Hump Day Gets a Lesson in Culture and Surviving Snowboard Media Overload with Postland’s Videographer Tim Schiphorst

If you turn your attention to the video above this paragraph you will find the full version of Postland Theory’s 2016 video release “The Fourth Wall.” Why the hell are we just posting it now, you ask? Well, in the olden days, people used to care about things for more than one season – and if you haven’t watched it, you’re in for some seriously heavy boarding interspersed with beautiful scenery and some funny outtakes. But as it is now 2017, it’s really just a ploy to get you paying attention and excited for the forthcoming video “Loose,” which hits the Interwebs for free on Nov 1. And to hopefully make you more excited, here’s a recent conversation with the brains behind the movie for people who still like to nerd out on snowboard media.

The man behind the lens and editing bay at Postland, Tim “Shithorse” Schiphorst. photo: Ponchikz

Brooke: So, I Youtube’d The Fourth Wall to my Smart TV and watched most of it – I have a few take aways:

  • Snowboard parkour is neat
  • European spots seem is way tighter than American spots.
  • I can’t beleive you guys are doing this again, because modern rail snowboarding is fucked-up gnarly.
  • I never want to go to Russia
  • My tv was turned up too loud for some of the sections.
  • And finally, that kid with the white guy dreds is so fun to watch but… he still has white guy dreads

Tim: Hahaha so sick. White guy dreads is next big thing. He’s my favourite snowboarder right now and he’s back this year.

Are white guy dreads sick though? I’ve always thought of Europe as being ahead of the times and I like to think Americans are already over that. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking haha.

Hahaha yeah, he’s had em since I met him and probably before that. I dunno! It’s just a hair style.

Right, but do they smell bad? Are there arguements over who has to share a hotel bed with him? I suppose on a rail trip across Europe odors are just part of the deal, so whatever I’ll drop it. Tell me more about him as a human, please.

He’s Simon Houlind, he lives in Copenhagen, but he’s kinda been kinda all over the place, living in a hammock at the skatepark in Christiania. I’ve been trying to film with him for years now so we just thought it’d be sick to bring him along for one trip during The Fourth Wall, and that’s when he filmed his part. I think we were all really hyped on what he got in such a short time and I really like his riding style and approach to street riding. So this year we traveled together the entire winter and it’s just been the sickest time.

Usually since he doesn’t really have any money, and we sometimes make a deal that he pays less for the hotel so he just hangs up his hammock somewhere and actually doesn’t get a bed. Sounds kinda harsh, maybe. But he doesn’t mind, he’s got a sick hammock.

Yeah, whatever works, right? So what’s up with the title? Is the Fourth Wall a reference to Travis Rice’s last project or Taco Bell?

Taco Bell? What’s that?

lol. It’s the best fast food restaurant in America and they have a marketing campaign based on “fourth meal” aka the shitty food you drive thru and get when you’re drunk. But seriously, it’s delicious. And dirt cheap.


MMM, naked chicken chips dipped in fake nacho cheese sauce…

Ah yeah I heard of those. Should probably make the trip more often, but with Poutine in Canada and Borsch in Russia, how high can it really score?

Fourth Wall refers to breaking the fourth wall. That’s when, for example, a musical actor talks directly to the audience. So the stage has 3 walls, and the audience is looking through the fourth wall so to speak. Same in movies when the actor talks directly into the camera like Kevin Spacey in House Of Cards.

Since we set out to travel a whole bunch and visit some places we’d never imagined we’d end up, we thought it would be sick to kinda show that in the movie, rather than just make video parts. We still focused on video parts but in the full movie we mixed em up with travel parts. So we made the online parts for everybody to enjoy, and the full movie is more for ourselves to watch back when we switch over to surfing.

Makes sense. Seems like heavy shit went down on some pretty crazy spots. Do you feel a need to top yourself or what? What was your the motivation to do this again, and what if anything are you going to differently this year?

Wait what are talking about now? Like the movie that’s dropping in a few weeks? Or the NEXT movie that we’re gonna start filming in December?

