Cavin Le Macon bought his first hi8 tape Sony camera in 1997 and helped make the first two Dutch rollerblading movies, Urban Masters and The chosen, produced by the famous Dutch director Steffan Haars (known for the New Kids movies). In 1999 he decided to make his first video with all the footage he gathered in the years before. Concrete Jungle came out end 1999 on VHS, and Cavin went on a filming hiatus afterwards. Then Amnon Klein decided to make his second rollerblade movie called LOMP and got Cavin back into it. He helped filming a lot of it and made a part in the movie with his buddy Derk “035” Alberts. Afterwards he helped with Marnix Haak’s projects “Super Mossels and “AORTA” and in 2011 made his first DVD called The Breakfast Club Skate DVD. At almost 38 now, Cavin is one of the most dedicated people on the Dutch rollerblading scene, a Be-Mag contributor and an all round loudmouth punk. Good thing the Adapt Brand owners Pieter and Olga decided to ask him to make their first team video. Be-Mag sat down to hear what happened during the filming of the video, but also to pick his brain about other blading related stuff.
Intro and words: Josip Jagić
Photography: Sem Croft, Bee Amour, Julian Bah, Levi van Rijn
I recently saw a picture you posted of yourself doing a backslide in 1995. So you have been skating for quite a while now, too. Did you first get into blading or hardcore punk?
I bought my ROCES ATH skates with yellow soft wheels together with my older brother in the summer of 1993. I was always into rock. Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Metallica, G’n’R etc. A lot of things changed when I saw Mad beef, my first rollerblading video. That soundtrack and the one from the Bottom Line determined my music cchoice forever. Life of Agony, Pennywise, NOFX, Rancid Farside and fucking Type o Negative. So I got introduced to punk and hard core through blading movies.
My story is kind of similar, but I got my first skates in 1996. You live quite an extraordinary life for a skater of your age, still sXe, still vegan, not being a part of the system. How do you have the persistence to keep it up?
Like George from Blacklisted sings “I am extraordinary”. I don’t have to try to keep up. I made a choice to live poison free at the age of 14. I am 37 now and I don’t know anything better.
Fuck being part of the system. Who decides the guidelines for life, how to live, what is right and what is wrong?Expect if you’re a fucking Nazi, fuck that.
I live my life the way I want to live it. Dont like it? FUCK YOU and leave me alone, or confront me and have a Facebook discussion, LOL.
It’s not easy to commit to it. Tell me about your favorite skaters, videographers and your favorite videos from the past and also last year?
It’s easy to commit to anything as long as you believe in it.
Favorite skaters? Fuck that question. So hard and it changes all the time. You always have the OGs that you looked up to when you where young. T.J. Webber. Tom Fry. Steve Thomas (he made me ditch vert and go skate only street) Arlo in Mad Beef for days.
Yeah, not an easy one for sure when you have that many years on the scene under your belt.
Nowadays there’s too much underrated talent. Levi for the last two years, I saw him grow and still do. Alex Broskow, David Sizemore and Farmer, don’t even have to mention them after the Champagne video.
Burston, Marc Moreno, Kare, Ridder, Clement B, Elliot Stevens whenever he skates. Gav Drumm, Cameron Talbott, Sean Keane, Aragon, Chris Smith, Carson Starnes, too many to name. I fuck with a lot.
Cameramen now a days are Ivan, Adam Johnson and Dom West. They inspire me not only with how they film or edit but also because they still make long videos. And they live it. Champagne, Vine street 2, 8down, HERMANOS (can’t wait to see what they will make after this. OG Videos are Mad Beef, Bottom Line and any VG video with 3/7/8 and 19 as my favorites.
The Mushroom blading guys recently asked on Facebook should they make a full length video again. Why do you think full length videos are still important?
Us older guys grew up with it, young kids sadly don’t have the attention span for a clip longer than a minute, so thanks for nothing, Instagram.
I don’t know if they are important, some vods are 15 min long some 30 both work as long as you make it look good.
I think as a camera man it’s your job that the clip is filmed well, that the skater lands his tricks well. That the choice of music fits the skater or vibe. And that it’s cut well. If that all is done well than it does not matter how long the video is. I personally love a well made longer video.
Yeah, John Lyke and Mike Torres both made incredible full length videos in the past few years. I love them also.
I wish John made it a full lenght and not parts seperate online. Mike’s latest video I loved. I bought almost all the VOD’s and watched every edit to come out in the past years.
So, what is up with the Adapt video? How did Olga and Pieter approach you and what made you say yes?
