We want to start this by saying how proud we are of “The Re-Up” and in particular, Oscar & Pascal two young hungry skaters that put their all into making this video. It isn’t easy to go on 3 trips on foreign territory and put it down together. They worked hard! On the first trip to our home base Berlin, it rained, snowed, and was all around grey for 8 of the 10 days. On the second trip to Oscar’s turf in Malmö Pascal slammed so hard on his back that it took him out of action for 3 weeks. During the last trip to his home-base in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, he showed mental fortitude, and even with his back not allowing him to do all he wanted, he still got some of his best tricks during that last trip. And lastly, we want to thank Vans for the support, when we brought the idea for this project to them, they said “Yes!” right away and that is because the saw the vision that these two skaters had. Now, with the pleasantries out of the way, let’s get into the “meat & potato’s” and show you “how the sausage was made” (Yes we love food references).
Photos by Laura Vifer.
Header image by Sneep.
Video by Peter Buikema.
Text by Roland Hoogwater.
This project started as soon as both Pascal Moelaert & Oscar Säfström stepped off the scales. They had both just finished their parts for our “Unsigned Hype” series and had gotten not only the coveted Quartersnacks co-sign but had both landed deals with a shoe sponsor. Vans was to supply them both with a steady supply of checkerboarded footwear.
We had all built a strong relationship during the making of these two parts and Pascal & Oscar had struck up an online type of friendship. But because of reasons known to all of mankind, it simply wasn’t possible for them to visit each other. In the end, it was them that came back to us and said “We should do a project together… a follow up of our Unsigned Hype parts”, and in a nutshell, that was how we got to make “The Re-UP”.
This idea, not to wait for sponsors to take you on a trip, but to create your own projects is a tried and tested method. Look at skaters like Phil Zwijsen, who created a platform for not only himself but for a lot of his friends by creating the “Jacky” series. We feel that in 2021 if you want to stand out, you need to have more than “just” skills on the board. And following that logic, we can tell you that Pascal is one of the most opinionated skaters you will ever meet. A true skate nerd who can answer questions like “what pants are those?” or “song?”. He knows what he wants to skate and what he doesn’t and he is not afraid to tell you. Oscar on the other hand is a quieter person, at the same time, he knows what he wants. In Sweden, he had every spot and trick planned and if the weather had played along he would have gotten them all. He is also the ultimate road warrior, he can deal with all types of spots and is always caring for the people around him. We have said it before but we will repeat it here “Every tour should have at least one Scandinavian in the van”. It seems like they are all freakishly talented (maybe that school in Malmö has something to do with that), super friendly, and did we mention that they don’t complain? Between the both of them, they put together an almost 7-minute project. That is a strong testament to their talent, Oscar with an amazing amount of pop in both feet, and Pascal with his freakish consistency while doing some of the most difficult and good-looking wheely tricks you can think of.
Back to the project, once an idea takes root, you don’t just run to the nearest sponsor and just say “Hey do you want to give us some backing to realize this project?” You take a step back and have a brainstorming session. What are the pieces of the puzzle needed to take this to the next level? The first piece of the puzzle was Peter Buikema. A mainstay in the Place stable but also a filmer that Pascal & Oscar had not really worked with before. It was important to us, that you show young people in multiple ways and we knew Peter would not show them in the same light that the wonderfully talented Sneep, Ziggy Schaap, Tao, or Jacob Hansson would show them in.
Another major piece was the choice for the locations, we didn’t take it easy on ourselves with that one. To be honest, Berlin, Malmö & Rotterdam (and a little Den Haag) were all chosen for a reason, but we all know that Mallorca, Portugal, or Greece would have been better locations weather-wise. But when you become friends one of the nicest things to do is to go and visit each other, invite them into your home so-to-say. We paid for our choices in blood, sweat, tears, rain, and some snow even.
Remember that line in that song by the King of New York, The Notorious Biggie Smalls?
“Tell your friends to get with my friends. And we can be friends, Sh-, we can do this every weekend (that’s right), alright?”
Sean Puffy Combs, 1994.
But, we wanted to stay true to Puffy, so, needless to say, we asked Rob Maatman, Julian Ruhe, Moritz Alte, Jonathan Sjoberg, Axel Källmén & Gijs Visser to come together to make our times together even more memorable. The best thing about doing this is that once skaters connect, you never know what kind of fun stuff might happen in the future. We look forward to possibly seeing a section with Julian & Rob, or Gijs and Moritz pop up in 2022 maybe? To quote another king from New York, “Streets Is Watching”.
The next piece in this puzzle was that we wanted to get away from an all-around male gaze, and as such, we invited the very talented Laura Vifer to come and shoot with us and show a different perspective. We would have loved to have some more diversity but unfortunately one of our favorite skaters Moa Zander broke her leg, next time MOA! Maybe a shared part with Jonathan next year? Just throwing out ideas. Vans, do you want to do the same thing but differently in 2022?
After all the tricks are done, the trips are over and everyone is back home it comes down to the editing bay and that is where we laid down the final piece of the puzzle, the music. All the tunes in this video are made by people we know, skateboarders in fact! We remember a time where companies – after the music rights question had come in – tried to make full-length videos with music made especially for the project. Back then, it might have been pretty hit or miss, nowadays though music has become easier to make. As skaters we have DIY running through our veins, this has led to talent sprouting up all over the place. Place Mag has used Julian McCarthy’s music for multiple of our projects and it is safe to say that he is one of the most diverse musicians coming up in the Berlin scene today. If you ever get the chance to see him do one of his MCR-T gigs please do it! We also took a chance on Carlo Karacho (together with 3LNA), a young talented skater who told us “It is one of my goals to have my music set to skating” well with this project he can scratch that off his bucket list. His song “Zenit Der Jugend” is a great opener and set the right mood for the project, and we are pretty sure it will be added to many a playlist after this project has dropped.
All in all, this is a very special project for all of us involved, we feel strongly that it is one of the absolute best things we have put out to date. All the pieces of the puzzle made it into what it now is and we thank all the people involved, we could not have done it without you! Last but not least we want to thank VANS for being such a great and easy partner to work with.
