The Red Bulletin August 2014 - ZA

august 2014 R30

beyond the ordinary

‘ SIC K ’ NIC K DE W IT R eady for aerial comba t

OPPIKOPPI

TO M PAGèS

Revea ls jaw-dro p p in g t ric ks Red Bull

the legendary music festival’s 20-year odyssey

X-FIGH TERS 2 1 st ce n t ury g l a di ato rs l a nd i n S o ut h a fri ca

R30 incl VAT (R4.20)

August 2014

46534/RW

As seen on DStv / SuperSport

In 2014 we bring you the greatest cycling events.

Catch the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix, ABSA Cape Epic, Vuelta a Espa単a and many more.

Live on your World of Champions.

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

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vintage vroom

Up close and personal with the pure speed and roaring drama of American drag racing

craig kolesky/red bull content pool (cover), david harry stewart, Nathan Gallagher

Welcome In their 101 years of sober existence, the Union Buildings won’t have seen anything like it. On August 23, some of the most extreme athletes on the planet will descend on the seat of the South African government as the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour debuts in Mzansi. Local rider Nick de Wit will be flying the SA flag with pride, but he’ll be up against some of the finest freestyle motocross riders ever seen.

Talking of world-class, Oppikoppi turns 20 this month, so we thought we’d re-live some of the classic moments from this epic music fest.

The drama never ends, because we also bring you Robert Rodriguez (the visionary director of the new Sin City movie), and the adrenalin rush of American drag racing and freestyle canyoning. We hope you enjoy the read! the red bulletin

“I’ve picked the hardest job in cricket” stuart broad, page 86

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August 2014

At a glance Bullevard 14 photo special Incredible images and those who have taken them

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Features 30 Robert Rodriguez

The director on doing things his own way and his latest Sin City movie

Rebel with a cause

With Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Robert Rodriguez makes a blockbuster on his own terms

38 Monkey business

Keri Russell and Andy Serkis on Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

King of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour dissects two of his top moves

46 Nick de Wit

SA’s X-Fighter is ready for battle

50 Extreme canyoning

How to come up with – and dominate – a new extreme sport

50 the quest for adventure

Plunging between lethal rocks and roaring water with the king of extreme canyoning Warren Verboom

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From silver to selfie

It’s 175 years since photography was invented, and we’re all snappers now.

Say ‘cheese’ for our festival of the photo 06

58 Brain Storm

How to invent anything

a 20-year odyssey

On location at Oppikoppi – SA’s biggest festival celebrates its birthday with another spectacularly eclectic line-up

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world’s greatest high

It takes a lot of guts to plunge off anything tall, let alone the tallest bungee jump on Earth in Macau

60 Oppikoppi

The allure of SA’s legendary fest

68 Roaring drama

Full-throttle US drag racing

Action!

82 Travel Bungee’s biggest 83 my city A basketballer’s Seattle 84 pro tools On-message off-road 86 training Get fit for cricket 87 Watches Diving with Blancpain 88 Party La Santanera in Mexico 90 gaming Sci-fi shooter Destiny 92 Music 50 Cent’s top tracks 94 entertainment New movies 96 save the Date Unmissable events 98 magic moment Freestyle motocross

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michael muller, Jozef Kubica, Sydelle Willow Smith/Red Bull Content Pool, getty images, AJ Hackett

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40 Tom Pagès

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W

e love the pioneers. The outliers. The ones who think differently. The ones who seem a bit out there, but who are fascinating people destined to break down barriers.

We join them on their adventures, to the most far-flung places on Earth. We’re there when they do something that was once considered impossible. We make the stories that get under their skin. A great interview, an eye-catching reportage, a compelling story: these inspire the people who read them. They give readers wings.

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Contributors who’s on board this issue “ On paper, Oppikoppi shouldn’t work, but that’s why it’s so good” Oppikoppi 20-year odyssey, page 60

evan milton

michael Muller

The award-winning American photographer travels the world working for the likes of Numéro Paris and the New York Times. His passion for motorsport led him to shoot a series of pictures of American drag racing, which appear in this month’s issue. “There is something intoxicating about the noise, the smoke and the speed,” he says. “There is no prize money, no corporate sponsorship. These people race for the fun of it. Each race is as thunderous as the next.” Floor it to page 68.

