Tag: The Netherlands

After the Promo and the Interview now it is time for the full length.

Enjoy all the dutchies and their indoor hills!

If you don’t know Ziggy Schaap by now you might not follow European skateboarding. Over the years he has been a Dutch mainstay, first and foremost as a photographer but now it seems he has found his way through the world of moving images. We have had the pleasure of premiering multiple of his video works in the last 2 years and with his latest video on the horizon, we wanted to ask him some questions.

Images by Ziggy Schaap & Martijn van Velden.
Interview by Roland Hoogwater.

Facetime rings… Ziggy picks up.

Hey man, how are you?
I am good, just came home, slept in Rotterdam, about to start working. Skatedeluxe costumer hotline! If you want you can call me via the Skatedeluxe line (laughs).

(laughs)… Let’s shoot, first question: Why did you make this video?
Why did I make the “No Service” video? Well, basically it was to get people to skate outside of the skateparks. Indoor parks are cool to practice and film for Insta but they do get repetitive and you can’t really make something there film wise.
So this project provided me with something to do during the winter time.

So I started thinking and concluded that there haven’t been many videos that have been filmed completely inside a (multiple) parking garage.

To me skating a parking garage is pretty Dutch. People do it often especially in places where there are no indoor skateparks and it rains a lot over here.

I also thought it would be fun to limit myself to one particular type of thing and the number and sorts of spots a garage provides.

Makes sense, so how many places did you visit during the making of this video?
We went to different cities… I think we started in Den Haag skating with Justin Wagenaar en Sebastiaan Vijverberg around station De Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië. That day we skated 2 or 3 different locations and that is when I got the idea for the video.

So during the filming, a lot of people heard about the idea and decided to join our sessions.

I think the video is mostly Den Haag because we found a large number of underground garages there but we also went to multiple in Rotterdam, one in Amsterdam which was filled with spots, Utrecht, Leiden where we have the deepest underground garage in Europe, Antwerp, Tilburg & Haarlem.

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What was the best spot?
Hard to say probably the whole area where we started in Den Hague because there a multiple spots, it is not a place where people really live, so fewer complaints but it depends on what you like.

The thing is there where “spots” but a lot of the places you can skate are curbs and mannie pads. Which some people can skate great but others don’t really like or can’t. So it depends on the skater.
How did you know which cities to visit? Or did you randomly go to places to check?
The one in Tilburg, for instance, I knew because I had filmed a “day in the life” there back in the day. Bram van Halteren showed me that garage because it was raining and we wanted to show his skating during his DITL.
Inside there is a long near perfect ledge and to top it all of, the police came and said that they liked what we where doing so we could stay and film uninterrupted.

We all knew a couple and as the project went on people like Bastiaan van Zadelhoff went in a couple to check for spots but we also went randomly looking for spots or used Google-Maps. In Haarlem, for instance, we visited a place and afterward, we googled Q-park and sometimes people add foto’s to the google thing and we found some spots that way too.

How long did the whole process take… start to finish?
I think the first clip was filmed at the end of November the start of December. So, a little over 2 months, which is pretty fast for a 12-minute video.

Plus a 6-minute promo.
True, I like that too but in some ways, it is not really a promo because I basically used all of Rob Maatman’s footage in the video so he is not a real presence in the promo. They both have their own vibe.

 

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What about the vibe of the project, obviously a parking garage is mostly void of sunlight.
Well, it did really take shape during the making of it but the VX camera truly has a different look when you take it inside. The video quality becomes crusty but at the same time that fits the environment because these places were dusty, oily and generally dirty. We often came home with our hands black with all kinds of dirt.

What about the limitations? Was filming on a sunny rooftop allowed?
We discussed that multiple times, the clip is called “No Service” because underground our cellphones would not be working but in fact, we were filming on a garage rooftop where we had 4g and 4 bars of connection. Only Rob really has outside clips but I felt it worked within the video, I did think about taking it out but it ended up feeling right to leave it in.

Is this video your version of Yoan Taillandier’s Minuit, where people start in the night and the last clips end when the sun comes up?
Maybe in some ways, it is, I actually edited some parts inspired by that video. An example is after the first part there is a segment where it shows the guys leaving the garage (3:08) and then we see some rainy shots and that ends with the guys going back inside. I don’t know if people will see that inspiration because it is abstract but it is there.

