent about 3 days shooting for this vid, which may seem like quite a while but it was necessary to get the shots we wanted. The post production also took some time. Oliver worked for many hours on the track, then I spent copious amounts of time on the edit.

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Four score and 3 weeks ago, my band of bros brought forth a proposition. One in which wind, wheels, and clean organic pavement would become our friends. One where the love of brotherhood would reign high and mighty. One... in Pure Michigan. So essentially, 6 of us Michiganders are taking a "Loaded-inspired" trip across our beloved state. 300 miles of trees, lakes, and newts under moss covered rocks. We leave August 9th and plan to be done in about 8 suns and moons. We look forward to meeting people with greasy slick mullets or nice hobos... so chill. We also are anticipating sightings of crazy dope wildlife. The beauty of all this is that there is no horse, scooter, automobile, or train... just the longboard brah. Thanks and our vid documentation will be around after the trizip. Cheers!

-(616)Longboarding

Adam and Jonathan discuss the next shot. Marcus Bandy photo.

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Words: Rachel Bailin
Photos: Kyle Chin

My name is Rachel and I have a confession: I love skateboarding.

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El próximo 26 de julio hasta el 28 podrás patinar con el PRO Team Orangatang por toda Barcelona.

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JULY 16th - AUGUST 16th

We will not be excepting entries come August 17th. Winner will be announced in the newsletter on AUGUST 18th.

I want to keep pushing all of you to get better at filming and editing.

These Filming and Editing comps are not about tricks but about how you shoot and edit the video. I hope you do sweet tricks in your video, but that's not what this will be judged on.

For this competition I want to challenge you all to get creative with stationary shots, shots done on a tripod. There is something very beautiful about a well composed shot. NO FOLLOW shots are allowed for this competition. So get a tripod and start having fun.

REQUIREMENTS

1) 1:30 minute video (try to get close to this length without going over): Use whatever music you want and ride ANY board and setup you want.

2) ALL SHOTS MUST BE DONE ON A TRIPOD. No movement, no motion of zooming in our out, no panning, just stationary shots. HOWEVER Focus rolls are okay, adjusting focus from one object to another. If you have movement in your shots aliens will eat you.

3) Remember you can do tricks in your video, but I will not judge you on the tricks, it is the filming and editing I am paying attention to.

4) When you are finished: Upload your video to your PERSONAL youtube account and email us a link at news@loadedboards.com. Please TITLE your video with your NAME and LOADED TRIPOD VIDEO COMP. You should get a response back that we received your video in a day or two.

PRIZES (remember the prizes should go to the person filming and editing the video, not the skater)

1st PLACE: $1million in cash…. Joking. Any Loaded Complete of your choice, a Manfrotto 3021BN Tripod, PLUS your video posted on the Loadednewsletter channel.

2nd Place: Any Loaded Deck of your choice

3rd Place: A Set of Orangatang Wheels of your choice

4th Place: A Set of Orangatang Wheels of your choice

THINGS TO CONSIDER

-Focus on a variety of angles, don’t just keep doing the same angle over and over again. Get creative.

-Have beautiful objects in your foreground. For example, have some flowers, a building structure, grass, a tree trunk, etc. in your foreground to make the shots interesting.

-Not every shot should have someone skating in it, have shots of the scenery to establish a location and then show someone skating. Focus on the small details of the environment.

-If your editing program has a color correction feature use it to make the clips look better by giving them more contrast, increasing the saturation slightly or create your own look to the video.

-Try to film on sunny days where there is good lighting. Also, the light can be beautiful around sunset and sunrise.

-Don’t rush your video, take your time and feel free to shoot it over multiple days.

-Don’t do every shot in one take. Do multiple takes of each shot so you make sure you get a good shot.

-Pick a really cool location that has unique look and beauty to it.

Any QUESTIONS? Shoot me an email at, adam@loadedboards.com

Yee haw

Adam

Longboard event in San Pancho, Mexico (north of Sayulita) from July 26th through the 30th. There will be an exhibition by Treee Longboarding on Saturday the 30th. Visit http://www.facebook.com/Treee.longboarding?v=wall for more info.

A feral panda with rabies has eaten all the Dancer decks. Yes, the Dancer is going to be discontinued folks. Cry, celebrate, do a backflip. With the death of the Dancer we have made room for a new dancing beast that will be released in a few months. The current Dancer is much fun, but it's been hard to build and we're off in other directions. We may revisit this style in the future: who knows? We have been working on this new dancer over the past year and have done extensive testing on it in the North Pole and are very pleased. It is an improved dancer with new bells and whistles to help you all put the funk in funk master. We decided 55” was not long enough and made this new beast 202 inches long. It is a bit hard to fit in a trunk.

Giving you all a release date would be too kind. Just daydream about it and we will keep you posted when it is close. For some details, think about how a ninja walks across a log and the technology behind paper airplanes.

Click here to see photos from the event!

A view of Maryhill from the top.

Words and photos by Marcus Bandy

The Maryhill road is said to be the first paved road on the west coast of North America. This seems plausible, but whether it’s actually true or not matters little once you actually experience this crazy place. Maryhill is unique, regardless; the licorice-black road snakes it’s way down rolling hills of undulating golden grass towards the ancient, and expansive, Columbia River. The whole scene sits in a pass—an expanse of semi-arid farmland with very few trees and a growing population of giant white windmills. The wind blows all day here, the sun cares little for your threshold for shin cancer, and when it’s cold it penetrates right to the bone. The contrast of the pitch black asphalt threading it’s way through the golden hillsides forces you to take pause—look up to a blue sky that sits omnisciently watching everything and thank whoever you thank for being present in this wild locale. Only once you’ve actually skated down Maryhill though, digging into the road’s smooth corners, feeling the winds of speed slapping against your whole bod or the strangely comforting vibrations of urethane on fast passing asphalt; only then do you fully realize how beautiful this place is—how much power the skater wields here with only a board and some courage. Those who have ridden here know these sights and feelings well—we will never forget Maryhill.

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You are invited.

DROP:MLDH Trailer from marc mccrudden on Vimeo.

There is a free LA screening tonight of Marc McCrudden's Drop video—a top notch new downhill skateboarding documentary that features some great skating, superb videography, and insightful commentary on this fast growing new culture within skateboarding. The screening will take place tonight at Umami Burger located at Cahuenga and Sunset. The time of the showing is 8pm. If you can make it over there tonight you will not regret it. Hope to see you there.