The Capetonian writer’s two decades covering South African music (from highbrow jazz and esoteric electronica to defiantly low-brow punk) means he’s seen a lot of gigs, but the legendary Oppikoppi music festival keeps pulling him back. “On paper, it shouldn’t work: 20,000 people among thorn trees and dust on Limpopo’s platinum belt, and stages with thatched roofs,” says Milton. “But that’s probably why it’s so good.”

Our Oppikoppi Odyssey begins on page 60.

The veteran entertainment photographer has shot Robert Rodriguez before – in the austere surroundings of a hotel – but meeting up with the director for a shoot at Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas, created a different energy. “Over the years I’ve heard and read about this place where he creates all his films, so I was eager to check it all out,” says Muller.

“To be on his own turf is always more exciting.” See the director on the other side of the lens on page 30.

the making of

Robert Rodriguez

around the world

beyond the ordinary

live better A dAy in the life in 2030

drAG ShOW

t h e fa s t and the furIous

ChriStiAn bAle

tOp

“ I h av e m y lImIts”

fOrm

iA n WA l Sh A nd the future Of trAininG

0814Cover-US_Walsh_Sale [P];22_View.indd 1

$4.50 US & Canada 08 August 14

David Harry Stewart

august 2014 $4.50

16.06.14 16:10

The Red Bulletin is published in 11 countries. This is the cover of the latest USA edition

Ready to roll at Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios

For our cover shoot with American director Robert Rodriguez, whose latest film noir movie Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is out later this year, photographer Michael Muller flew to Austin, Texas, on a dark and stormy night. “At 11.30pm, the lightning outside the plane’s windows felt like a disco,” says Muller. “I just looked straight ahead because I knew if I looked at it, I would freak out.” Everyone arrived safely, and the mood was set for photos that put Rodriguez in the heart of darkness.

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Bullevard

p h o t o g r a p h y W A S I N V E N T E D 1 7 5 Y E AR S AGO . I t w a s A L U X U RY , A N A L M O S T M AG I C A L P U R S U I T . N O W W E ’ R E A L L PHOTOGRAPH E R S , B U T TH E PO W E R O F A N I M AG E I S A S GR E AT A N D I M PORTA N T A S I T E V E R W A S . TH I S I S TH E W OR L D O F P I C T U R E - TA K I N G TO D AY

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Ren HAng

Fred Murray

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JENNY ODELL

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Samo Vidic

19

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Dave Lehl

Maxime Ballesteros

21

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Eva Stenram

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Paulo Calisto

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snappers’ judgement

The previous pages’ images, by their takers

no filter Stock photos are pictures for every occasion.

Agencies have them in case they are needed at short notice.

We found these in the depths of their archives

Ren Hang

Fred Murray

“I can’t explain my photo. It doesn’t have a title.” But what’s the lady’s name?

“It was dodgy and high-up. It was risky.

But Danny MacAskill survived it.”

Jenny Odell

SAMO VIDIC

on her cut-up Google Maps: “My favourite part is of The Bean in Chicago.”

“I really like taking pictures of mud and filth. Sadly, my camera likes it less.”

Pineapples Anonymous? Kim Dotcom fighting the Fruit Ninja? We couldn’t say.

Lumberjacks are their own best friend?

Dogs hate trees? A Westie Terrierises?

Felix Baumgartner meets I Dream Of Jeannie in a recycling Western.

DAVE LEHL “The picture says: ‘If you fall flat on your face, get out there and experience life.’”

Maxime Ballesteros “A good photo makes you ask questions and compliments you.”

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Eva Stenram

Paulo CalistO

on erotica: “Our passion is exposed via the hidden.”

“I wanted to show how small but amazingly brave we humans are.”

Do those cakes smell too good? Or is it defiance of nuclear microwaves?

The Nintendo Wii Senior Pack. Withdrawn after animal rights protesters complain.

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shutterstock(3), getty images(2)

A goodbye kiss? The forbidden love of crash test dummies? Don’t kiss ’n’ ride.

Epic moments from the world’s best clubs and festivals: Strobelight Anthems on rbmaradio.com

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4,000,000,000,001 Four trillion, plus the one you’ve just taken.: that’s how many photos mankind has made – give or take the odd one where the flash didn’t work – since 1839. Here are other things that have happened in that time

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350

FACEBOOK

i N stagram

350M PHOTOS A DAY And on Snapchat there are even more: 400m.

35M SELFIES How many were taken in the bathroom?

