This above iPhone angle screengrab really captures the essence of this sick fuck thinking it’s appropriate to switch flip five feet high in the air to clear a three-flat-three. Throw a police barrier across the flat and nothing changes. Also worth noting the subsequent gash in the ground that he rides through as if directly aiming for it.
Hjalte Halberg — who was missed in SB’s Quickstrike opus — dropped a new edit for his Dancer softgoods imprint to celebrate their collaboration with Nike SB. Features an ensemble of influential Scandinavian swoosh-wearers (Karsten, Ville, Hugo, Vincent Huhta) scouring the corners of Copenhagen that the tourists don’t typically make it to (save a few mandatory clips at Jarmers Plads), with Antonio bringing it back to New York for the switch flip in question + some Bond Street bangers at the end.
Once upon a time, we went years without breaking the annual tradition of End of Summer clips posted right before each Labor Day Weekend.
Then, we were lead astray. To give you some context, the last time we posted one, it was to a Rich Homie Quan song in 2015, and not long after, he devastatingly walked out of our lives never to be heard from again.
Some might say we were too busy indulging in the finer things life has to offer at the expense of time spent on a skateboard. Others blame Instagram for cannibalizing the footage economy, i.e. how often do you see a run of the mill city montage getting uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo these days that isn’t a longform project promoting something or a trip clip? Like, who makes clips over sixty seconds just for the sake of it anymore?
…we do! At least we’re trying to again! Because montages are fun! You get to use more than sixty seconds of a song you like! You don’t have to hoard footage for twelve months waiting for everyone to get their parts together! It’s way more fun than uploading shit to an IG story and getting a bunch of praying hands emojis in your DMs! Montages have vibes! Montages are memories! Montages are beautiful!
Following the start of this year’s summer solstice — amidst the build-out of this snazzy new redesign — we made a resolution to start bringing the #RealCamera™ out all the time. Also, we were still reeling for the devastating loss of Final Cut 7; we had to get with the times and figure out how the hell to use Premiere. August was hindered by a bit of a nagging health issue, but as a bonus, we mixed in the footage from the two-and-a-half days we spent in Prague because there were never any concrete plans for it. (So, it’s basically a July 2018 montage.)
We’d like to extend a special individual thank you to Antonio Durao for keeping everyone hyped this summer, because without him, there’s no way this clip would exist. (You’ll see.) Contributing filmers: Jesse Alba & Emilio Cuilan.
Features Antonio Durao, Daniel Kim, John Francomacaro, Conor Prunty, Connor Kammerer, Chris Milic, Brian Brown, Myles Gable, Hjalte Halberg, Ruben Spelta, Anton Juul.
Who knows, maybe we get real wild and drop a Christmas clip this year too ♥
The first time we ever went to Copenhagen’s Red Plaza, a disgruntled guy told us some shit in Danish, which we ignored considering none of us spoke the language. He sought out our Danish-speaking guide, flashed some sketchy blade, and told him that he was selling hash and if we keep skating there, he’s going to stab all of us (*queue up the Chris Rock “97 people deserved it” joke*). We went to the next spot.
“Red Code” is a [mostly] one-spot video in the recent tradition of the all Oslo City Hall video, or the London Gillette Square one from the summer. Unlike those two cities, “Red Code” hails from a place doused with some of the best spots on earth. So why skate a big empty space, with a short bank, wood scraps, and a D.I.Y. ledge? (The park is even across the street from an admittedly shitty but charming skatepark.)
Big, empty and centrally-located spaces with nice ground are malleable. It’s tempting to call the Red Plaza “Copenhagen’s T.F.,” but it’s actually more like an O.G. Astor Place closed off to vehicular traffic. It sits in the middle of city life. People bike, walk, skate and wheelchair through at all hours. You skate what winds up there until it falls apart beyond recognition. You interact, you create, you reshape.
For all its merits as a skateboard mecca, the one nitpicky criticism you can pass Copenhagen’s way is that a lot of its best spots occupy a grey zone between skate spot and skatepark (obviously because these multi-use spaces are designed with skater input.) I’ve watched Johnny Wilson and all those guys skate past some of the most amazing spots simply because they didn’t look interesting enough. And it’s like, yeah, fair — you want your video to look different.
“Red Code” is a tribute to the infinite, simple and universal joy of nice ground :)
(From what I understand, the drug dealers and skateboarders have made their peace. Shout out to the magic of unregulated public space! ♥)
Edited by Anton Juul. Filmed by Anton Juul, Søren Nordal Enevoldsen, Anders Jørgensen. Features every single blonde-haired skateboarder in the world besides Pryce Holmes.
