Video by Erick Valentic. photos by Seu Trinh

Red Bull No Rewind

4 skate teams are given a VX1000 with the rewind/eject buttons disabled and only 1 tape

Team: Blind

TJ Rogers is no stranger to the Y2K era. If you’ve been following his skating the past few years, you’ll notice his trick selection, fashion sense, and overall style on a board would fit seamlessly into any golden-era VX video. He’s also a straight up footage machine (let’s be real—if Thrasher wasn’t gonna give Nyjah SOTY last year, they probably should’ve given this TJ the nod instead). So when Red Bull hit him up about having Blind film an edit for Red Bull No Rewind, you know he was down to take it seriously. And goddamn, did they come correct. Read on…

How did this project come about?

Red Bull reached out to four different teams to see if they were interested in doing a unique event surrounded by filming—nostalgic vibes from the early 2000’s. 

It seems like you guys hit the streets pretty hard for this one. Why’d you decide to turn it into a full street edit as opposed to any other possible concept you could’ve come up with?

At Blind Skateboards we have such a diverse group of skaters that we all wanted to challenge ourselves by doing a raw street edit that makes you wanna skate. 

Did you guys just make a full LA trip out of it with the crew? It’s gotta be hard to get everyone together since you had to film it all on the same camera and tape.

Originally when this project came about early this year, [Bill] Weiss and I discussed who should be in the edit, and we wanted to get Nassim [Lacchab] over from Europe, Jake [Ilardi] from Florida, and Mike [Piwowar], Micky [Papa], and myself in the project. Luckily, Nassim was coming out to LA for a few months when the filming started, Jake booked a flight, and Micky, Mike, and myself live in LA so we just met up every few days when our schedules would align and tried to handle. 

I was trippin’ out on the amount of footage you guys got for this. We were all joking that there’s no way you filmed it on one 60 minute tape. Was everything basically first try?

[Laughs] We tried our tricks a bunch and when we were getting close we would tell Erick Valentic—the filmer—to start filming. A few of them were definitely first try on camera. 

Skaters are always used to checking the clip right after landing a trick, but that wasn’t possible here, right? 

No it wasn’t. We really wanted to see all the clips but we all had faith in Erick’s skills, and he executed perfectly. 

Do you think that added any stress on Erick? 

A little bit, for sure. But Erick has filmed with a VX1000 for over 15 years. He’s won awards for filming & editing with the VX1000, 10-plus years ago. 

What about for you guys—was it weird approaching an edit this way?

Not really, I just told all the guys we got roughy 10 minutes each to think of unique spots, and let’s try to all work together and not skate too many rails, or stairs, et cetera, so we can get a wide range style of skating. 

Obviously, you grew up skating in the VX days, and you’ve put out a lot of VX footage. As a skater, what do you like about the VX? How does watching VX footage make you feel?

There’s so many reasons why I love the VX1000. It truly brings me back to my roots and why I started skating. I personally love the 4:3 aspect ratio. It’s nostalgic. And I personally like the fact when you film it’s recorded on a tape.

What about the sound of the VX? Everyone talks about how much they love the microphone on it. 

The microphone on the camera is super good as well. You can actually buy a VX1000 mic and attach it to your HD camera.

Should the skate industry still care about the VX when we have so many other cameras out there to choose from? Why or why not? 

Yes, one-thousand-percent the skate industry cares about the VX, and they should. It’s the pioneer camera for skateboarding. Schneider Optics, the company that made the fisheye for the camera, recently rereleased a limited amount of lenses for the VX1000. [The lenses sold out in a matter of minutes].

Also, Red Bull just released a really cool piece about the camera, so if you would like to educate yourself further about this camera, hit the link below to check it out!

Learn more about Red Bull No Rewind and vote on your favorite video submission here.