Cees Wille. Stairs to 50-50. Photo: James Griffith

Oh man, thinking in seasons makes my brain hurt, so let’s talk about the one you’ve already filmed first.

Yeah, so The Fourth Wall is actually last year’s (2016) movie, but since I never uploadeded the entire thing anywhere I thought it’d be cool for some people to watch. But the full parts have already been out since the beginning of last season. Our new movie “Loose” is dropping November 1st, and video parts will start coming online around January. And then we’re gonna start filming again in December.

But I think in general we’re always trying to do the opposite of what we did the winter before. For The Fourth Wall (two winters ago) we just set out to travel a bunch and find unique spots and locations and just go on an adventure pretty much. Last winter we just wanted to take it way more simple. We all met up in Holland and drove to Finland from there. Cees has his Chevy van that we loaded up with winches and generators and lights and we more or less stayed in Finland, and focused on specific tricks and spots the guys wanted to film.

It was kinda nice not having to worry about visas and just having all the gear with us to hit literally every spot that popped into our heads. I think everybody filmed their best video parts this year because of that.

That makes sense. There’s a lot to be said for simplicity

I’m not just saying that to try to get everybody to watch the movie.. Like honestly everybody was so hyped the entire winter because it felt like everything we tried to do worked out.

People will watch the movie if they want to, I think.

And if they don’t, they won’t.

Ollie Dutton, gap-to-rail. Photo: Schiphorst.

Yep. I like how you guys take a cinematic approach and make something that’s pretty.

haha do we?

Yeah, I think so. It seems like there’s more to what you do than just tricks, and because tricks are a hard sell for most people who snowboard. It takes a special sort of nerd to care and appreciate just how gnarly the stuff these guys are doing is.

So, for The Fourth Wall it was kind of a thing that I wanted to really show how beautiful Japan and Iceland were and how raw Russia is. But this winter it’s really more focusing on the tricks. No drones or stabilization gimmicks or anything.

Honestly, holding anyone’s attention for longer than 1-minute these days is a serious feat. What’s your take on that?

Yeah I totally agree that these days people’s attention spans leave much to be desired. But that’s just natural process. I mean, I sometimes still think about the old FODT video’s that just showed 5 slow motion angles of one trick because the riding was so fucking heavy. You just don’t get away with that anymore. I still like showing more angles, but I only have two cameras, so it’ll never be that crazy. But it feels that the guys put so much effort into their riding that it’s kinda unfair to just let every single shot fly by.

Will Smith. 50-50 through a TV, now watchable on TV. Photo: Ponchikz

Yeah it’s a tough one. Like, they’re doing it for themselves at the end of the day, but it would be nice to treat this kind of gnarly ass riding with a little more respect. So I suppose it’s finding that middle ground. Like, should you still “save” shots for the full edit?

That’s why I think actual snowboard movies are important opposed to the webisodes everybody wants to do these days. If you want to release a video every week, you shouldn’t expect viewers to remember and replay your video hundreds of times. Why should they if they can just watch something new all the time? That’s why I always try to make our movie available as a free download, in case there are people out there that like to watch the whole thing a few times. It’s cool that so much content is available right now, but sometimes I think the community would be happier if people would put a bit more effort into collecting footage, rather than just throwing everything online as soon as they got enough for a 2 minute video – but probably we’ll start doing it eventually as well, haha.

I get what you’re saying. I guess the dillema is that by “saving” footage you’re risking someone else doing it first. But for you guys, there probably aren’t 10 crews at every spot like there are in places like Quebec or SLC. Have you ever had that happen, where say, you guys hit a spot and then Haldor and Eiki show up and get better tricks on it? Does that matter to you/the riders you work with or does it just get you more hyped?

