Saturday, May 3rd marked a momentous occasion for the Sandbox crew and for our new film, ‘ALL DAY EVERYDAY’. We finally had our first bad ass helicopter shoot. The Whistler/Blackcomb marketing team, along with the park staff put together one of the best sunset film shoots ever done in Whistler. The jump was perfect and the riders had a lot of time to warm up and get it dialed while the sun dropped below the clouds. We called in the heli and got Clayton and Hockenstein suited up in their harnesses ready to hang out of the doorless chopper. Clayton had never even been in a helicopter before and now he was hanging out of one. By the time the riders, filmers and the pilot got their timing right, the sunset was perfect. The pressure was definitely on and everyone stepped up to the challenge. The pilot got the chopper really low and tight to the riders, Clayton’s shots were smooth and the riders stomped 900’s and 1080’s as the sunset lit up the sky. After waiting anxiously through three days of bad weather and all the work and effort to build and maintain the jump, it all came together in a fast paced, two hour session of flying, filming and riding. Wish you could have been there to see and feel the energy of it all. Can’t wait for everyone to see the shots in the new film. Special thanks to everyone who helped make this shoot such a huge success.

Heli shoot photos by: Brian Hockenstein

The infamous Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival is almost all wrapped up here in Whistler. One more weekend of parties and world-class events left to go. Our new spring teaser premiered at two of the biggest events all week; the 72 Hour Filmmaker Showdown that was won by our very own local superstar Robjn Taylor. His film ‘Arbitrarily Pear’ was hilarious and very well shot. That short film will be up on here soon for all of you to check out. We also showed the new teaser last night at the world renowned Pro Photo Showdown. Very special thanks go out to Sue, Lily and all the great people from Watermark for all the great exposure and support during these amazing events. Check out the new, spring teaser for our latest film that will be released in September 2008, ‘All Day Everyday’.

Thanks so much
Enjoy !

Some time has passed since our last update so there is a lot for us to catch up on. The Sandbox crew has been busy and widespread over the last few months. Clayton took off to explore Spain with Ryan Tiene, Brendan Keenan, Andrew Geeves, along with guest rider Chris Rasman. They were joined by two new members of the Snowboard Canada Magazine staff, Gerhard Gross and John Scarth. They spent some time exploring the Pyrenees mountains and visiting some cool resorts like Baqueria/Beret and Cerler. They also spent a few days skating some famous spots in Barcelona. Special thanks to Hugo Morales, Rueben Garcia and Josi for guiding the boys on their journey. The trip will be a feature story in SBC magazine sometime next winter so keep a look out for all the juicy details in that article. For a really quick teaser of the their Spanish adventure click on ‘SPAIN IN THIRTY SECONDS’. Clayton put this little teaser together last night and it’s quick… just a small taste of the full segment that will be in our new video, ‘ALL DAY EVERYDAY’ coming in September 08.

We take risks and put ourselves in dangerous situations everyday. The average person sees what we do in our videos and can hardly comprehend why we take these risks. Spinning off cliffs and jumping across gaps over rocks or sliding down enormous handrails is simply what we love to do, and for the most part, these are calculated risks. The sad fact is that you can get seriously injured doing the most simple activities or low risk sports. Max Ritchie was also out in Spain with a different crew shooting for a TV show. Max was just riding the easy run down at the end of the day, the weather was warm and the snow was slushy. On a mellow turn the nose of his snowboard dug into the snow sending him into a tumble. The fall happened so quick he didn’t have time to react and Max smashed his head open on a rock just surfacing above the spring snow. Max was knocked unconscious with a severe open head gash. He was found by ski patrol and rushed to the hospital. After 6 days in intensive care in Barcelona, Max was able to fly home with 14 staples on the left side of his head and some hearing loss that he will hopefully regain with time. Let’s all try to get into the habit of wearing a helmet when we’re out there on the hill because it can be the simplest fall that takes you out for good. Check out the photos of Max’s massive head wound. Good luck with the recovery Max!

Not to throw in a shameless plug here but the Sandbox online store has some really cool helmets for sale. One dollar from every helmet sold will go to support Max’s illegitimate children that he may or may not have… he can’t remember.