Now they will (laughs). What about the crew?
I never start anything with a crew in mind, it always seems to grow organically.
I actually never really filmed a project with Rob Maatman and Robbin de Wit before and that is always exciting to film with new people and see what they bring to the table.

What about time, because of the lights there is less of a sensation of time, did you guys get caught up in some real late night sessions?
Well, a lot of the times we went in when it was light and because our cell phones did not really work we often ended up skating together for a way longer time. Obviously, we would still be able to tell time but you don’t really get disturbed by messages as much as you normally would.

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In a way, you are more together when you don’t have people looking at their phones.
It did feel like that at times, also you had to be at the meetup-spot on time because you could depend on a quick message or call.

With the amount of fencing and security at some of these places, it was important to know the right way in. Even though we would obviously, drop a pin before going in things were not as usual.

Last year you released “Alles Wisselt”, The End & Memories all three have a concept behind them, this one does as well. Is that a coincidence?
Well… I have too many ideas and often I end up just doing something. “Alles Wisselt” and “No Service” both had a plan behind them but The End & Memories just happened. They are connected but not outspokenly so, for me they have to do with Love. “The End” has that song “Skeeter Davis – The End of The World (1962)” which is about the feeling when someone leaves you. Memories has a Leonard Cohen song which looks back on relationships of the past singing “won’t you let me see your naked body…” but with this video I kind of left that idea for a bit.

Alright, what about the music, this video features only Dutch music.
The first Instagram trailer did not have a Dutch spoken song but even at that stage, I knew I wanted to finish the video with a Herman van Veen song.

So two weeks back we were editing and Bastiaan van Zadelhoff put on some crazy Dutch tunes and proposed only using those type of songs. To be honest, between the rainy days, skating indoors it felt right to use Dutch music with this video, it strengthened it as a whole.
Did you learn anything weird about parking garages during the making of this project?
The Netherlands is known as a flat country but through this project, we found out all our downhills are hidden indoors.

Gx1000 could have happened in the low countries.

Closing question, you had a goal to do something in the winter and stay out of the beaten path (indoor skateparks) but at the end of the project, the sun started shining again. Where there ever times where you reluctantly entered a dark garage when you really wanted to skate outside?
That happened for sure! (laughs). We really had a couple of days where we would have skated outside had it not been for this. People were complaining “it is great weather, do we really need to go inside?” but we all knew we needed a bit more to finish the project so we did stay true. In the end, we really did survive winter the best way possible*.

I believe you, thanks Ziggy!

*Editors note:
Besides flying to a warm country

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Want more? Check out Ziggy’ full length “Likkie Wax” that we launched together last year.

 

 

Next week Ziggy Schaap will be premiering his new video “No Service”, today we have the promo to hype you up. Tomorrow we have a full interview with Ziggy about his upcoming project, past projects, and even the future.

Now, get a coffee, sit down and press play to watch some underground ripping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOOskh7CEPw&t

Never forget where you came from because that is what helped to mold you into who you are now. Groningen is a city in the north of the Netherlands and it is the place I was born. And since I am now in a chance to feature content on this platform I wanted to show some love to a squad from my hometown.

Let’s start by dissecting the name, ‘PI2SQUAD’. ‘PI2’ is a Dutch slang term used to describe a joint, while ‘squad’ as the dictionary tells us stands for “a small group of people having a particular task.” So following that logic the PI2SQUAD are a group of people tasked with smoking a lot of weed. But they do other things while smoking, things like skateboarding, filming, working, eating (munchies) and more. Which resulted in this “Movie”.

Obviously, you don’t have the same nostalgic feeling watching this that I do but there is enough craziness in this movie for everybody to enjoy.

Text by Roland Hoogwater.
Photo by Diederick Winchester

Meet Ziggy, Ziggy Schaap a Dutch photographer, filmer, journalist, and skater. At the end of last year, our  filmer Peter Buikema (Dutch) ran into him at the Vans Shop Riot in Breda and as filmers do they talked about filming videos. Ziggy happened to mention he was finishing up a full length and so Peter smelled blood in the water and asked if we could feature it. So, that’s the short story of how “Likkie Wax” got to be featured on our website. If you want the long story keep on reading if you don’t click play Enjoy!

Hey Ziggy, can you tell us about the video you made?

