Franck Moissonnier has been killing it all winter long on the DC Area 43 park in Méribel-Mottaret, and here’s the proof, fools.

Ride With Me EP13 @ DC AREA 43 Méribel-Mottaret
Rider: FrankyMoiss
Musics: Audionetwork: Come On Over (1642/5) Richard Lacy (PRS) / Sarah Elisabeth Lacy & Vengeance-5-(Sting)
Filming by: Frédéric Marchadier, Ben Chadourne, Martin Campi, Regis Leon, Victor Loron, Zoi Marchenko, Martin Vernier, Ben TJ & FrankyMoiss
Editing: FrankyMoiss
Board: Park: DC Lauri 153, BC DC Devun 162
Partners: Electric, DC, GOPRO, XSories

Francky, FS 3.

Francky, Cab 5.

Davun Walsh, Cab 3 by Colin Adair.

This is the second entry in our column for this American photographer after this epic shot of Anto Chamberland. And this time, it’s no other that Devun Walsh himself who’s not only showing that he’s still ripping, but also puts Colin’s talent in the spotlight. Here’s the story behind the banger.

 Shooting up on Mt. Seymour in Vancouver, BC, where Devun Walsh grew up riding is always fun.

Camera: Canon EOS 1d Mark IV
Lens: Canon EF85mm 1.8
Speed: 1/1000
Aperture: f/5.6

THE TECH

Nothing too crazy here. Just natural light on an overcast day and my camera set to manual. I like to use the 85mm lens as much as I can because it’s so sharp and you get really good contrast, color and depth of field. I pushed the ISO to 200 in order to get my aperture up to 5.6 because even though I wanted some shallowness to the depth of field I still wanted it sharp as can be. The foreground trees are a bit of out of focus but not so much that it detracts from the photo. Even though Devun is wearing bright colors in the white environment I still tried to frame him in a bit of window between the trees so he pops out even more.

THE CONTEXT

Shooting up on Mt. Seymour in Vancouver, BC, where Devun Walsh grew up riding is always fun. A short hike up past the lifts and you’ve got some fun and varied terrain. There are a lot of trees so when it snows up there you can find great stuff to do and the light is good even on cloudy and foggy days. We definitely spend a few days up there shooting every year and it’s usually just like this because on the best sunny days we are up in Whistler in the backcountry. This photo ran on the back cover of Snowboarder Magazine in North America this winter. I was really happy to have it chosen even though I think it should have been on the front cover, haha!

Check Colin’s work on his website and follow him on his blog.

Also check all the previous photo tips on this Tag.

In only a few seasons, Mathieu Schaer has climbed up the shred ladder to become one of the main riders in the Absinthe crew. In fact, you only have to watch this overtalented Swiss ripper to realise how good he is, and how naturally he evolves in the backcountry. This, plus the fact that he also goes to university at the same time leaves us speechless. Like with Jari Sorasalmi, we met Mat in Meribel during the DC Shred Days and asked him about this mystery…

This season is now nearly over for most, how did it go for you?

This season wasn’t as good as the last one for me. I’ve been injured quite a bit and this knee injury bugged me for longer than expected this winter. I guess I got back too soon, and in the end it wasn’t a great idea. It’s kind of hard in the head when you know it’s going to hurt if you don’t land correctly… I also had less time to ride because of university. It was hard to get back into it as well since I had stopped my studies last year to concentrate fully on snowboarding. But next winter I will be more free again and will have more time to shred.

We always wonder how you manage to combine snowboarding and studies. How do you find the time to succeed in both?

Good question, ahah! I don’t really know. I do work a lot, I’m very motivated and I always try to organise my stuff in advance. It’s not always easy, for sure, like trying to study after a day out riding. But the good thing is, I love to switch from one to the other. Studying offers me more perspective than just snowboarding, and shredding help me stay focussed on what I want to achieve. Plus I get to meet all kinds of different people, and I sometimes have the impression to live 2 different lives! So I take it as a privilege, even though it’s demanding sometimes.

What was your best snowboard trip this winter?

We went twice in the Dolomites in Italy, it was cool. We had a crazy amount of snow there, and the mountains are beautiful and fun to ride. The good pizzas at cheap price don’t hurt either! They also put signs everywhere to stop people riding off piste, so most people stay on the piste and the backcountry stays spotless for days! That’s the best thing about it when you compare with how it is at home!

With Standard not making a video this winter, Absinthe got a few more riders on its rooster. Who are the ones that really impressed you?

