A while ago we’ve been posting each part separately, but here’s the full thing.
‘Creating Lines’ took place in September of 2018, as a three-day event in Rotterdam. We explored how skateboarding in the Netherlands is constantly changing. With an exhibition about Rotterdam’s skate history, the premiere of our full-length skate video ‘Momentum’ and panel discussions about skateboarding in the Netherlands.
‘Momentum’ consists of five main video parts, made by multiple talented Dutch filmmakers. They were given 6 weeks to make a short video, in which they had to incorporate the theme ‘change’. Jan Maarten Sneep edited all the footage into one coherent piece through various Rotterdam memory screen segments.
Main parts by: Ziggy Schaap & Alex van Zwietering, Edward Cook, Marc Bolhuis, Kadir Küçük & Jan Maarten Sneep.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. “Alles Wisselt” Dutch for everything changes is the final part of the “Creating Lines” Momentum series. This one really combines people of all ages and styles from young Jayden de Lange al the way up to an older and way underappreciated skater like Damiaan “Paco” Winkelman. We would like to thank all that participated for their hard work and great content and we hope you “the viewer” enjoyed it as much as we did.
Intro by Roland Hoogwater.
Film & edit by Ziggy Schaap en Alex van Zwietering.
Photography by Ziggy Schaap, Martijn van Velden
Alles Wisselt is a short video that translates the theme ‘change’ to different generations in skateboarding. What changes in a normal human life and that of a skateboarder? Our crew consists of skaters with the age of 12 to 36 who all have the same passion, namely skateboarding. We used b-roll shots from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision to show a number of typical things that people of the same age as non-skateboarders do.
After sitting in the car for an hour and a half to Rotterdam, it turned out that Damiaan had forgotten his board, so the session started somewhat disappointing. The majority of the crew was already on their way home but after the hope was almost lost, we came across this spot in a metro stop. Paco (Damiaan) saw his chance and picked up some rad clips on Ziggy’s board, including this nosestall.
Check out all the other “Creating Lines” parts by clicking here.
The fourth and second to last part of the “Creating Lines” project is a fucking trip… down memory lane. A visit back to Europe’s and especially The Netherland’s most iconic and fun skate spots, “The Yard”. For those that know this edit holds many gems, including Wieger, P-rod, Paterno, Tommy van Berkel, and Louisa Menke 2004 footage. We wish we could run into this time traveling German streaker so we could re-live those times through our own eyes.
Alwin van Wemmenhoven a.k.a. Valwin van Slammenhove mid trick.
Intro by Roland Hoogwater
Text, Film & Edit by Edward Cook
Photography by Reinier van Oorsouw
What has changed the most in skating for me? “The Yard” is the perfect example. In the past it was a skate spot where you had all the space you wanted with a street type of feeling; there was no one there except your friends and some junkies. Now in 2018, “The Yard” is back but it has been transformed into a skatepark “The Yard 2.0”, a place with rules and lots of guests that are “hanging out” but who really have no function at a skatepark. I a way it is a bit like all the other parks now.
*Note: After being skate-able for about 6 months, the city of Utrecht closed down The Yard 2.0 on November 16th, after continued vandalism and other trouble caused by local (non-skate) youth.
Featuring: Alwin Wemmenhove, Kaspar van Lierop, Jos Theissens, Tommy Willets, Thomas Knegtel, Tommy van Berkel, Paul Verbraak, Ricardo Paterno, Geoffrey van Hove, Louisa Menke, Yannick Kalaydijan, Addie Knispel, Pieter ‘Parra’ Jansen, Vincent Vos, Tim Zom, Sebastian van der Elsken, Dave Mackey, Wieger van Wageningen, Paul Rodriguez & Bas Jansen
Monday the 3rd of December marks the day that we launch the third part in our ongoing “Creating Lines” series. This one focusses on “Roffa” mainstay Marc Bolhuis and his Boombap movement. Let him explain what he did with the topic of change and how it affected his view of the Dutch metropolis.
Intro by Roland Hoogwater.
Text,film, photos & edit by Marc Bolhuis.
When “Creating Lines”, asked me to make a skate edit about ‘change’ and what has changed in skateboarding, it immediately crossed my mind that skateboarding is such a personal thing for people. So, it is hard to say what kind of change everybody could relate too.
Recently I released my first full-length video called ‘BOOMBAP’ and ‘Metamorphoses’ is the first project that I released since the video. In BOOMBAP I wanted to portray the city of Rotterdam in the way I always saw it, coming from a village nearby I was mesmerized by the big buildings, busy streets, and grittiness that this city has to offer. In the end, Dirk Middelkoop came up with the idea of doing something about the architecture of this city. Rotterdam, for the most part, is a pretty new city because it got bombed in WW2. But there are some buildings left from the old days, buildings like our City Hall for example. We did some research on which “skate” spot is the oldest and which place is the newest, and from there we added everything in between and to make the edit in a chronological order.