Another European invasion has Andrew Hardingham set out on a cross Europe tour with Alberta filmer, Mike Fikowski. We haven’t heard too many updates from these guys so we’re hoping they are shooting a lot and getting into a lot of trouble along the way. They returned to the Arctic Challenge in Norway to meet Dustin Craven and then onto Sweden to hang out with the WESC crew. If you see these two stumbling around Europe tell them to call home. This just in from Andrew Hardingham:

“Well Norway and Sweden are full of blonds, boobs, and beauty. Germany has sausages and graffiti, Austria has the craziest mountains and amazing snow and Switzerland has high prices, 5 languages, snob girls, but more importantly insane mountains with even more insane freeriding, so I’m happy dealing with the snob chicks. I’m not sure how they breed and keep their population alive though because I’m really serious, the girls won’t even look at you because they are way to good for everyone. Poor dudes here.”

Check out the crew from Video Action Sports rocking all their new Sandbox gear.
VAS is one of our best distributors. They do a great job selling our videos around
the world to all the good little boys and girls. Thanks for all the support and keep up the hard work.

Noboarding is my new passion out in the backcountry these days. I put a double rack on my snowmobile so now I bring out my regular snowboard and my Noboard everyday. Special thanks to Cholo for hooking me up with my first Noboard. I have had a blast trying to learn how to ride a snowboard with NO BINDINGS! It’s a fun new challenge for me, I have been getting some grabs and I even tried some backflips on a $100 bet with photographer Jon Kirby. I only tried the flip a few times before the weather got too bad to see. I haven’t landed one yet but soon I’ll put one down. Check the cornice drop photo here (photo by Brian Hockenstein) and get the whole story on noboarding at: www.noboard.ca.

Special thanks to Future magazine for awarding Time Well Wasted with ‘Best Video Opener’. We had a blast making the sponsor intro for last year’s film. Directed by Robjn Taylor along with Brian Hockenstein, Clayton, Johnny Fats and myself. We spent a month in a warehouse studio in Whistler just lying around playing with masking tape. Thanks to all of our sponsors, without you guys we couldn’t make these movies. That’s why we try so hard to make cool and memorable sponsor titling, to help brainwash the children to buy your products. Oh yeah, in case you missed it three paragraphs ago, the Sandbox online store is now open.

Spring is in the air and that means longer days, better weather and the infamous World Ski and Snowboard Festival here in Whistler. Sandbox will be out in full force during that crazy week. We usually have a ton of riders in town and a few crews out shooting on the hill and at the events. We will have a new teaser for ‘ALL DAY EVERYDAY’ out just before festival time so stay tuned for that one coming in April.

That’s the news for now.
Enjoy!

Stupid clip of the week: http://www.Break.com/index/reporter-owned-by-sled2.html

We just got back from the SIA tradeshow in Las Vegas for a week of high fives, good times and showing off the new teaser. Yes, we have the first teaser up for the next Sandbox video, ‘All Day Everyday’. Many sleepless nights over the last week with some really strange blacklight sessions in the garage and once again we have an early season teaser, we hope you all enjoy it.

It was Clayton’s first time in Sin City and he definitely partied to the max, every night. We even changed his flight to stay an extra day so he could keep the party going and stay for the Snowboard Magazine after party. Clay partied so hard at the event that Snowboard Mag decided to sponsor the new video project, welcome aboard !

The tradeshow was great and we got a lot of good feedback on the teaser as well as the Sandbox ‘Brain Bucket’ helmets. Vegas is a fun place to visit but there ain’t no place like home and it’s good to be back in Whistler and out in the backcountry riding and shooting. A very special thanks to all of the sponsors who are on board for the new video, it’s going to be another great season.

Don’t forget to check out our online store right here on the site.

We have been blessed with the ‘Whitegold’ once again this season here in Whistler. It continues to storm daily dropping record amounts of snow. The lack of sun has made it really tough for us to shoot but nevertheless the boys are out everyday riding the hill or sledding and trying to get some shots for the teaser that will be coming out soon. We didn’t see the sun until spring last year and it looks like much of the same for this years winter season… but who’s complaining. All the repeat storms have made for really really bad avalanche conditions here and across the province so everyone use extra caution out there in the mountains right now and keep watching the avi report at: www.avalanche.ca

The Sandbox online store is fully up and running smoothly now and all of the product is finally in stock. Special thanks go out to all of our suppliers: Paul and Joel at Tenille for the t-shirts, Matt from Predator for the super cool Brain Buckets and George from Fleming Decal for the great stickers. Go check out the store and all of you have to buy something so we can eat, haha. My new favorite dish is mixing a can of pork and beans with a box of Kraft Dinner mmmmmmm soooo goooood. Don’t tell my mom though, I’m Italian and they would kill me if they knew I ate KD. It’s pretty much the Canadian version of a classic simple Italian dish my dad always makes called ‘pasta fagioli’ (pasta and beans).