Yes, we were stoked to get to ride with those guys. For example Mathieu Crepel, Nils Arvidsson and Victor Delerue are really sick riders and I was stoked to rider with them. They are not new in the game, but just shredding the backcountry with them is so amazing!

How was it to end your season in Meribel for the Shred Days? Generally park isn’t your thing?

The Shred Days were cool, it’s nice to be there and see all this people and feel the brilliant atmosphere. For sure park isn’t really what I’m used to, so I don’t go crazy. But it was really fun to ride there with the whole team, and watch the rail machines destroy the park. But it seems the season isn’t over for me yet! At this moment, it’s snowing in Saas Fee, so I’m off there now! After a good season like this, I wonuldn’t be surprised if there’s stuff to do until like end of May, for those who don’t mind walking a bit!

I know Alaska is one of your favorite place to ride. What’s your best story from this place?

Alaska is amazing, it’s like time stops when you’re there. This one time this fisherman brought us a King Crab, alive and enormous, saying that this was the best ever and that it’s really rare to find one, especially that big. Then he explained us how to prepare it. First you go by the ocean, put your hands in the animal’s mouth and pull his head back and crack it open. The you empty it, alive… You throw all the organs into the ocean and just keep the eatable part. Then you simply boil it into sea water. The best taste ever, but it was very disgusting to do all this to this poor animal. Especially the ‘head breaking technique’ didn’t go as well as expected… It was a bit of a carnage. But the taste was amazing, best thing I ever tasted!

Read all about Mathieu in the Profile we published a while back. Also check this short edit of Mat in his hood.

To read about the previous Miniviews, click this tag.

This young Finnish rider broke out on the Euro scene a few years back when he scored one of the strongest part in the French-Swiss production ‘La Cassette’ from Ero One. Still on the path of filming, Jani have found a new family with the locals from KBR and he’s doing pretty well with them too. We met him during the DC Shred Days in Meribel, where he killed the park with both his skills and motivation. So, in the end, who’s Jani?

 First thing, how were the DC Shred Days for you?

Shred Days was a perfect event for relaxing and having fun with all the DC people after filming most of the season for the upcoming KBR movie. Even though we did a lot of parkshootings and some ads in Meribel before and during the Shred Days, it was still a lot more relaxing time than filming for a moviepart. Good parties and good people as well!

What are you up to now?

Right now I’m visiting home for a few days. After Shred Days I went to Davos for MBM magazines photoshoots and I just got back home two days ago. The season is pretty much over in Helsinki and we were supposed to go straight away to North Finland but it’s been too bad weather up there so we decided to stay a few extra days at home. Actually it’s pretty good to have a couple days break and just chill at home a little bit.

When are you finishing your season?

I think we are going to spend 2-3 weeks at North Finland for the last parkshoots and of course for Wappulounas. After that the season will be over at least for me.

I remember your sick part in Ero One’s ‘La Cassette’. Now you’re with KBR, how different is it for you?

It was really good times to film with Ero One and I learned a lot especially about backcountry riding with those guys. But for sure it’s been easier for me to be back filming with a Finnish crew. About half of the KBR crew, including one filmer, lives now around Helsinki so it’s been really easy to organize all the street sessions. And when most of the crew spend their season in Helsinki, there is no hurry to film the streetrails. At least for me it’s much better to ride at least once or twice a week just for fun in my home resort Serena to keep up the motivation.

Does it feel more natural to film for a Finnish project?

Yeah for sure. I have never learned French so pretty often I had no idea what was going on around me and for example what were the guys talking about the spots. Of course they did speak English to me but I know it’s sometimes really weird to speak English with your friends from the same country even if there is a foreigner around… Actually this season it’s been pretty much the opposite for our French filmer Jon Vital, who used to be Ero Ones filmer before. Now he even has the Finnish spring ahead, so we really have to try to speak some English too!

What can we expect from ‘Golden Years’ coming out this fall? What would you say are the strong points of the footage – although it’s not edited yet?

What I know is that there has been really motivated crew behind it, so there is a lot of good footage for the movie. Lots of bangers that I have seen and heard from different riders. And after seeing the teaser, I’m sure the movie is going to be great!

What was you best trip this season?

It’s really hard to say. I spent a lot of time in the Alps this season and had so good luck with the weather every time so there were for sure no bad trips on this season at all. But if I have to choose one anyway, maybe it’s our trip to Les Crosets with the KBR crew in January. We had a lot of fun there and it was the most productive backcountry trip for the movie.

What are your expectations for next winter, what would you like to achieve?

I haven’t planned next season yet at all but I hope it’s going to be at least as good as this season. Most importantly I want to stay healthy, ride a lot of powder and film a good videopart!

