Online Silverscreen 2: The Harmony “Wolfstadt”
Posted on October 12, 2007.
I know there's a lot of speculation regarding The Harmony’s split with Tom Harrison, care to clear the air?
A:I can clear the air for sure. At the end of the day we were gutted that Tom didn’t have a full part in Wolfstadt, but it came to a point were we had to let Tom go do his own thing. We gave Tom plenty of options of how to film his part and plenty of time to do so too. Tom just became a bit distant from the rest of the team and laughed off the trips we did with various excuses. He kept promising a full part but it never happened. We got 4 tricks in the end and the rest of the team had full parts. I’m not sure what Toms reasons were for not filming or not being part of the team, but at the end of the day you get sponsored and get free boards for a reason and Tom wasn’t giving anything back to us. So we let him go, as they say…
D: Tom’s a good kid, but its funny you work really hard with nothing to try and help people out, you try and make shit easy for everyone, and you know there’s only so far you can go, before you say, lets try something different.
How did you react to the news that Paul Silvester was leaving to go back to Unabomber? Where abouts in the production process did he make the decision and was it always intended to make a "Paul Silvester and Friends" section?
A: As Dave said when Paul told us that he was intending on going back to Unabomber, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. For a while Paul had not been so happy with his skateboarding, and perhaps the direction we were taking him. He asked us not to run another pro board for him and was having a bit of stress getting his part done, so we said “look, just take it easy up in Glasgow and just see what you get done.” No stress. In the end I think he just needed a bit of a rest and to just go skate for himself for a bit without any filming/photo pressures and he thought that Unabomber provided that for him. We just saw it fitting to keep Paul’s part in and add a few friends here and there to make it a bit fun. Paul was with us for quite a while and was a good member of the team, this is sounding like he's dead isn’t it? I will stop there…good luck Paul.
Paul Silvester, Ollie, Sardinia. Photo: The Harmony
What's the best Eddie story you've witnessed or heard about from the making of the video?
A: I can’t think of a particular story about Eddie but throughout the filming of Wolfstadt we heard all sorts of goings and antics. For a while we could never get hold of Eddie as he never had a mobile longer than a week and the only contact we had was some vague email here and there and footage updates through Joe. The thing with Eddie is that we found there is no need to stress as to if he is getting stuff done or coming on a trip or if he will get his passport on time etc etc. Now we just let him know whats going on and then Eddie will just turn up wherever he is needed and get stuff done. So I would sum up Eddie as reliable but on another planet at the same time. A good egg.
Has the aquisition of Tony Da Silva been in pipeline for a while or was it quite a sudden decision?
A: It basically came from Joe hassling us for ages saying we should hook Tony up as he was in Sweden, but you know he was with East, and we don’t like to rock the boat for anyone really. Then when Joe told us that Tony was moving back to the UK and sadly East was no longer happening, and that the DVD was about to drop we jumped in and made the move. Tony was so stoked and we were too. He got his introduction part together in about a week. It’s like the three northern musketeers now in Manchester with Eddie and Joe too. Tony is super keen, and hot on the heels of Wolfstadt, he’s filming a full part as we speak.
All of the super8 footage used throughout seems really well shot and inspired. Which member of The Harmonys 3chip wielders is responsible for it and where does the inspiration come from?
A:I’d say that 99% of the super 8 was from myself over the last year of trips and filming missions. I got a new super 8 camera and a bulk lot of blk/wht film and just went at it. The first reel came back looking really sick, so was inspired to shoot the rest of the lot I had. We went on quite a diverse selection of trips for Wolfstadt including Scotland, Sardinia, Sweden, so that made for some interesting shots. Also I’ve got all the equipment in my studio to telecine super 8 to DV, so that makes it a lot easier with quicker results.
What videos inspired you throughout the making of Wolfstadt and why?
A: We didn’t really watch that many skate vids at all really. You could draw many conclusions as to what we were inspired from during Wolfstadt but really it just came together so well. There’s a few nods here and there to videos we love. Both Dave and I are very interested in films and filmmaking as a whole, so we just bounced ideas off each other the whole time. I’m normally a last minute person and just cram all the editing into the space of about a week. I like it that way, stressful but it gets done. This time I got to spend a lot of time in my studio making Wolfstadt, probably a good three or four months of rough edits ongoing to the finished product. I was 100% happy with it and had got to have all the extras sorted out in time as well. I wanted the Wolfstadt DVD to be well worth its coin and for it to be something you would purchase rather than bloody download off youtube.