To be honest, it didn’t really start like we’re making a video. I got a VX a while ago, and I tried it out in a skatepark in Leiden. It ended up being a video filmed in the skatepark. That was fun but it was a project I did to get used to the VX. Then after that, I started filming more and more. That is where Pascal Moelaert comes in, I’ve skated together with him for quite a while now, ever since he was a kid (11/12 years old). He just turned 16 in October. So we’ve been out skating and slowly more people joined in. At one point Justin Wagener, Jesse Voerman, Pascal and me went out skating more and more and did like little trips. And friends of them would join, and friends of me would join, it all happened kinda organically. And at some point instead of asking “Heb je een waxie voor me?” (Translated: “Do you have a piece of wax for me?”), these guys started asking “Heb je nog een likkie voor me?” (Translated: “Do you have a sucky for me?”. Sorry, I have no idea how to translate this. It doesn’t make sense in any other language.) So then we thought: “That would be a good name for a video, likkie wax.” I thought it was a funny concept, you can do a lot with it, I mean every skater is familiar with little tea lights. So we made this video and for the premiere, we made a few shirts, we ’re thinking about starting a little brand, we will see.

“Likkie Wax” shirts?

Yes, at first we made black long sleeves for the premiere and soon we will make a shirt with Scrooge McDuck, who will be holding a tea light. And we made a graphic with a guy playing curling but then pushing a tea light instead of that thing they throw. We have quite a few ideas.

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Magic van Heeswijk, Ollie, Amsterdam

How long did it take to film the video? I mean you were just filming together with Pascal but at some point, you must’ve decided that you’re gonna make a video.

Yeah, at first I was just filming with Pascal, then Jesse and Justin started joining more often. And then when we decided that were actually making a video, I think we’ve been filming for like 5 more months. When I started editing it felt like we’ve been filming for multiple years but I think in the end we only filmed for about one year. That’s kinda short I guess, I mean it’s only those three guys with full parts, it’s not a super long video, but still.

But it’s a full-length, I mean it’s 23 minutes.

Yeah, and at first I didn’t really know, I thought maybe I’ll just make little edits and in the end a full video. But then when I was editing I thought I might just as well already make the full video. And then I’ll make another big throwaway edit later, there’s lots of throwaway footage. I mean lots of footage we didn’t use, doesn’t have to be throwaway. I’d rather call it leftovers.

The footage that just doesn’t really fit or isn’t filmed exactly how you wanted it…

Yeah, during editing we left out a lot of footage because either I didn’t like it or Justin, Jesse or Pascal didn’t want it to be used. Like footage that didn’t fit or wasn’t good enough. And some footage already feels super old even though we’ve been filming for just a year. So yeah, in the end, a lot of footage gets taken out, which is not that bad, it’s nice to have it all anyway. For me it’s also some kind of diary or something, you know? That’s what I have with photography or filming, it’s like a diary.

Yeah, I mean as the filmer you know for each clip what happened there, if it was a struggle, if you got kicked out and whatever… You keep all these memories with the clips.

Exactly. And with video, it’s easier to tell the story to the viewer than with photos. Because in the first place I’m more of a photographer than a filmer but with video, it’s nice that you have like more information than with a photo.

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Jesse Voerman, Ollie, Hoofddorp

How is it for you to go filming while you’re actually more of a photographer?

Personally, I like photography better, it takes less effort. You can focus more on the look for example of the spot. You don’t necessarily need the skater to do crazy tricks like kill them self on a big stair set. You can also take a nice picture on just a good looking ledge spot, with a less crazy trick. That’s what I like about photography. I think my photography changed, at first I kinda made the standard skate photos and now that I filmed more with the VX, I feel like I want to pictures I shoot to look more special, so I’m looking for the more alternative angles. It’s also because of magazines, like you guys’ magazine and some more, the pictures are starting to look a bit different than your average Thrasher photo. I mean the pictures in Free, no offense, I’m a fan, their pictures are always good, but their pictures are really how a skateboard picture is supposed to look like. But then, for example, Danny (Sommerfeld), he really does something different which I think is super sick, that he really does something new. But yeah, I’m really into taking pictures, but I also really enjoy filming, you can be really creative while filming as well. But photography is still my main focus right now.

What was for you the highlight in the video?