We are going to try and get a lot more short videos rolling up on the site for you guys. Check out Clayton’s latest installment that is up on here now called ‘1 Run With Max & Teine’. The name says it all, Max Ritchie and the new addition from Australia, Ryan Teine went up and blasted some pillows and dorked around on Whistler’s infamous hit run. Geeves came up to shred too but had to bail out due to some serious cold and flu symptoms. He may have also been feeling a little drowsy after chugging a whole bottle of Buckley’s on the way up the hill before riding. We will be taking some more ‘Runs’ with the Sandbox riders through the season so watch for those short clips.

This photo on the left by Jon Kirby was taken on a recent rail trip. It’s our Alberta filmer Mike Fikowski leading the boys through a ‘Rail Yoga’ session before a big night shoot. Watch for Mike’s yoga video and leisure wear dropping soon at a Lulu Lemon boutique near you.

Did I mention the Sandbox store was now open ? Yeah, just in case you missed that one earlier, go check it out.

Youtube clip of the week:

Pierre Andre – the founder of Soletechnologies - makers of Etnies, eS, Emerica and Thirty-Two Snowboard Boots. Pierre has been involved and supporting our industry for a long time… as you can clearly tell from this historical video. Thanks to Pierre and Soletech for all the support for our films over the years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNfNWnye_SI&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=703180617

Welcome back ! Hope everyone has recovered from the crazy premiere season, which was a huge success once again. Very special thanks go out to all of our sponsors, venues and volunteers who helped make all of the shows so great. Our premiere tour was much bigger this year with shows across Canada, all over the US, Europe, Australia and I even did one in Mexico when I was down there.

It’s “ Cover off the pool time ! “ The snow is here in Whistler and the season is in full swing. The riders are all out getting their legs back after some time off the snow. Whistler has been amazing with a lot of new snow in the past week. The filmers have been out playing with some new gear as well. Check out the photo in the news post here of Clayton and Fikowski playing with the new cable cam in my backyard, funny stuff for sure. We are going to shoot a lot more on the new Panasonic HVX200. If you are interested in this camera you can ask our good friends at Lorne Lapham Sales and Rentals.

There was a contest out in Banff this weekend and Dustin took home the money once again and we heard 3rd place Logan Short was super happy about it too. Good job Dustin. We haven’t heard any good stories of the after contest mayhem yet but I’m sure there was plenty.

Rail season is upon us with snow in the interior and even Vancouver is under a foot of white stuff tonight, too bad it looks like heavy rain in the forecast for tomorrow to wash it all away. Speaking of Vancouver, Seymour opened this weekend and actually had a contest on opening day, no warm up kids just huck. Skid for life, Jeff Keetley has taken over as terrain park manager and super Skid Derek Scott is back to do the park building for Seymour. Sounds like a perfect team to get the job done.

The new video post is a look into the making of this year’s wooden DVD box. These boxes were made right here in Vernon, BC. The video was shot and edited by our good friend Troy Erickson.

The big news for this post is the new online Sandbox Store we have just opened. We finally got it together and now you can buy the products that were only ever available to the Sandbox riders. The Sandbox helmets are taking off here in Whistler. Evolution in Whistler is supporting the helmets and have them in stock now so go out and check them out at Evolution. Hopefully they will be available soon in your local shop. If not you can buy one right here or bug your shop to order some. You can buy the last two Sandbox videos as well for cheap cheap cheap if you can’t find them in stores. Go shopping, just in time for Christmas !!!

We have some big plans for this coming winter so stay posted for new photos, bios, products and teasers coming soon.

Youtube clip of the week:

Part 1 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=5a1zvL6FcGw
Part 2 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=4KpE3lT9uxQ&feature=related

Come out and support the crew at our Vancouver Premiere of ‘Time Well Wasted’ at the Croatian Cultural Center on Thursday, October 4th., doors open at 7pm. Check the poster below for all the details. It’s a great venue, really big, good screen and sound system and it’s all ages with a bar. We’ll also be showing the new Capita film ‘First Kiss’ . Blast Ramp after party at the Bourbon. Please help spread the word and we hope to see you all out there.