Well, it’s finished, thats whats up hahhaha.
After making Clement’s The Booted project I wanted to make one with boy wonder Levi van Rijn. Pieter loved the idea and said he would help us out if we needed to fly to Barca or something, knowing it would be good publicity for ADAPT. Than a few weeks later he hit me up and asked how would I feel about making a team video. I said yes straight away. This has always been a dream of mine. So around Christmas 2015 we sat down with Pieter, Olga and the three Dutch riders: Rik, Sem and Levi to discuss the project. Two years and many trips afterwards, I finished the movie.
I want to hear the craziest stories from the filming? The Adapt team is young, what are the kids like, which one is the worst?
Stop living in the past Josip! We don’t have the Pettys or the Champions any more. Also young? Sem and Levi are young the rest are all older. The first clips where filmed summer of 2015 in Paris when Levi and Joep came to visit. On the first day we went skating in a ghetto and the first thing these 16 and 17 year old kids saw where cops running with Uzism chasing some drug dealers. I told them not to say anything to their parents. Yesterday I got put in jail for the stupidest thing ever in my history of filming. We skated a spot that was capped. One of us kicked the caps off and we filmed a clip. A man arrived by car, he lived in the house next to it. Saw the stoppers on the floor asked if we wanted to put them back, we said yes but did not and a fellow “criminal” took the balls as a reminder of this rail. He saw they where gone, chased us by car, almost hit me, chased us to the train platform there, called the cops on us, locked all doors of the train to try and find us, then found only me and they took me in. Eight hours later they let me go with no charges.
Other than that the whole team was dedicated to film as much possible and we did not got wasted like teams did back in the day. We partied, people got drunk but we all where there next day to get what we came for.
Woah.
Got another. We went to CPH with the team. Levi just heard he graduated from highschool, so he went out to celebrate with some of us. A lot of Danish kids also graduated and were out to party. They wear a white kinda sailor hats. Late at night they came home pretty drunk and Levi is wearing one of those hats. Levi asked the girl if he could wear it for a picture and than ran off with it, the little dickhead. Later in the morning our host Lea tells us that those hats are real personal, with the name stitched in there, and expensive. We decided to google the person to give it back. When we gave it back the girl was super happy (not even mad) because after the hat got taken from her she got robbed off her wallet by some other people. Levi felt pretty bad after all of this.
That’s actually really cute. Levi is obviously a nice kid. How did it feel travelling around with kids almost half your age? I go to punk gigs a lot and I often have the feeling that we’re not even speaking the same language because of the age difference?
I never see an age difference because we all do the same thing and it’s a passion no matter what age.
So, tell me about the filming. When did it start, how long did it take and about the video, who is in it, who has full parts, who else is in the video and so on?
The team and I were all on the same page I think, I talked to all of them about what I expected, then what they wanted and we made that happen. We started filming in late 2015 and finished at the end of 2017. We traveled around Europe and the USA. Both US riders came to Europe twice during the summer. Levi and I went to San Diego for a month and to Atlanta to film there with the guys for another month.
Yeah, we covered a lot of it, thanks to you, on Be-Mag.
All team riders have full parts. Even Rik has. We have a new rider that will be revealed when the video comes out. We have a supporters section with adapt and symetrics supporters and 2 friend sections with almost everyone that hosted us and drove us around.
Who destroyed himself the most, who was the most valuable player of the video?
Rik destroyed his hip so he gets all the awards. He had to stay in a hospital in Paris for two weeks while we already were back home, Stan Kogutyak and Tom Thieleux from Paris paid him a few visits and so did my GF with her parents. Levi filmed the most clips of all. He grew as a skater so much these last 2 years. Sem became a street skater during this project. People know him a s a stylish park skater and he was a bit afraid begin of this all but he showed he had some tech and rail skills for a tall guy. Russell filmed a full pro skate section in three weeks in SD and a full section for this movie so he worked hard. Julian showed why he is on this team for so long with his insane cess slides and first try tricks. I can’t give you a MVP because they all worked their asses of to make this video the shit.
Is this my favorite project so far? I think it is. I gave everything for this. My GF Bee had to cope with a lot but she knows it’s my passion so she was okay. I had a vision and I think I made it happen. Ofcourse, there are always things you wish you did better or filmed better or went to but that’s normal.
Tell me about the soundtrack, did the skaters pick their songs?
The main idea was to try and use as many bands/acts of people we personally knew to support your friends.