What I really liked is that we edited it all together, it’s really a project from all of us together. I mean I filmed pretty much all of it. But in the end, we really did it all together and that’s what I really like. Last year Jesse already had a part in the “L.O.G.T.” video out of Utrecht, and Justin had the ender-part in “Fandango”, filmed in Barcelona. Justin and Jesse filmed a lot already, but Pascal never filmed a part before. Pascal skates super sick, he’s still super young but he skates like a G. So because Pascal never had a part before, we put Justin’s part as the first part, he already had enough parts and ender-parts, (laughs) and we put Pascal’s part, his first part he ever filmed, as the ender-part. And that kind of stuff, like these decisions, that’s what we all did together. That’s for me the highlight, that it’s from us all together.

That’s cool! I have to say Pascal’s part turned out great. The song was very cool too.

Yeah, he came up with that song himself, which is funny for a 16 year old dude, most 16 year olds dont really know music like this. He came to me like: “Yo, this song is sick!” so we started editing to it, his part was also the first part we finished. And now this week, the week after the premiere everyone came to us like: “What’s the song from Pascal’s part? It’s been stuck in my head since the premiere.” (laughs). That was cool, that song really stuck to the people.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you how the songchoices came up.

Bassicly, I just did some suggestions and started editing to some songs and everyone would come hang out at my place and I would show it to them, we would edit together for a bit. So we pretty much chose the songs together. Pascal’s part was the easiest, the second version was already pretty much the final version. While for Justin’s part we tried like 25 song’s and different edits, we made a version with a Juicy J track which was pretty sick too, but that didn’t really fit the rest of the video. And for Jesse’s part too we’ve tried a lot of different songs. And for the rest of the parts, like the duo parts and all, most of those songs I chose by myself.

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Pascal Moelaert, Nosegrind, Rotterdam

What was the worst thing during the making of this video?

Making decisions is kinda hard, like deciding this is it, now it’s finished. Because you can always keep on working on it or change stuff. Like when you made the final edit, later you watch it and you can think about 20 new things you want to do differently. That’s something I find to be really hard, to make the decision that it’s finished, that I will export it now and not touch it anymore. And while filming for this video the VX always worked fine and never glitched, but this one time in Barcelona, I was filming a pretty good trick from Magic (van Hoogwijk) and some tricks from Pascal, but the whole tape glitched, that sucked. It had to happen at some point… you know it will happen with the VX. But that it had to happen in Barcelona was shitty. But other than that it’s just good memories and good times with friends.

Will there be a sequel? Or are you over filming now for a while? I mean it’s a lot of work.

Yeah true, but it is fun to do. I mean these are projects that I’m not really making any money from. All I could gain is respect and I’m just really into capturing all these moments. So yeah, I will see. Last week I was skating with Aaron Tiekink from Zwolle, filmed some stuff with him. I’ll just see what happens and keep it spontaneous. With the Likkie Wax video too, I didn’t plan on making the video from the start, it was more like “Oh, we got quite some footage now, let us do something with it.” Maybe it’ll be cool to do some smaller edits instead of one full video. But at the same time its important that there are full-lengths coming out of the Netherlands. But I want to keep filming.

What’s your favorite Dutch full-length video?

I think it’s “Colorblind Army”. And the “Rollerdisco” Video from Huub out of Leiden.That was inspiring for me since I’m also from Leiden. And also “Agga Op Straat”, that was also a big inspiration for me. That soundtrack is sick, just as the soundtrack from Colorblind Army.

Where did you film for this video? Barcelona? London?

Yeah, I filmed some tricks myself in London. Before I went there I thought I would film some stuff there myself since there are many of these small fun spots. We also filmed in Copenhagen, I had to go there for the Copenhagen Open and brought my VX with me, Pascal, Jesse, and Justin were there too. So we went to Copenhagen, London, Barcelona, Berlin… That’s about it I guess. When the video was done I was like: “Wow, its really just the standard skate cities.” and that’s why were going to Israel next month together with Justin and the guys from Turtle Productions out of Austria. Just to do something different than Barcelona or whatever.

What’s On The Roll?

Well, On The Roll is one of the few skateboard platforms in the Netherlands. There’s Flatspot, Essay, Noise and On The Roll, there’s not really any rivalry, we all just do our own thing. Flatspot is a bit more commercial and Essay and we are doing it more as a hobby. It’s not really a job for me, I just do it for fun and its dope that people appreciate what we do. I’m just trying to do something for the scene in the Netherlands. Back in the day, there was Tacky, I did an internship there, that’s where it kind of started for me. And then D.J. the guy who runs On The Roll with me, came to me and was like: “I’m doing skate camps and maybe we can do a little magazine, would you be down to join?”, that’s where it started. Now we’re doing it for like 3 years. I kinda wanna start to do something with print. Lately if been sending some photo’s to Essay for their magazine. I think it’s really sick what they do.