We reckon about 34m.

250BN PICTURES Facebook is now the world’s largest photo archive.

60M PHOTOS A DAY But there weren’t many photos taken in the whole of the 19th century.

380bn

SNAPSHOTS The compact camera has been a witness to our lives ever since 1925

300

250

200

1bn

0 1940

1950

3 Mrd.

10 Mrd.

25 Mrd.

57 Mrd.

86 Mrd. 380 Mrd. 1925

1930 1 Mrd.

THE BIGGEST

This picture of the Moon has 681BN pixels. Each pixel represents 4m2

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THE SMALLEST

This shadow of an atom in a laser beam is 0.0000002MM across.

YOU’RE ALL TAKE, TAKE, TAKE A 10th of all the photos that now exist in print or digitally anywhere in the world were taken at some point in the last 12 months.

THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED Lady Gaga or Lady Diana? We can’t say for sure who is the most snapped person in history.

But none of us would be surprised to hear that it’s a lady. The world’s first portrait photograph, dating from 1839, was also of a woman: the photographer’s assistant.

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lroc, griffith university, la chapelle

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LESS IS MORE The picture life gets easier: JPEG compression reduces data to a 10th of what it was, while the space on memory cards increases rapidly.

2013

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BABY BOOMERS What do parents do all day? They take pictures of babies, of course.

All those poor relatives! Every second photo was already of a baby as far back as 1960.

1997

SNAP! SHOT! The Leica, the first 35mm film camera, takes 25bn the world by 10bn storm and grants humanity a new 3bn sense: a sense Number of photos taken per year for that perfect 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2014 moment.

57bn

1960

86bn

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nice to see me

cat beard

star-chasing

Me, my Pet & I

ICON 2.0

Is it a man? Is it a cat? Or a hipster?

The ultimate in beard hype.

“You won’t believe who I bumped into in the loo!”

Heel! Sit! Now say cheese.

Perfect lighting thanks to that halo.

peer pressure

EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL

winner’s picture

historic

Just me and my very, very, very totally best friends.

Me for a billion. (The most expensive selfie in the universe.)

Don’t be a sore loser: get your mobile out.

Churchill took selfies?

The camera never lies.

Animal

the Original

sexy

sellotape selfie

All the rage among endangered species. “I used to look like this!”

Robert Cornelius took the first selfie in 1839.

“He-llo, who’s this babe?

Oh, yeah it’s me.” Click.

Quick-fire plastic surgery for the lower budget.

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WENN.com, viennareport, Caters (3), AP Photo(3), nasa, library of congress, interTOPICS, picturedesk.com

It seems the most interesting subject matter for a pic is one’s own face – but you’ll only be part of the self-snapping elite when you’ve followed these selfie trends

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show me the future Who’d have thought 20 years ago that one day we’d take photos with our phones. What’s next? Balls

SNAP APPY Three cool photo widgets we love.

Sadly, only one of them is real.

Which one is it?

IT’S A TOSS-UP Take pics like those on Google Street View.

The Panono ball camera has 36 small, integrated lenses, which means it has an eye on everything. It will take some getting used to; good motor skills are needed.

You throw it in the air, and it does the rest.

ADDfriendZ Ideal for hermits and people with poor social skills. With this app, you are never alone.

SkinneePix

SEE-THROUGH

sh a r p f o c us

The days when photographers could hide behind their camera are over. Thanks to the transparent displays made by companies including Samsung and LG, snapper and subject now stand eye to eye. All we need now is an invisible camera.

The new Lytro light-field camera was invented for those who want to focus on more than one thing at a time. It can shift focus in an image after it has been taken. You see the refocusing on the screen. Now that is clever.

Those fat days are over. SkinneePix transforms you into someone thin and sporty. No more diets.

THE FIRST AND LAST PHOTO How our resident artist Kainrath sees the fate of our world and colour photography.

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Answer: SkinneePix actually exists.

tom mackinger, dietmar kainrath

smiLAR Depressed? Cat died?

Got the sack? Couldn’t matter less. This app conjures up a jolly smile for any face.

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rebel with a cause With Si n C i ty: A Dam e to K i l l Fo r , Ro ber t Ro dr igu ez ma kes a s u mm e r blo ckbuster o n h i s ow n te r m s words: Ann donahue  photography: MICHAEL MULLER

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“it was Dwight McCarthy!