Everything on the DC Shred Days on this tag, and about KBR productions on this one.

Anto Chamberland, Miller Flip, Quebec City © Colin Adair.

Colin Adair and his beard have been picturing snowboarding for a good while now, and the American native is considered as one of the main talents in the industry. Colin has been traveling across the planet for clients like DC, Red Bull, Burton, The North Face, Monster, and he’s regularly published in tons of different magazines, including ours. Here’s his first entry to your beloved Behind The Shot feature.

Anto Chamberland – Miller Flip – Quebec, Canada.

Camera: Canon EOS 1d mark IV

Lens: Canon EF 70-200 f4 shot at 109mm

Speed: 1/125

Aperture: f5.0

Flashes: Mix of Elinchrom Ranger and Canon 580 EX speedlites

If it’s too low at night it’s easy for autofocus to miss your spot and blow the shot. I usually focus with auto and then turn the lens to manual focus before getting the shot.

The Tech

I shoot urban and jibbing probably once or twice a year, 2 weeks total for the whole winter I’d say. I like working with flashes and lighting even though I curse and yell at them because they never work properly when you want them to. The cold temperatures and moist air really messes with the electronics and remote triggering signals. I always like to have one big powerful flash with one or two heads (Elinchrom Ranger kit) to create the ambient light and then use smaller flashes hidden from view closer to the subject to create the highlights. Pretty basic stuff but if you do it properly it looks great. If you don’t do it properly your images will look really flat and unexciting. I chose to shoot at 400 ISO mostly because the smaller flashes aren’t too powerful so I needed more light to come in. I also wanted a bit more of an f/stop even though 5.0 is pretty low. If it’s too low at night it’s easy for autofocus to miss your spot and blow the shot. I usually focus with auto and then turn the lens to manual focus before getting the shot. I also like to add a bit of the light from the video lights into my photos. It adds color and texture. Using a shutter of 1/125 on this one let in some of that light but not too much to overpower the shot.

The Context

In this photo I couldn’t get the big flash exactly where I wanted because cars were driving by and having to run back and forth to move it all the time wasn’t an option. Anto Chamberland hit this thing only a few times and it was really cold (-20C) so I was happy to get the shot and get out of there. This spot is in a very small town in Quebec, Canada. People drive their snowmobiles in the streets when there is enough snow and at our hotel there were snowmobiles parked in the parking lot right outside the rooms. Anto is from that area and he knows a million spots so it’s great to link up with him for a week or so each year and get some shots.

Check Colin’s work on his website and follow him on his blog.

Also check all the previous photo tips on this Tag.

The DC Shred Days are back in Meribel Mottaret to illuminate the Area 43 park for 3 days of shred and parties with the DC All Star team.

From the 3rd till the 5th of April 2013, the aprk will be open to the public every day from 12pm till 7pm, so you’ll get the chance to make some laps with you favorite riders. BBQ on the park too. Then After Ski in La Folie Douce, and Dj Parties at Dicks Tea Bar, and event a concert at Meribel Club Les St Peres. Get ready for 3 days of radness, and see you there!

And go like the DC Area 43 Mottaret Facebook page.

Torstein Horgmo. Photo: Youri Barneoud

The Winter X Games Europe in Tignes has kicked off and so we caught up with one of the Slopestyle favorites to ask him about his season, contests, the filming, and a bit more…

How’s the season been so far for you, you must be pretty happy about the contst side of things right?

It’s been really good so far, quite different because I did quite a lot of contests. And the results for sure helps your motivation for it! I was actually planning to go straight to filming after the last Olympic FIS qualifier in Czech Republic but now I’m here in Tignes for the Euro X Games. It’s my first time here, and this is probably the last contest I’ll do this season before I start filming – I’m going to Whistler straight after this. But yeah lots of new stuff happening so it’s been pretty cool so far. Better than expected actually. Last year I focused a lot more on filming, so the contest side of things didn’t go so well. You know, when your head was more into getting shots for the movie. This is why I didn’t have much expectations on how I could do on contests this winter.

We loved Horgasm, A Love Story, and I’m sure you had a lot of good feedback about it, right?

Thank you! Yeah, it’s been a trip for sure. I got obviously a lot more feedback when we put it out for free. We ran it on iTunes first, and it didn’t really reached out as much as we had hoped, which I kind of thought it could happen. I wanted to put it for free straight away, went back and forth thinking about it… Now it’s still on iTunes in full HD, and also online [watch Horgasm here]. And people seems to be pretty hyped on it, so I’m stoked about it. It’s 2 years of my life, and it turned out to be a little different from what was there before, so I’m really pleased.