I used songs from LOST UNDER HEAVEN, ANGELDU$T, SHARP SHOCK, GIANT TIGER HOOCH, MAR, SLOW WORRIES, DRUKNER.
These are all personal friends of mine and I am happy to support their music in a project of mine.
You have been skating for a quarter of a century. If you could pick the highest and lowest points you could remember?
Man…so many things. Tricks being invented. Insane tricks being laced in front of your lens. Being there in the heyday. Knowing the best skaters in the world. Being at the first ever real street contest. Losing one of the best skaters and friends. All the hate. All the love. All the keyboard warriors. All the fun. All the cries.
Being part of a group that ran the tirst and only real online part of Daily Bread, the DBMAG.com Holland Pages. Seeing Be-Mag grow from day one with Stuff and Michael.
What will the video be called?
Choosing a name for a video is the hardest thing. Either it happens during the project or you come up with dumb name ideas. We decided to NOT give it a name. Its just the ADAPT team video, because that is what it is.
What was the hardest part of the filming process for you? What are the skaters like when they try tricks at hard spots?
Some tricks took forever, some got laced some not, but its worth it all. I love this about filming.Get frustrated but when it gets laced you celebrate.
I think I’m a hard filmer to work with, that demands a lot and can be rude/straight with my approach but it gets stuff done and Sem once said “thank you for that push I needed that to land it.”
Hearing that made me smile and then I knew I did good. Seeing the end result makes me happy and then you know it was worth all those hours on the floor, bending over hurting your back etc etc.
The guys gave it all because they wanted it, don’t think anyone did one trick they did not want.
Do you have a single favorite trick in the video?
There is a shot of levi doing a 540 and after that he did a hill bomb. When I zoom out you see a typical Cali valley with palmtrees and fog and I LOVE this shot.
What was the single hardest trick in the video in your opinion?
Hardest trick was a trick Levi tried in Atlanta, we went back twice, filmed over 4 hours, over 400 tries but sadly never landed it.
270 back Savannah trough a kink to front unity. The rail was so slippery, we sandpapered it down, put masking tape over it, nothing worked. Back home we found a kink to try it on but we stopped after a fall on his head.
Did you depart from your usual style of filming and editing?
Nothing fancy shmancy. I film the way I film. Of course you try out new stuff or different angles, but it is the samestyle as always. Of course for a project like this you try to give 400%, keep that hand still while filming, clean the lens more often etc. Yes you will see a few fish eye shots with a smudge on the lens, this is something I could not fix. In the USA my camera lens got a scratch that you did not see with a long lens. If you screwed the MK2 on it got visible sadly.
Editing is always different. Every skater is different Every song is different. I don’t use slomo because it’s not my thing.
No special filters just RAW street skating how I enjoy it.
What kind of equipment did you use and why?
80% is filmed on 2 SONY HDV FX-1,s that filmed on tape. The first one stopped working few months after Sem kicked it out of my hands. don’t know if that’s the reason it stopped but think it helped. The other like I just told got a scratch on the lens so I had to upgrade during the process of the movie. I found this great deal for 2 PANASONIC HVX200 cameras that helped me finish the movie. The vingette of the MK2 lens is a bit more so some shots I zoomed in a bit. I film with these kinda cameras because of the weight mainly, the weight makes me hold those cameras more steady. You can zoom with them without shocking zoom images. Both the cameras images are a bit raw and that makes the footage on street so good.
How does being on the road with a band compare to being on a blading tour? Which do you enjoy more?
Both are the same but also not if that makes sense. Thing is with a blade trip is that I plan everything and we skate all day instead of doing some site seeing and play a show. I plan how to get to a city, where/at who we sleep, spots etc. Me and Rik cooked a lot after the days to feed the boys. They got used to the vegan kitchen.
I enjoy both just as much, both of them are a passion of mine.
Why should skaters buy it?
It’s one hour long. Filled with good and hard skating filmed over the time of two years all over Europe and the USA. The riders gave their ALL to make this the best project ever.
Buying this shows you care about the scene and the people in it making content.
And it’s worth the money.
See for yourself.
Final words?
I would like to thank ADAPT for choosing me to make this project and giving me an open hand in what I wanted to do.
All the riders who had to stick up with me and my demanding behavour sometimes, I wanted the best so sorry guys.
Everyone who drove us around, gave us food, a place to sleep. Without you guys we would have been lost.
Josip and BE-MAG for helping us a lot during these two years and everyone reading this supporting us.
Now get that VOD and go skate and make content. Whatever you do just have fun and keep those lenses clean.