He’s crazy! Crazy! He’s been making threats!

And now there’s blood everywhere! Please! Hurry!”

Ava Lord

“As long as they can make some money off it, Hollywood doesn’t care where or how you make a movie”

O All portrait quotes taken from A Dame To Kill For, the second story in Frank Miller’s Sin City series

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n one side of the room sits an electric chair. It’s bigger than you expect – not so much a chair, more of a throne – and that gives it the presence of a wooden beast with leather straps ready to lash out and entwine you. Directly across the room from the electric chair is a confessional booth, another giant block of dark-stained wood, but instead this one is delicately carved with ornate designs to emphasise its ethereal purpose.

The themes of ruin and redemption run concurrently in the movies of American director Robert Rodriguez, so it should come as no surprise that he’s decorated the conference room at the headquarters of Troublemaker Studios with two of the eeriest and evocative symbols of frailty and faith. The electric chair is a prop from his 2005 film Sin City; the confessional is a prop from 1995’s Desperado.

They are impressive, striking artefacts, but you get the sense that they are merely nostalgic items from movies he long ago put his heart and soul into, because for Rodriguez, there’s always something new in filmmaking to explore. A framed piece of art near his office says it all; it’s a quote from Steve Jobs, and it reads, in part: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs

in the square holes… and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do.”

Rodriguez is crazy enough to have changed the world of filmmaking. Instead of working under the watchful eye of corporate overlords in a huge a studio in Los Angeles, he operates Troublemaker out of Austin, Texas, in hangars on the city’s abandoned airport. He created all of his new movie, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, here: from casting to filming; from creating the wardrobe and props to composing the score; from the special-effects work to designing the posters. Given that his latest release is a sequel to Sin City, a movie that made US$158 million worldwide, this level of autonomy in the big-business, all-eyes-on-the-bottomline world of Hollywood is astonishing.

“Someone else created the Hollywood system and the business, but for a creative person, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense,” says Rodriguez. “You have to have a little incubator of ideas where you can feel free to fail, feel free to take a chance on something.

You can’t always go to a studio and say, ‘Hey, let me go borrow your soundstage, and I don’t even know why. I have an idea. Let me feel it out.’ They’d say, ‘Get out of here.’”

The closing credits of a Rodriguez film are thick with repetition: for Sin City 2, he’s the codirector, producer, composer, cinematographer and editor. “My favourite hobbies growing up were photography, drawing, music, making movies,” says Rodriguez. “I chose filmmaking because I could still keep all my favourite hobbies under the project of a film. So on all my early films, I did everything. And then as I got into the Hollywood system, I thought, ‘I don’t know why I should give up these things.

They’re still some of my favourite jobs.’”

It’s a work ethic born from a history of making movies on a tight budget. Rodriguez’s first film, El Mariachi (1992), about a musician who is mistaken for a murderer, was made for $7,000. The distribution rights were acquired

by Columbia Pictures, which then spent $1m to market the film. It went on to earn twice that amount, and the legend of Rodriguez as a run-and-gun director – someone who could shoot an entire feature film very cheaply, in just a month – was born.

“I was the one who made movies very inexpensively, so they would always turn a profit,” he says. “I made El Mariachi out of my apartment. I thought, ‘I don’t have to be in Hollywood, they don’t care. As long as it shows up on their desk and they can distribute it and make some money off it, they don’t care where you make it or how you make it.’

I think the formality went out the window really quickly when I sold that movie.”

“Marv’s a guy you’ve got to be careful around.

He doesn’t mean any harm, but he causes plenty” Dwight McCarthy

“then the maybes kick in.

Maybe I shouldn’t put the blame on you.

Maybe once I let the monster out something bad was sure to happen, just like it always has” Dwight McCarthy

“I would go to the comic book store, buy a Sin City, and go home and realise I already had three copies. I just loved it so much” Hollywood’s faith in Rodriguez was cemented by his Spy Kids series; the four films since 2001 earned over half a billion dollars globally.

It gave him the power to pursue whatever passion project he wanted, and what he was obsessed with was a series of brutal film noir graphic novels by Frank Miller. “I would go to the comic book store, buy a Sin City, and go home and realise I already had three copies,” Rodriguez says. “I just loved it so much, and I knew nobody could ever make a movie out of it, because they would just ruin it.”