I’m very happy that there’s finally young Dutch skater’s who are doing something. There was a long time not much happening. There’s also not really a Dutch brand that’s really pushing the Netherlands, like what Colorblind did back in the days.

Yeah, and that’s what I kinda miss. The Dutch scene is not that big and it’s a special kind of scene, like… for example, when there’s a contest, you know who’s gonna come and whats gonna happen and it’s just like a big group of friends, which is good, but people don’t see that there’s more potential and that you can get something out of the scene, like start a brand. In the Netherlands, all the skaters are more skating for fun, which is really cool actually, but on the other side are we kinda missing out on the commercial side of skateboarding. But it’s awesome to be a part of the Dutch scene with On The Roll. But what we as skateboard media do now is very important, it’s important for now but it’s even more important in 10 years, I mean if there’s nothing like us now there would be a whole gap in Dutch skateboard history then, in the way like how you watch Colorblind Army now and see like, that’s how it was back then. And that they took down Tacky, that’s such a shame. It’s a big part of Dutch skate history that they take offline. The kids nowadays don’t even know Tacky and Tagsters from back in the days, but I think it’s very important.

But as a Dutch skater, it’s also kind of our task to tell about that to the next generation.

Yeah, and I use On The Roll to share my view and it’s very cool to see that people appreciate what we do.

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Justin Wagener, Crookbonk, Amsterdam

Let’s go back to “Likkie Wax”… My girlfriend is sitting next to me and started laughing when I said “Likkie Wax”.

(Laughs) Put that in the article!

(Laughs) We can do that. So, the footage of the Tea Light production, how did you think of that and where did you get that?

Should I tell the truth or should I make up a fun story? A lot of people think that we went to a Tea Light Factory and filmed it ourselves. Which was actually the plan, I was looking for a place and did a lot of research, but in the end, it’s hard to get in such factory’s or they don’t want you to film. Because I actually sent out emails to factory’s but it didn’t work out. In the end, I found this footage on youtube from “Tea Light Factory”. They’re also in the credits under “Additional Filming”. Yeah, so I just downloaded that from the internet, just like all the music, hope I won’t get in trouble with that. (Laughs)

It’s very tough with music rights, especially if you don’t have any budget.

Yeah, for the skatepark video I made before, I made all the music myself or with friends, and I was thinking about doing the same for Likkie Wax. But then again it can be much better with proper music.

That Pascal came to you with his own music choice, that is the kind of stuff that you otherwise can’t do.

Yeah!

Anything else you would like to say?

Hmmm… Well, I just hope that with everything I do I can inspire other people as well. Recently Bastiaan van Zadelhoff came to me, he was also very interested in starting to take pictures, he was also very hyped on Danny’s work, that’s what I find really sick when people inspire each other. I hope that people who for example watch Likkie Wax, or check On The Roll, that that triggers people to start doing stuff themselves. I think that’s also important for the scene, you need the media, the photos and art and such in skateboarding. Like Pontus says: “Inspire others to inspire themselves.”

Thanks, Ziggy!

Interview by Roland Hoogwater

Photos and video by Ziggy Schaap

Billy Hoogendijk is not only super skilled on the board, he can also film and edit a mean video. This video comes from the city “achter de duinen” (translated: behind the dunes), also known as the Hague, the Netherlands and it features all of Billy’s friend and Billy himself.

Featuring Woody Hoogendijk, Arvin Ottes, Jan-Willem den Haan, Buddy Swinkels, Sebastiaan Vijverberg, Jamy Holstein, Remco Stolze, Tibbe Deltenre, Dwight Hoogendijk, Jaimy Wawoeroentoe, Robin Bergman, Ritchie Eversteijn & Mekbib Anthonisse.

The Dutch-based brand POP just released their new #03 collection, which focusses on simple but classic designs. The collection has influences ranging from the French breton stripe, American baseball hats and more. The brand combines those items with cargo pants, half zip sweaters and Hugo Snelooper’s street style photography. All in all POP is presenting a strong style build on their skateboard fundament but without fear of looking over skateboardings boarders. The first drop is this Thursday with a new drop every Thursday after that.

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