September 19th, 2007

Wow, all the premiers are going off now, it’s getting tough to keep up with all of them. The Whistler premiere was insane ! Big thanks to everyone who came out to support the film and make the night the biggest and craziest premiere for us. Seattle is this Friday night, September 21st with Capita’s film ‘First Kiss’, Then Hardingham and the Rude Boys premiere us in Banff on September 26th, this will be another crazy premiere, The boys at 360 Boardshop on Vancouver Island are premiering on September 27th and Vancouver will be October 4th. Check the flyers below for premiere details. Many more premiere details to be announced soon - Australia, Toronto, Colorado, San Jose and many many more so stay posted.

We got a super cool interview up on www.snowboardermag.com , check the link below to read about the World premiere in Whistler http://www.snowboardermag.com/features/online-exclusives/

So the movie is about to hit the stores in the next few weeks and the premiers are just around the corner. The World Premiere is next weekend in Whistler, I can’t believe it ! Clayton and I wanted to put together another teaser to get everyone hyped up and ready for the premiere season. This new teaser is a real tease just like one or two seconds of some of the best shots in the film with some funny lifestyles thrown in too. We don’t have dates for all the premiers just yet but be sure to stay tuned for the details.

We have Vancouver coming around the middle of September where we’ll be showing with Capita at the Croatian Cultural Center, that was a great venue. Banff will be later in September, Hardingham and the Rude Boys are working on that one. The Source is working on Calgary and we’ll be showing Graham Foy’s film ‘Infidels’ as well, He’s the headliner there cause it’s his town and his crowd. The guys from Props in Winnipeg are working on something out there. We’ll be showing at the Toronto Ski Show on Friday or Saturday night, that’s the 12th or 13th of October.

If you want to throw a premier in your hometown let us know and we’ll help support it in anyway we can. If you haven’t already heard we are working on a SKIDS anthology four disc DVD set. It’s been pretty funny opening up the archives and looking at all the old mayhem footage. Clayton is putting an anthology teaser together and we will be showing it at the premiers. We hope to have the four disc set ready for Christmas. We are really excited for the premiers and hope you all enjoy the new film. Check out the new ‘Speed’ teaser, it’s quick.

You Tube link of the week - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Rqc_3jBGA

We are now in the 11th hour as they say. This is when the days blur into nights and we find ourselves going for dinner to 7-11 at 4:30 in the morning. Clayton’s favorites include the infamous ‘Big Bite’ hot dog and Mr. Noodles. Clayton is very proud to announce that that thanks to Mr. Noodles he has brought his cost of living down to $1.50 per day. Now that’s really living.

But seriously now, it has been a long summer here in the studio. Our intro skit was a really great experience. We shoot out in the field everyday, we deal with weather and snowmobiles but throw us in a studio set environment and we were like fish out of water. We spent the entire month of June in a warehouse in Function Junction in Whistler. We had a pretty elaborate set with the camera mounted on a dolly rig, 30 feet up in the air to create a ‘birds eye view’ shot for the entire intro. We had a TV and laptop set up so we could watch and live capture the shots right into the computer and Hockenstein was editing and piecing it together right on the spot. The lighting was a challenge but everyone helped out and we nailed it. Robjn Taylor came in as a guest director and really fired up the riders to ‘perform’ in some very awkward situations. It all came together amazing and we even got our damage deposit back. There is a cool extra feature on the making of the intro, some funny stuff went down working in there 24-7.

The glacier was pretty fun this summer. The movie crew didn’t get to go up too much but when we did it was a blast. With the huge snowpack in Whistler this year the camps had a lot of snow for some really great park features. I was able to go up for the last few days and it was all locals up there, we pretty much had the whole glacier to ourselves because the camps were done and all the kiddies had gone home, it was super fun.

Lookout for another cool DVD box from us this year. We went ‘organic’ this year with a natural wood box. I really can’t decide if this is a positive thing or not - It’s biodegradable but it’s made from cutting down trees. Oh well, it looks cool and you can put stuff in it.

Premier season is just around the corner and we have the Whistler premier slated for September 1st at Millenium Place. I have to stress that everyone get in there and buy your tickets early because the place sells out super duper quick and it sucks to be left outside. You can also get the ticket through Ticketmaster. We wanted to find a bigger venue to fit in more people like the Conference Center but it’s just too much for us little guys. Anyway, there will be two screenings again one around 7:30 and one around 9:30 so make sure you come out and support the boys and enjoy the show.

This weeks YouTube favorite is Winnebago Man www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSWUWPx2VeQ