BLV/NTHING the „Farewell“ Interview with Lukas Lerperger
Among all the crews that are on the web today, doing their webisodes and films and regular edits, you also can find a lot of bullshit and a lot of good snowboarding, that simply isn’t that exciting to watch, cause it’s presented like shit. Since two seasons now there’s a crew on the web enriching our digital shreddertainment with their edits. No wild tripping Doubles or anything, but still solid tricks straight. The point here is: The style how these guys present and put themselves into action looks way more natural, than you might have seen it from other posses on the web so far. Bottom line: The BLV/NTHNG collective around filmer Lukas Lerperger provides solid snowboarding with which most of the heads out there can identify with pretty easily. The best part of it is: Their edits make you want to go shred right now. You’ve got the fun, you’ve got the good vibes among a bunch of friends and now you’ve got this interview with Lukas here. READ ON..
ShredOnMag: Hey Lukas, how are you?
Lukas Lerperger: Hey, I am doing fine. Just got back from our last premiere in Innsbruck and our new movie is finally online.
SOM: How is your spare time looking like right now in these days ..still going from party to party to premier your new film Farewell Flowers?
Be aware of snowboarders along the way. Davo Struber and Flo Galler applying alternative ways of mobility in urban Vienna. | photo by: Lukas Lerperger.
Lukas: No, it’s not that heavy, cause I was only organizing the first premiere in Vienna before that it was a bit hectic, but now it’s all good. I have just some university stuff going on, small editing jobs I have to finish and some organizing/communication for future projects… so there is plenty of stuff to do, but no deadline stress.
SOM: Why “Farewell Flowers”?
Lukas: We’ve been brainstorming for a name and visual concept for the movie pretty long. We wanted something beautiful and maybe a little bit old fashioned and so in this progress the word “farewell” popped up and then we started searching for a second word to get a proper meaning for the name.
Voilá ..la crew. Believe in what you think is right for you and enjoy snowboarding with your homies. | photo by: Lukas Lerperger.
SOM: How did the people react to the film so far?
Lukas: Pretty good. For now we only got feedback from people at the premieres and some people I already showed the movie, but I am really happy about the reactions so far, ‘cause it was a lot of other riders and people from other movie productions telling us that they like it. But we will see what the interweb audience says.
SOM: So before Farewell Flowers you already did a film on your own, right? Was BLV/NTHNG then something you sort of “invented” along the way
And who couldn’t really enjoy some shreds with these 2 characters. Davo Struber and Sebi Müller going partner look wise to chase some twin babes on the slopes? | photo by: Lukas Lerperger..
after the “In Good Faith” flick, or was it basically the same, just without a real name yet back then?
Lukas: Yeah, we did make “In Good Faith” completely on our own and out of a spontaneous idea basically and it was pretty much a success, so we decided to try getting some money from the riders’ sponsors and do another film with the same crew. At that point we were thinking about how to promote our projects and besides that I already had the BLV/NTHNG project going on for a different matter, but so we said why not just use that also for the snowboard film instead of creating another name and identity.
SOM: What would you say is the main difference between BLV/NTHNG and other collectives out there when looking at the edits?
Lukas: We have a lot more crosses in our videos ;) Nah, it’s really hard to say, but of course the difference is the people and their thoughts. We have our very own look and we use a lot of music that no one else really uses (maybe Matic from YouGo First is kind of on the same wave as we are..). Besides that we try to find new spots and this year we also tried to film more lines just like NYC skateboarding. One fact is also that no one of our riders is a real pro or gets a lot of money for filming, so of course they will not try 10 feet gap 270 ins… and this makes our flicks maybe more authentic?
SOM: Is snowboard film making better than ever or getting worse everyday with all the crews loading up a shitload of footage everyday and an invasion of webisodes we’re having?
Lukas: I mean, you can’t really lump everything together, there is always good examples and bad ones, but if I have to I would say that snowboard films got better technically wise, meaning how they get filmed and also the riding. Especially urban snowboarding got way better and a lot more like skateboarding for example too. Of course the internet made it possible also for smaller crews without any budget to actually get visible to a bigger audience. So without the web we wouldn’t be able to show our work to so many people..
On the other hand you really get slaid by these masses of films, webisodes and edits and so the whole thing loses a lot of value and only a few projects stand out. I think a big problem is that even as the level of riding and filming increases, the substance itself does not really. It’s still all action movies showing of the best possible maneuvers… of course there a trends and as long as there is a trend, there will always be a lot of copycats but there are rarely any new formats. For me, I just want to see more stories. I want to know more about the people than watching the 301st Frontboard on the same Helsinki rail. But all this will be exciting to see in what direction the journey will go in the future.
Flo Pötzl going 50-50 BS out on that straight rail ..hopefully the is the out run long enough. | photo by: Kathi Holzmann.
SOM: Was BLV/NTHNG always about film making? I’ve heard some rumours and you just dropped here something similar before..
Lukas: Yeah, as I mentioned ..BLV/NTHNG became the alias of our films just after “In Good Faith”. Before that it was a super limited clothing label working together with photographers and other creative minds. We printed works of the artists on garments, but always just 10-20 pieces for each work. We still do that from time to time..
SOM: Are people expected to understand BLV/NTHNG as a statement to something when looking at the name ..why you picked that one?
Lukas: The people can see it how they want. There is a lot of space for interpretation. For me in the beginning it was just putting two things of complete opposite meaning together. Cross – believe in nothing…
SOM: So what can we expect from BLV/NTHNG in the future? More park edits throughout the season with the well known “Lerperger” style, ending up with a proper film and everything, or are you going to throw out some clothes again?
David Struber nosepresssing. | photo by: Lukas Lerperger.
Lukas: I am not really sure yet. I personally have to admit that I am over the “average snowboard movie” thing. I will not have as much time as I did have the last two seasons for filming. So it’s going to be just like it comes. Other crews are interested in working together with our riders and I also have some ideas for smaller projects in a more documentary direction maybe, and yeah I could also be, that we put some new garments or a book or music on ..whatever we feel like.
SOM: You released Farewell Flowers now last Sunday on the web ..happy with the views so far or don’t you care much about stats?
Lukas: Hehe that’s hard to say right now ..of course it is nice if a lot of people watch your movie and it is also good for the sponsors but on the other hand it should be more about your idea than stats. The most stupid things on Youtube like “the high kid after dentist” video have millions of views and other really great films don’t even reach thousand. It’s always about, if the viewers can even appreciate your work and as we are not really considering our stuff as “mainstream”, we don’t expect too good stats. That’s also one of the more negative things that came with the online video revolution ..it seems like it is only about views and Facebook Fans… but that’s marketing.
SOM: Alright ..that was it! Anything you want to drop here before we finish?
Lukas: Thanks for the interview Mike! Thanks to my boys and the sponsors for making this experience possible for us.
SOM: Cool Lukas, thanks for your time. Peace out!
..to check out BLV/NTHING’s last year’s In good Faith film, go here!
| BLV/NTHNG |