So now after this winter, even though it’s not finished yet, is it not too hard to do contest and filming quite intensively all in the same season?

I’m kind of used to it now! I just had to skip a bit the street stuff. It was a bit of a late start as far as powder goes, but I want to catch up on this, maybe do some heli and discover some new terrain.

A couple of questions on the X Games now. Mark McMorris was saying yesterday that the slopestyle course is pretty mellow compared to what you guys are used to these days, would you agree?

We had practice yesterday, the sun was shining and the conditions were perfect. Mark said that and it’s pretty much true, it’s very straight forward, quite a simple course as far as features go, but still pretty creative, you have lot of options, and the jumps are really fun. They are not the biggest, for sure, but you still have a lot of air time and it will possible to throw the big tricks. This is the kind of stuff I’m actually looking for: more air time for less impact. For me it’s perfect to end my contest season that way. I’ll have a smile on my face no matter what happen on the results.

Do you think this kind of mellow course opens up possibilities for other riders that would not generally have much chance for a podium?

It’s really tough to say, you never know what’s going to happen. This season we’ve seen a lot of new faces on podiums. Somebody does something new every time. The overall level has been pushed real hard this season, and it’s really exciting to be a part of that. Practice yesterday was pretty mellow compared to a lot of practices this year, so it’s even hard to say at this time.

Last question, who’s your favorite for the pipe Gold for this coming Friday?

That’s a tough one because you’re missing a couple of big players. Iouri [Podladtchikov] has got a good shot, Luke [Mitrani] as well, maybe Louie [Vito] too. I might put my card on Iouri though.

The DC euro riders and a few of their global team chums have been having really quite a nice time in Meribel-Mottaret this month, and they’ve put out a couple of minutes worth of hits to chew over with your lunch. Hit mute beforehand if you want to stay awake until the end.

Quiksilver snow team.

After we first spoke on Wednesday about these persisting rumours around Quiksilver and the denials published by certain athletes on the team, communication finally came yesterday from the men in charge, long time CEO and Executive Chairman Bob McKnight, and new CEO Andy Mooney:

Focus is a recurring theme that Bob and I see for the company for the foreseeable future. Focus on our key brands, focus on our key athletes, focus on key categories.

In a long and detailed article, Shop-Eat-Surf website clarifies the matter: in fact, the rumours have been so persistent and spread so wide that the two bosses had to speak out and maybe let some of their strategy go along the way. Nevertheless it’s a good news for Quiksilver, their athletes and probably the whole suffering industry, that many of those cuts were, apparently, just rumours, or misinterpretations. “While the company is narrowing its athlete rosters in hopes of significantly elevating the profiles of the athletes it is retaining, it is not abandoning the strategy of athlete sponsorship,” says the duo. Actually the cuts effectively concerns more the surf team, but with a total of 180 paid surfers, Quiksilver is still one of the big sponsors out there. In snow, it has 93 athletes paid on Quiksilver, Roxy and DC, and this is not including the riders sponsored solely by Mervin (Lib Tech and Gnu). And Mooney adds: “What we are doing is narrowing our focus. We have tremendous athletes and they should be household names beyond the core universe and they aren’t because nobody in the industry has the money to activate them. It’s not that I am trying to save money and put it in my back pocket. I plan to reallocate the money and to spend more money on the athletes we have.”

“Narrowing the focus” is always a clever way to put things out in a time of crisis that the whole industry has been suffering from for a few years, especially in the US. But let’s face it: most of the companies out there had to take these kind of measures, and it happens to be not only strategic most of the time, maybe unfortunately! The other argument toward reducing a pro team of riders is to be able to be more reactive when a newcomer pops up with the potential to be a future star, and more generally sign more up-and-coming athletes. Basically, Mooney points out strategic decisions that have been taken by most major brands of the industry in the last couple of years – one of the most shocking being Burton’s decision to simply shut down Forum and its sister brands. But in this time of crisis, what could be unacceptable becomes acceptable in the eye of our (reduced) core public opinion.

But when you announce cuts – although not as dramatic as spread all over the web for the last couple of days – you have to dig up a bit of your global strategy to give your interlocutor a bit of long term vision. That’s how Bob and Andy go deeper talking about the future of those teams and brands. Refocus being the main word here, it seems the two men don’t believe much in a Quiksilver and Roxy skate team, as well as a DC surf team, which in both cases “are not core competencies”. So in between the lines, we can assume that the snow teams of Quiksilver, Roxy and DC should stay pretty much as they are, minus the adjustments that could be made here and there, but without a strategy to cut those teams out.

