March 2nd, 2010

Shabier, aka Shabs, aka Shabba Ranks, aka Space Cadet, is our newest addition to the Kite Scoop family. He was born and raised in Antigua, (his mom is from the island and his dad from Germany) and is best friends with my brother Jordan who is known for handling all the technical issues on the Scoop. After graduating from the Vancouver Film School he came back to Antigua and moved in with my brother and I. After many evenings looking over his shoulder while at the computer in our living room, I realized just how much he had learned while away at school and I got a good glimpse of his natural talent. Together with myself and Dre at the end of summer 2009, we put together a little film called We Did Nothing, the first official Kite Scoop video to hit the net and get everyone talking. Heres a moment with the man behind the lense.

Hows it goin Shabs, no hangover this morning?

Not yet, It usually sets in around mid day.

So tell us how you got into film. What made you decide that you wanted to go to film school and why Vancouver?

I actually got into film when I discovered I sucked at everything else I was doing. So around the age of 12 or so. Pops always kept a stack of porn in the basement and eventually Boogie Nights was released… the rest is history.

Vancouver film school became an option when high school was over and all my friends went off to college. I figured I’d see what all the talk was about and applied. I knew it was a good school for film so I figured I’d give it a shot.

What else did you get up to while you were way the hell out there at school? An island boy in the mountains must have been like a fish out of water huh?

Jesus Christ, Vancouver is a film set in itself… you can pretty much get up to any and everything over there, I spent a lot of time watching films and riding pow.  As for being a fish out of water, dude, we is West Indians. I just blended in like a good weave.

How does “We Did Nothin” compare to some of the other work you’ve done in the past?

I’m super critical on everything I do and usually after I finish an edit I can’t look at it again with out getting irate. So considering  the fact that I’ve seen the video now about 300 times and I’m not sick of it i’d say it pretty much trumped everything I’ve done. Plus I never take a step back only forwards :)

It’s a lot of work to put together a video like that with such a small team, but we did have a lot of fun doing it. Is this more along the lines of what you’d like to do as a videographer?

I’m down to do anything that gets me stoked and right now I can’t wait to start shooting for our next one!

What are your favorite surf/skate/snow/kite videos of all time?

Definitely After Bang, The DC skate video, Fully Flared, Sipping Jet Streams and Modern Collective just got added to that.

So now that you have been anointed into the Kite Scoop family, are you down for the next project? You know we already have plans for the next one to be bigger and better.

Oh hell yeah, you know we gotta keep steppin it up.

Cool, I’ll hook you up with some free stickers :)

Score!