Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
A little sweeter than your average skate video, this brand new short film by Uukhai, a Mongolian skateboarding association, sheds an intimate, honest and unpretentious light on a burgeoning community in Ulaanbaatar. The video features interviews with skaters involved with the organization, and tons of footage of street skating shot this summer. This look at a blossoming scene is the perfect inspiration for the jaded. Their old school is young, and they are devoted to bringing up brand new skaters. It’s also become a focal point for expatriates and repatriates. Take nothing for granted, certainly not your pristine sidewalks! Uukhai is working to raise funds to provide young skaters with decks, components, and eventually an indoor skatepark. Support from abroad is very much welcome, and rarely bestowed on this community. In a city that offers young people very few creative outlets, Uukhai is supporting skating for all the right reasons, and could use your support as well. Dig in! – THE UUKHAI DOCUMENTARY travels time to bring you the past, present and future of skateboarding in Mongolia. As it is a brand new sport and lifestyle, success is inevitable. Original and local skaters of the city of Ulaanbaatar, explain their perceptions of skateboarding on how it changed their lives and what it could do for the young guns to come follow in their footsteps. Step into their lives and get a firsthand look of what it takes to be an upcoming skateboarder in the dusty, rugged and cold streets of the historic country that is Mongolia. DIRECTED BY Odmandakh Bataa PRODUCED BY Uukhai NGO FEATURING Erdenedalai Purev Enkhjin Batnasan Sergelenbayar Batjargal Odmandakh Bataa Batbayar Lkhamsuren Malou Rose Binderiya Sanduijav Tobias Ulbrich Munki Lhagvasuren Aaron Szott Albert Morgado Jack Arendt Ankhbayar Ch. Bilguun S. Tengis B. Orgilsaikhan N. FILMED BY Odmandakh Bataa Enkhjin Batnasan EDITED BY Odmandakh Bataa Enkhjin Batnasan SECOND CAMERA Erdenedalai Purev Sergelenbayar Batjargal STILL PHOTOGRAPHER Enkhjin Batnasan Malou Rose Sergelenbayar Batjargal TEAM MANAGER Malou Rose email: uukhaiskateboarding@gmail.com
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A little sweeter than your average skate video, this brand new short film by Uukhai, a Mongolian skateboarding association, sheds an intimate, honest and unpretentious light on a burgeoning community in Ulaanbaatar. The video features interviews with skaters involved with the organization, and tons of footage of street skating shot this summer. This look at a blossoming scene is the perfect inspiration for the jaded. Their old school is young, and they are devoted to bringing up brand new skaters. It’s also become a focal point for expatriates and repatriates. Take nothing for granted, certainly not your pristine sidewalks! Uukhai is working to raise funds to provide young skaters with decks, components, and eventually an indoor skatepark. Support from abroad is very much welcome, and rarely bestowed on this community. In a city that offers young people very few creative outlets, Uukhai is supporting skating for all the right reasons, and could use your support as well. Dig in! – THE UUKHAI DOCUMENTARY travels time to bring you the past, present and future of skateboarding in Mongolia. As it is a brand new sport and lifestyle, success is inevitable. Original and local skaters of the city of Ulaanbaatar, explain their perceptions of skateboarding on how it changed their lives and what it could do for the young guns to come follow in their footsteps. Step into their lives and get a firsthand look of what it takes to be an upcoming skateboarder in the dusty, rugged and cold streets of the historic country that is Mongolia. DIRECTED BY Odmandakh Bataa PRODUCED BY Uukhai NGO FEATURING Erdenedalai Purev Enkhjin Batnasan Sergelenbayar Batjargal Odmandakh Bataa Batbayar Lkhamsuren Malou Rose Binderiya Sanduijav Tobias Ulbrich Munki Lhagvasuren Aaron Szott Albert Morgado Jack Arendt Ankhbayar Ch. Bilguun S. Tengis B. Orgilsaikhan N. FILMED BY Odmandakh Bataa Enkhjin Batnasan EDITED BY Odmandakh Bataa Enkhjin Batnasan SECOND CAMERA Erdenedalai Purev Sergelenbayar Batjargal STILL PHOTOGRAPHER Enkhjin Batnasan Malou Rose Sergelenbayar Batjargal TEAM MANAGER Malou Rose email: uukhaiskateboarding@gmail.com
