DC Goes To Northern Sweden

This one's a new classic. And that's not only because I like "Mammas Köttbullar" or because Pierre made it. The snowboarding isn't amazing but this part has a great energy to it and the song is cool. We got Pierre to talk a little about the shoot:

Words and photos: Pierre Wikberg

I always wanted to film some stuff in Sweden. I tried with Mack Dawg, Absinthe and Robot Food and had some success so I wanted to take the DC dudes there to wrap up the DC Mtn Lab 1.5 movie.
The riders were a little reluctant and I remember picking up Iikka and co at the Kiruna airport about 100 or so miles north of the arctic circle and him saying:
"I was at the Roosevelt having drinks and tanning yesterday, now I´m in the north of Sweden and it´s raining..."

But everyone was in good spirits, at least nobody was too pissed cause I dragged them out to the middle of nowhere when they were in beach mode.

Eddie joined a few days after. He was on a Foursquare trip, or heading for one. Being the dizzy person he can be he thought we´d be shooting close to the Foursquare photo shoot, like really close.
When I picked him up I learned he was going to Svalbard afterwards, which is Norwegian territory but NOT anywhere close to where we where. Type in Svalbard on Google Maps and you´ll see.

We stayed at a resort called Björkliden (30km from Riksgränsen) who treated us very well. Lent us snowmobiles and put us up in little cabins, renamed cell blocks by I believe Andy Wright who tagged along to take photos.

I had just broken my neck as well so I was taking things kind of mellow. I shipped my camera gear over with DHL 2-3 weeks before the shoot but DHL delivered them 2 weeks after the shoot, pretty convenient. I only had my Super8 camera with me (+ Jake had 16mm) so that gave the part a little different feel than if I would have had all my cameras there. But I liked shooting it all hand held. I only carried a small backpack, which the doctors liked and it gave the segment a little home made, touristy feel, which I liked.

The last, or second to last day we stopped by a set of cliffs we had driven by like 10 times. Biittner scoped a cliff, Lauri a little qp and Eddie a wall/rock ride. 2 hours later I had 1 min of footage... that´s how it goes sometimes. 1 min of footage on 2 acres of snow.

Damon Way (co-founder of DC) turned me onto the song. Which is a pretty obscure band from down under I think. While I was editing that song stuck out and I started playing around with it and once it got approved I was pretty relived.
I was a little worried that this part of the movie would bore people since it didn´t really have any hammers. If Mack Dawg, Standard or Burton would have the shots we had I highly doubt more than 2-3 clips would make their video. But I kept this segment in the movie.. slow the pace down you know..

Fellow Swede and Björkliden local Peter Ström took care of us and even has a cab 7 (into a mogul field) cameo.

Read more about the trip here if you´d like:

Biittner getting shot by Minibike

The lost camera gear

Freezer One

Freezer Two

Biittner

Jake "Minibike" Price

Svalbard?

These two in da poop poop?

Crew