It was really interesting to find out in what year some of the spots were built. I really had no clue that some of these spots have been around for so long. I was also surprised that some spots were built in the same year but look so totally different from one other architecturally.
Today as part of our second “Creating Lines” release we are proud to present multiple young talents, first, filmer Kadir Küçük who came up with this concept around the theme of “change”. Secondly, Mano Wolf a name or face you might have seen before if you are Dutch but one you will see on the international stage more and more as time goes on.
They together managed to pull off this partly futuristic piece of cinematography in convincing fashion. Read about their experience bellow:
Mano Wolf, Kickflip.
Intro by Roland Hoogwater.
Film/edit by Kadir Küçük.
Photography by Martijn van Velden.
With a theme like change, most might think of the past and portray what has changed. To me, I thought it would be more interesting and fun to make a prediction of the future (maybe unrealistic).
There is one episode of rocket power where they skate with Tony Hawk and what stuck with me was that they skate a partially glowing skateboard, I thought that recreating that might look cool and futuristic. So I did some research on how to make a skateboard glow in the dark and in the end, I found out that glow powder with some epoxy resin made it work.
It was quite hard filming with that setup though, since you need to recharge the glow powder with light for it to light up at it’s maximum. We had to charge it up about every 3 tries or so, sometimes the spot was too bright and we had to recharge it every try for the board to actually shine.
For this project we were given a month time by Creating Lines to finish a video, most of the people probably went filming right away but I spend the first 2 weeks just researching and trying to make a “glow in the dark” skateboard. And with the filming process being quite time-consuming it ended up being a struggle but I am actually hyped I didn’t go the easy route and still managed to pull it all off just a couple days past the deadline.
Last September we organized ‘Creating Lines’, a three-day event that took place in Rotterdam. We highlighted and discussed notable changes and differences between the older Dutch and more specific Rotterdam styles of skateboarding. We did this in an attempt to bring skateboarders of all different generations, sorts and areas closer together.
A big part of the Creating Lines project was an exhibition about Rotterdam’s skate history, a premiere of our full-length skate video ‘Momentum’ and various panel discussions about the history and future of skateboarding in the Netherlands.
‘Momentum’ consists of five main video parts, made by various talented Dutch filmmakers. They were given 6 weeks to make a short video, in which they had to incorporate the theme ‘change’. Besides having a part in the video, Jan Maarten Sneep also managed to glue together the entire thing. He spent many hours watching and editing classic Rotterdam skateboard footage to create several Memory Screen montages for the video. These videos showcase the changes in skateboarding throughout our history. All the main parts of the video will be shown right here on Place Skateboard Culture the coming weeks and the full project can be found via our socials.
Intro text by Martijn van Hemmen.
Filmed,edited & text by Jan Maarten Sneep.
Tim Zom, Frontside Bluntslide, Photo Bastiaan van Zadelhoff.
Part 1:
SUPER ZOOM ELECTRONIC 010
The making of SUPER ZOOM ELECTRONIC 010
With change being the topic, I focussed on the change in video cameras over the years. After having filmed for a number of years with various HD cameras, I went back in time for this project, back to the VX-1000 from 1995, and the Canon Super Zoom Automatic 1014 from 1973. I didn’t use these cameras in the traditional way instead I utilized the technical possibilities of 2018 and combined them. For example, I recorded the VX images on an SD card instead of tapes, and I used my phone to film through the viewfinder of the Canon 1014.
I had purchased this old Super 8 camera some years ago, during the making of The Bombaklats video to be exact. But after I received a number of bad cassettes, I did not have that much confidence in using it anymore. Partly because when filming with the VX-1000, we regularly film the tricks with our phones through the viewfinder so we can watch a clip back without overusing the camera. Via that technique, I came up with a new idea. I attached a phone case to the super 8 camera so that I could film through the viewfinder and it worked! Meanwhile, we are on Duct tape prototype number 4, and the images are sharper than ever.
The Super Zoom Camera in action.
This spot, right next to Rotterdam Centraal, is inspired by Dirk Middelkoop in the Boombap video. He does a line there in which he comes from behind the pillars and does a big Fs Blunt on the curb. I always thought that looked so sick, Robbin de Wit agreed.
The first time we went to this spot together, while Robbin was checking out the spot, it started to rain a little bit – no worries the spot has a roof over it- but not even fifteen minutes later it turned into a huge storm, the hailstones poured past us, and the streets filled with water in no time. We were dry, happily covered, but skating was no longer a possibility. It turned out to be quite the storm, later on, we heard that this storm caused a lot of damage to the city of Rotterdam.
A couple of days later we went there again but now with a larger group. I, myself would never think of trying a back noseblunt on something like this but you can always ask Robbin to do one. It took him a while to figure out what he wanted to do at the beginning of the line but once he did it did not take that him long to make the line. Ziggy (Schaap) was there and made this lovely picture! The spot, the trick, and everyone in the background.
Robbin De Wit, Backside Noseblunt, Photo Ziggy Schaap.