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Holy crap! Long Beach: Work in Progress really happened. The scenario seemed too good to be true: Come up with panels to illustrate and demonstrate the underrated heritage and upside of a city that I’ve been digging since I was a teenager. Crashing culture, colliding communities, and the power of subcultures–I’m all over that. Above you can see Long Beach skaters/activists Chad Tim Tim, Justin Reynolds, Paul Kwon, Dallas Rockvam, and Levi Brown with Pulitzer Prize winning food writer Jonathan Gold. The event took place in the historic Edison Theatre, which was built in 1917 as the Nippon Pool Room and went through phases as a sporting goods store, foot clinic, and beauty salon. Most recently it was home to CSULB’s theatre troupe but has been shuttered for five years until it was opened by the city just for Friday’s event. Keynote speaker John Jay (W+K Garage) spoke on the the creative crisis–how the need for creativity is at an all-time high in business, the arts, and society in general. His manifesto was followed by authors Cara Mullio and Jennifer Volland’s very cool study on local Case Study House architect Edward Killingsworth. (Yes, I bought a copy of their brand-new Hennessey+Ingalls book on Killingsworth and had them sign it.) Jonathan Gold’s seemingly stream-of-consciousness-yet-completely-in-control ruminations on things he likes to eat in Long Beach (framed by recollections of sailors at The Pike, a roller-coaster decapitation, and bad metal shows at Fender’s) was so good it almost made me cry, and was followed by an otherworldly panel on Long Beach music moderated by my friend and member of The Vandals Joe Escalante. Somehow, he was able to balance the early hardcore punk stories of his longtime colleague Jack Grisham from T.S.O.L. with peeks into Little Cambodia via Dengue Fever’s Zac Holtzman and Chhom Nimol (who played an acoustic preview of a brand new song). Is that a mash-up of subcultures or what. The final panel was about the importance of skateboarding to Long Beach culture and its future with Justin, Chad, Ricki The Dude Bedenbaugh, and Paul. Of course, it ripped and generated a ton of responses. The long day was capped by a round table discussion handled by jeffstaple and words from District 2 Councilperson Suja Lowenthal. Very legit to get seals of approval from a king of street culture and a city respresentative. And so awesome to witness my worlds colliding right in front of my eyes, with Jack and Joe (above, left) from years of going to punk shows to Tanya, Julia, and Renzei (above, right) from my current efforts to help the team build Long Beach (and everywhere else) through culture labs and backers in business. Keep an eye out for more photos and even a video to be leaked in the near future… But until then I think the message of Long Beach: Work in Progress can be applied to anyone’s hometown. Look for what’s cool about it, and then seek to understand, grow, mix, and share...
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The best thing about editing Giant Robot magazine was being able to share the rad things that friends do. And make new friends that do rad things. That’s how I feel about my first sizable “solo” project, assembling (and sometimes even participating in) excellent shorts that friends have created and then complementing them with works by new friends. So while the Animal Style (Chicago) and Son of Animal Style (Honolulu, San Diego) skate video programs have given my crew an outlet for their hard work, they have provided me with fodder to keep engaged, keep pushing culture.
And is there a better place to do it than the Hawaii International Film Festival? No other fest balances East and West, high and low, or big budget and indie like HIFF. And while it makes sense for the latest iteration of the Animal Style program to show alongside the long-awaited Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, it’s even cooler that it is on the same roster as Cloud Atlas, Tai Chi 0, and The King of Pigs. It puts skateboard movies in the same conversation as “real” cinema. And with guys like Spike Jonze, Mike Mills, Jason Lee, and even Sam Lee coming from the world of skateboarding, why not?
Some of you might recall that I assembled a program of skateboard videos that played in Chicago back in April. Named Animal Style after the famous Search for Animal Chin, it was a way for me to put the spotlight on some rad Asian and independent filmmakers who just happened to be my friends. Well, now there are two more chances to catch it, as remixed lineups have been announced in Honolulu and San Diego. The core of arthouse-meets-funhouse pairing of The Working Man and Perfect Timing and Windy City documentary with 20 years of footage The Brotherhood: Chicago has been kept intact, now bolstered by a double-header of skate rock (Traveling Sounds with Ray Barbee and Wide Angle Sounds: Mario Rubalcaba), a skating vs. comedy throwdown in Willy Santos vs. Jo Koy, and a Sampler by Honolulu’s Treevisions crew. The Honolulu screening will also include a bonus feature on local skater/musician Anton Glamb’s First Day of Summer. I’m super excited to not only give my talented friends run for their great work once more, but also to hit the road with many of them. The dates are as follows: October 19, 2012 – Hawaii International Film Festival November 3, 2012 – San Diego Asian American Film Festival Who knows if I’ll ever be invited to do anything like this again, so I hope you click on the links, plan to attend, and get inspired to skate, make movies, or just say hi.
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