Further to these clarifications, Andy Mooney also speak about the future of DC women: “It was also wrongly reported this week that DC is exiting women all together. DC will retain its key items business in both footwear and apparel for females”. It also clarifies what is happening with  Quiksilver Women and Quiksilver Girls: shut down. “After analyzing the situation, the feeling was that the QSW and Quiksilver Girls product was cannibalizing sales from both Roxy and Quiksilver Men” said Andy. Finally, Kelly Slater’s project VSTR is also being shut down, and Summer Teeth goes back to its originator, Dane Reynolds, who owns it.

All in all, a certain amount of restructuring are in the forecast, just like most companies in this world today, but there appears to be no messing with the snow team for the moment – and another good reason not to follow all the rumors on the web in search of sensational headlines…

Quiksilver Europe office in Saint Jean de Luz.

To be complete on the matter, here’s the memo that Andy Mooney sent to all the employees:

“I thought it would be helpful to share a few details about recent decisions made, the rationale behind them and the process involved.

I spent my first two weeks on the job with Bob, Charlie and Carol meeting Pierre and his team in Europe, Greg in Japan and Australia as well as Craig and the QAS team in Hong Kong.

Those two weeks were an invaluable learning experience, listening to the challenges and opportunities in each region.

After that I spent a a number of weeks with Rob and the US team.

After 10 weeks of meetings, capped off with a week long executive team meeting in Huntington Beach, Bob, I and the entire management team reached consensus on some key decisions we can communicate today.

Focus is a recurring theme you’ll hear going forward. We must focus on our key brands, key athletes and key categories in order to compete and grow.

Our key brands are Quiksilver, Roxy and DC. Within these brands we must further focus.
To that end, we have made the decision that Quiksilver and Roxy should exit the skate category and that DC should exit the surf category.

Those decisions were relatively easy to make and require little explanation.

A more difficult decision was for Quiksilver to exit women’s. We felt this was vital in order to focus our resources on making Quiksilver in men’s and Roxy in women’s as strong as they can possibly be.

The VSTR line inspired by Kelly Slater is shutting down
The Quiksilver’s women’s and girl’s teams have done an outstanding job generating top line growth.

Some of this growth however has come at the expense of existing business, particularly within our own retail stores.

In order to generate significant future growth, it seemed inevitable that we’d cannibalize Roxy’s business in key categories.

This was a particularly difficult decision as many people have given their all to make Quiksilver women’s a success.

We believe this decision however will allow us to compete more aggressively in men’s with Quiksilver and in women’s with Roxy.

A few web articles over the last few days stated DC was exiting women’s. This is absolutely untrue.

DC will remain in women’s in footwear and apparel. We have always been strong in key items in women’s footwear and apparel at DC and expect to be even more so going forward.

We have made the decision to discontinue VSTR and to pass the management of the Summer Teeth brand back to Dane Reynolds, again, in order to focus on our key brands.

Athletes are vital to the success of Quiksilver, Roxy and DC. We have an amazing roster of talent at the top of their respective sports in surf, snow and skate and an equally amazing depth of talent. We’re committed to maintaining our leadership position in athlete endorsement in action sports.

Our key athletes should be household names, known well beyond the universe of core fans.

Over the last few weeks, we reduced the number of athletes under contract. This was done to free up resources to tell the world about the many great athletes we work with.

Quiksilver for example will continue to have 130 pro surf riders on its team, Going forward, we have the opportunity to tell people how great those athletes really are.

All of these actions are in support of our three strategic goals of strengthening our brands, growing sales and driving operational efficiency.

I hope this puts these recent decisions in some context. We have a great many details to work out and will have more news to share with you in the coming weeks.

I will do my utmost to keep you informed every step of the way.”

Andy

Quiksilver Europe office in Saint Jean de Luz.

Yesterday, Transworld Business’ website published an article in which they were revealing that after a recent board meeting, the Quiksilver Board decided to cut around 30 jobs as well as most of the athletes, both on Quiksilver and DC.

Although Quiksilver has decided not to communicate further towards these allegations for the moment, we’ve noticed that some of the riders, whether they are surfers, snowboarders or skaters, have published disclaimers about these rumours, which for most part shouldn’t be affecting Europe.

One of them is Portuguese surfer Tiago Pires, who wrote on his Facebook page: “There’s been a news item in many surf industry websites stating that Quiksilver fired myself and many of their main teamriders! This statement is completely false and unfounded. I have a wonderful relationship with the brand that I am very proud to represent. There’s only one thing that comes up to my mind: CHEAP JOURNALISM.”

More news soon on this.