Geilo Trip!

Just got home from school, about time to update you all on our latest adventures!

Friday afternoon we left for Geilo, because Geilo Freestyle Club was hosting a season Kick Off weekend. Heming Adrenalin was arranging a trip as usual, so everything was taken care of! Pretty sweet.

Personally I got a ride with Rolf Bjørum (widely known as TD in the Norwegian Ski Association) together with Edvard Dalsegg, Tobias Bang and Mathias Sjolivangen, and we held max speed all the way up.

When we got up there we went straight to a meeting about judging, so that everyone could know what criteria they will be judged on the upcoming season. On the meeting there was also some talk about FIS, who will be laying down a set of rules for slopestyle and big air very soon, as it is to become a "real" sport. Personally I think we should totally ignore this. What has FIS ever done for us?

Saturday we SLAYED (not) the AWSOME (kinda) park they had and all the HUGE (not) features in it, and got tons of EPIC (not) shots from that in the BEAUTIFUL light (not). More on this later. Luckily I had brought the bungee and a bunch of shoplights, so we were able to get at least two or three legit shots that afternoon, on two different bomb drops. Sol, the man, got it done.

Then there was time for a "taco-dinner-get-together" with all the attending. Fun times, except it costed 195KR and didn´t really taste good. After having eaten as much as possible (if I'm paying, I'm gonna fucking get something for it), there was time for another meeting. This time it was about a series of contests here in Norway that will work as qualifications for the Norwegian Championship, the "Norwegian Open".
In my opinion, 10 open comps from January - March, not including the Championship, plus the commercial ones is putting a way to competitive focus on our sport, which in my opinion isn´t really a sport, but a passion, a hobby. It´s also disturbing for our project. If the guys want to get both filming and competitions done, it´s starting to look like there´s gonna be traveling every weekend.
I do not like this new trend we are seeing, but hopefully, it´s gonna create more money and better parks. At least then something positive will have come out of it.

Sunday we decided to ditch the crappy park and it´s grim shade, and get something done with the lil powder we had! Got some shots on an awesome stonejib thingy, and lots of bæææckflips. I also went up on the mountain to get some nature shots. Worked out well, and all in all, not such a result less weekend!

Weekend Warriors - Ep. 1 - Kvitfjell

Weekend Warriors - Ep. 1 - Kvitfjell from Anders Stai Fougner on Vimeo.

Here it is, the first episode of Weekend Warriors, covering our trip to Kvitfjell recently. I completely understand and agree with the criticism from some about it beeing a bit boring, but the intention with this series is not in any way to replace last years Webisodes, but to try to give you updates in a more entertaining way than just blogposts.

So, sadly, there will not be much skiing, but next time, there will be more behind the scenes footage and less interviews.

And of course, don´t forget the movie dropping late September '10, with all the best shots for your viewing pleasure, completly FREE for online streaming and HD downloading.

Kvitfjell shoot!

There´s gonna be a "Weekend Warriors" episode on this shoot later, but thought I´d do a little update anyhow.

So, last weekend we were up at Kvitfjell doing the first shoot for our new free movie "Been There. Done That." dropping this fall. Here´s how it went down:

Friday: Having taken a day off from school, I arrived at Kvitfjell pretty early, after having somehow managed to bring camera with gear and tripod, three shoplights, lots of extension cords, a dolly, clothes, boots and skis with me by tube and train. There I met up with Eskild, my contact at Kvitfjell (thanks a lot!), and he introduced me for Niklas, member of the ski patrole up there. Together we found some more shoplights and extension cords, checked out the slope and scoped out some urban possibilities. After that it was straight to work. I built a bomb drop and a tricky hand rail where you somehow had to switch up past a sign to make it to the end, and then it was time for setting up some rails with a snowcat. Luckily, at that time, the first riders showed up, and we put up a down rail and a box in their little pre-season rail/jump line. After that was done, the clock had reached 10, and suddenly everyone had arrived, just in time to not do any work. Suspicious.
We gave the tricky urban a shot, but although Fritzl (Fridtjof Fredricsson) got passed the sign with a beautiful little switchup, nobody was able to get it all the way. At 00:30 we gave up, and it was time for the 1 hour walk back to PMs cabin. With all the gear. Good times had. By all.


Saturday: Being just a liiiitle bit tired from our little late night stroll, we weren´t up super early this day. But at around 11AM, we were ready for the second feature of the trip: a bomb drop that we actually hit last year, but this year we were aiming bigger. Sadly, this feature didn´t work out either, all though Magnus Solheim might have gotten a shot of a 180. Might. After that, we decided to go slay this wooden downrail that we were pretty certain would work out, and it did, to some degree. Fritzl, beeing the PRO he is, got to shots, a switchup and a 270 out, and things were looking brighter. After lunch we hit the park for the first time, and was able to get a few shots on the down rail. After all this we were all stoked for some serious chillin, so we did just that, waiting for the night to fall. Soon everything laid dark, and we revisited our little handrail. After Mikkel Jøraandstad almost broke his neck falling into the death gap/mini river at the bottom of the landing, we decided filling it was a good idea, and people started throwing down. Things were going swimmingly, until the rail started getting back at us. The thing was completely torn up, and rider after rider caught an edge, ending in Paal Satvedt saddly breaking his collarbone. Send some vibes his direction for a quick recovery!

Sunday: The last day, turned out to be the best day! We spent the whole day shooting a roof jib, and a lot of different and technical stuff was thrown by everyone. Happily we could wrap it all up and return home to Oslo for another week of school with some good shots in the bag.

Steady cam just finished

Here it is, a genius little construction of mine. Or not.
Thank you YouTube! <3

Anyyyhow, this is how it works:
1. Mount the camera on top.
2. Film some sick shit and get clean follow shots with no shaking.
3. Edit that shit yo.
4. TOP RATED!!

(Wanna know how to make one, and what it does? Google = Your M8)

FELIX USTERUDS BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!

EVERYBODY, ADD HIM AS A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK AND WISH HIM THE BEST!!


Isn´t he cute?