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When is Walks of Life Dropping?

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Way back in 2008 Surface dropped a trailer to their upcoming team video- Walks of Life. The forums have been buzzing ever since. There’s been plenty of speculation, but no official word from the Surface camp as to when it will be dropping. We’re as eager as any of you, so we cornered Mike Schneider of the Surface/Causwell/JOY empire in his booth as SIA. Matt and Chris stood guard at the entrance, and I snuck up behind Mike with an audio recorder and started firing questions.

BroBomb: When is Walks of Life dropping?

(Mike tries to run away)

Mike: Come to find out, making a movie is harder than we thought. We’re going to continue filming through this winter, and try to put something out this spring that we’re proud of. We have a lot of footage gathered, but we’re not 100% satisfied with it, so we’re going to keep cracking at it and try to put something out this summer.

BB: What’s been the stumbling block so far?

Mike: You know, we need to get a camera first. We need a camera.

Rob: And with new athletes, new talent we want to get them in there.

Mike: That’s true; we’ve got to get a lot of Jeff Kiesel, Banks Gilberti, and some Anthony stuff. Blake’s on the road with the Nimbus guys now and we don’t want to make a movie without those guys. It’s going to take us a little longer to put something together that we’re proud to show the world.

BB: Are you currently filming with your grandmother’s Super 8?

Mike: No, I wish. That would be a treat. We got a nice JVC that we purchased from a friend of ours over at Fifty Fifty BMX, who made us a hell of a deal on it, so we got that. But it broke, it’s not working anymore.

BB: How broke?

Mike: It’s done. I actually threw it away. We need to invest in a camera here pretty soon. We’ve been getting filmers like Hennie. He’s been filming a bunch when he can.

Chris: Can we throw a Surface camera benefit party?

Mike: That would be amazing. Let’s do some sort of fundraiser on BroBomb where we can get a camera. But really, we’re going to get crackin’ on it again.

BB: What are we looking at for a date now?

Mike: E.T.A?

BB: We’ve pushed it back a few times so far, so what are we at?

Mike: Walks of Life E.T.A? I don’t know?

Jason: Two years!

Chris: Teddy Bear Crisis 2 is coming out before Walks?

Mike: Yeah, we wanted to bring Ostness on board…if we can find him. Nah, we’ll do something one day. But we’re going to spend a whole bunch of time up at Hood, so if we don’t have something by spring, it’ll be the middle of the summer.

surface life

This is an ambush.

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The Surface Interview

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Mike Schneider, owner and founder of Surface Skis, was cool enough to take a moment away from packing preorders to talk to BroBomb. If you’re not familiar with Surface product– scroll to the bottom and check out their product video.

surface

BroBomb: You just got back from a shop tour of California to promote the 09/10 Surface line. How’d that go?

Mike Schneider: Overall, the trip was much needed and a great time as well. Some friends of ours were kind enough to let us stay in their place in Incline Village so I actually had a hard time leaving the Tahoe area once I settled in. I visited a few shops around that area and the response was good. People are hyped on our rocker stuff and price points. We don’t have a ski over $600.00 in our entire line and offer some good incentives and margin to our dealers. I think we did real well for our first real shop trip to CA. I also spent an afternoon over at Boreal watching the chaos take place on their landing strip of snow. I got to chill with our homey, Jason Arens, for a bit so it was great to see him and meet his crew of friends. I will most definitely be spending a lot more time in Tahoe when the snow comes in. I am pretty hyped to get to know that area this year and bring the Surface crew over to shred.

Are you noticing more interest in the park/ freeski segment of the market over past years?

For sure, park skiing especially is blowing up and is so sick to see take place. Park skiing is so accessible to every kid no matter where he lives and I think that’s a large part of why its doing so well. Not many of us get to shred snowmobiles and heliʼs in obscure places all the time so we have to make the most of what we have, whether its sessioning a flat bar in Michigan or spinning laps in Park City, it’s all good. Super pleased on where skiing is headed right now.

Are shop owners catching on? When I was a kid I remember trying to convince my local shop that park skiing wasn’t just a fad. Are you finding that they’re already convinced of its staying power now?
The smart shop owners and those who are on the pulse (or have employees who are) have already committed buying dollars to freestyle brands and its not nearly has hard to convince them that freestyle is here to stay and exploding.

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