Oh I think you’d be surprised to see how many crews there are in Finland. People are for sure kinda over the spots in for example Kuopio, but not to the same level as Quebec. But if people go back to the same spot and do better tricks, I think that’s only a good thing. That’s what pushes the video parts, it’s not so fun to go back to the same spot and do something less than what somebody else has done. The awkward thing is when people do the same trick, and the one who came second gets the appreciation for it. That has happened before to us for sure! Even when we went to Quebec and Will did that big ass drop to bank. As far as I know he was the first to do it and I think Brendan Gerard attempted it a year later and launched himself over the road in the outrun. Then there’s Phil Jacques doing that pole jam to backlip in his Union part, that Kas did a few years earlier in his Connect The Dots part. I’m not calling these people out and saying that they’re uncool for copying us. It happens all the time, I’m sure we’ve also “copied” other people’s shots. There’s just too much content coming out right now that it’s impossible to keep track of what everybody is doing, so I feel like you can’t blame somebody for going for the same shot.

Will Smith on the fabled bank-to-ledge, sometime in 2014. Photo: Schiphorst

 

Great answer. Do you think Americans will ever care about the European snowboard scene? Can we trick them into it or are the names just too hard to pronounce?

You guys are for sure showing interest in some individual snowboarders like Toni Kerkelä and Benny Urban, who’ve been filming with Transworld and Videograss the last few years. I don’t think Americans will ever really care about the European snowboard scene though. There’s not much to care about because it’s all so damn small.

Then why does the snowboard scene seem so much cooler/more connected in Europe than America? Which countries would you say have the best snowboarding?

I’m not sure about other countries, but in Holland it’s a group of like 40 snowboarders that ride pretty often and really show up for events. There’s maybe one event a year, and everybody goes there. But because it’s so small it’s really easy to be really close to each other and support each other. A lot of locals from different indoor resorts are in touch with each other to meet up and shoot videos. That’s really cool. It kinda comes back to that quality over quantity thing.

Artem Smollin, boardslide. Photo: Will Smith

Makes sense. How do people from Holland even get into snowboarding in the first place?

I think they don’t really start anymore. I kinda only notice people growing out of snowboarding instead of seeing young kids coming up, but maybe that’s just because I don’t really visit the domes as often as I used to. I guess most people here get into it through the Christmas holidays with their family, and then maybe want to follow it up in the dome and start practicing rail tricks. I’m just basing this on what I see in the indoor scene, apparently there’s a massive group of Dutch snowboarders that are interested in backcountry riding, but the scenes are so divided that we never actually meet.

If you wonder what you’ll look like after drinking three Monster Energy Drinks a day for 40 years, wonder no longer. Photo: Ponchikz

So, tell me about your plans for the next movie… or is that embargo’d til winter?

So that’s the one we still have to film, right? haha.

Yes.

Well one thing to be excited about next winter is that Kas (Lemmens) is finally back after a 2-year injury. Really excited to go out and film with him again. Besides Kas, I’ll probably be travelling a lot with Cees, Simon and Will. Then I’m working with Jesse Augustinus, Joonas Eloranta and a bunch of other guys on some web episodes as promised and film a full movie as well. And I always try to include some local talent to give them a little push towards street riding.

To be honest I’m way less in preparation mode than I usually am this time of year.

That seems like it might be a good thing – sometimes the best stuff comes out when you least expect it! I feel like this is already gonna be more words than anyone wants to read on the Internet, so any one you’d like to thank or anything else you’d like to say to your fans?

Well if anybody made it to the end of all this “back in the days, everything was better” ramble, then I’m sure they can call themselves a fan and a big thanks goes out to them. Literally the thing that makes us keep going every year isn’t the support from sponsors etc, it’s the support of the people who like our videos!

Loose is coming out as a free download on November 1st. We’re doing a bunch of premieres, including on your side of the ocean in Montreal and Quebec City. Pretty excited about how premieres work over there! And maybe next year we should organize a premiere at Taco Bell, sounds like a party!

And finally while you wait for the official teaser to drop of Nov 1, here’s the one from last spring on both Vimeo and Youtube so you can choose you preferred viewing method. You’re welcome.

  1. FilmerD

    C100 is legit. This guy knows his stuff.

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