Hi my name is Julius Kellar, I’m the new staff photographer here at Pop. I’ve set myself a goal to do a website update once a week documenting what’s happening in the surf/skate/snow world. So if you feel like you have something that deserves to be on the site, email me and lets make it happen! julius@popmag.com.au
This week I caught up with Paul Mooney and the ABD crew, click ‘more’ for photos and a short interview.
So, what’s ABD’s deal?
It’s a skate video made over the last year or two of our crew. It’s got the amazing talents of Leigh Rabl, Jack Gandy, Daniel Bruce, Jacob Nolan and Sona Duong. The guys killed it for the video and it turned out better than expected! That’s about it. It was premiered in November 2008 at Mordy Surf and went extremely better than I thought it would.
Where are you guys from?
We are all from the bayside area in Melbourne, from Seaford to Cheltenham. It’s really good for skating here. We have a heap of awesome spots, but we are still close enough to the city when we can be bothered with it. As well as a heap of parks to practice at!
Leigh Rabl - Pole Jamin' at the Mordy drains
What first motivated you to produce a full length skate video?
When we were all a lot younger, I took mums dig cam out with me skating and made a short clip of the day. The crew were all pretty happy with it so I decided id have a go at making a full length video with everyone having a part. I ended up buying a cheap camera and clip on lens, and then upgraded to a better camera and baby death lens a little more down the track. A little angel fell from heaven halfway through filming named Jack Gandy; he was the motivation after we all got over it for a small period. Jack was the best thing to happen for ABD.
Jack Gandy - Back Tail at peak hour
What did he do to change things?
We were all pretty much over things for a while; Id stuffed my ankles or something, and was working most of the weekends. Then one day we made friends with him at a comp. he come skating with us the next day and pretty much threw down the best trick my camera had seen in front of its lens, then it just got better from there. He filmed around 8 tricks that day; all got used in his part too. The guy is like the energizer bunny, he never stops! Definitely gifted
Where there many challenges?
Not really. ABD was more of a video for us guys to have and was purely out of fun. The only real challenge was deciding when to bring it out. Everyone always wanted to get rid of tricks from their parts and film more, but in the end we just set a date and that was it. It turned out great though and the premiere was a success!
Waiting for the sticks crew to finish skating the U pipe
ABD is an interesting name, where did that come from?
The good old skateboard forums of course! We didn’t have a name for the video and so we thought up a couple of ideas. Everything and anything on those forums had “already been done” so we had the idea to pretty much rip off as many skate videos as possible. We ended up only doing a few little things here and there, with titles and stuff.
Leigh Rabl - super trendy
So what are you working on now?
Well ABD finished up around the end of ’08. We have just started to film the newest video “CBF”. It’s going to be 1 million times better than ABD. We know what we can achieve now so it’s full throttle ahead! We’ve got a few trips planned for filming and fun times. It should be interesting. My university course also gives me access to awesome cameras and junk, so expect some fully flared rip offs coming your way or something.
What can we expect from this?
It’s going to be magical! James Morgan has been killing it lately and will definitely earn a part in this video. Leigh Rabl is still killing it still and Jack Gandy, who knows what the guy is capable of, will definitely blow some minds. We may even be lucky enough to see some more kick flips from Sona at state library. I may even throw in some secret footage I have that I didn’t use for ABD, super special!
Any shout outs?
Thanks to the crew, Mordy Surf, Insomnia, Melbourne, and my Nintendo DS
Paul always looks good!
Thanks for you time Paul.
Thanks Julius!