What entranced him was the book’s unique visual style. Miller draws in stark black-andwhite lines; just like his characters, there are no shades of grey. He tells tales of disfigured murderers, prostitutes, vengeful cops and corrupt politicians. In the first Sin City film, Rodriguez brought to life the grit and gore using as much of Miller’s visceral

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“it takes half an hour to climb the hill out of Sin City, up to where the air blows cool and the rich folks live�

Dwight McCarthy

style as he was comfortable showing in 2005.

“The first film, I didn’t push it as far because I thought people wouldn’t understand what they were looking at,” says Rodriguez. “It would be too distracting, it would be too strange.

And then people thought it was visually groundbreaking. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t even go all the way with it.’”

Since then, there have been some misfires in Rodriguez’s filmography; the high-concept Grindhouse collaboration with Quentin Tarantino fizzled commercially, but it did lead to two spin-offs for Rodriguez, the campy, culty Machete and Machete Kills.

But every time he went into his office at Troublemaker Studios, he would see the row of Frank Miller’s graphic novels lined up behind his desk. After almost 10 years, Rodriguez wanted to return to Sin City.

T

he filming of Sin City 2 began with one phone call: Rodriguez dialled the number of American actress Jessica Alba, and asked her to turn up as soon as she could at Troublemaker. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, Robert, you have to give me more notice than this!’” says Alba, laughing. “But that’s the way it works.”

Since Alba appeared in the original Sin City as the exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, so she wasn’t surprised at Rodriguez’s spur-of-themoment summons. She’d received the script six months earlier and was working with a choreographer to master her dances in the sequel. After all that prep, her work in Austin was done in a matter of days. “He just bangs things out,” she says. “He’s really calm and kind.”

Besides Alba, Rodriguez had not cast any other actors when he started shooting. “When you have your own studio, you don’t have to ask permission to get going,” he says. “Once the train has left the station, people jump on board.”

Sure enough, within days, those who had signed up included Eva Green, playing the titular dame to kill for, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who portrays a gambler on a mysterious mission.

Filming the first Sin City, Rodriguez was one of the pioneers of the green-screen technique, which places actors against a blank background and then fills in their surroundings digitally during post-production. Rodriguez’s green-screen soundstage at Troublemaker is immense, a cavernous set the size of an industrial factory floor, all painted in the DayGlo green of a tropical insect.

It can be a mind-bender for those who haven’t worked in the medium before.

“When Josh Brolin showed up, he said, ‘Where’s Mickey Rourke?’ and I said, ‘I filmed him already,’” recalls Rodriguez. “And he said: ‘All my scenes are with Mickey?! He’s carrying me around and we’re drinking

“When you have a property like this that’s magical, you want to do right by it” together and he’s driving me in cars!’ and I’m like, ‘I know. I’ll figure it out when I get there, and it will work because I’ve done it before.”

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is made up of four of Miller’s stories: two previously unpublished, the title graphic novel and another, The Long Bad Night. The movie takes a vignette structure that mimics the first film, but Rodriguez wants this one to be bigger, bolder and more in line with the shock-and-awe style of Frank Miller’s works.

It will retain the black-and-white severity of the original – but this time there will also be a 3D version. “I wanted to go further towards what the books originally offered,” says Rodriguez.

“When you have a property like this that’s magical, you want to do right by it.”

Filming the entire movie took 35 days, one third of the time required by the usual bigbudget summer movie. This gave Rodriguez time to pursue other interests. While he was working on post-production for Sin City 2, Rodriguez also found time to launch the El Rey TV Network, aimed at English-speaking Hispanic viewers in America. So far, it’s carried nationwide on cable TV, and features two original series: a TV version of Rodriguez’s 1996 film From Dusk Till Dawn and the black-ops caper Matador from Fringe creators Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

El Rey has the same ethos as Rodriguez’s film productions. From Dusk Till Dawn is filmed at Troublemaker and the show’s soundstage doubles as a bar for employee parties. For Rodriguez, all his creative endeavours are done on his own terms, enlivened by his hard-won freedom to be a little crazy.

“I just always felt like I grew up making movies at home, in my backyard,” Rodriguez says. “Why should that change?” sincity-2.com

TO BE CONTINUED

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Humans versus

apes!

This man is an ape.

She’s out to save mankind. Stars on each side in blockbuster Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes reveal all Words: Paul Wilson

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his year at the movies, humans have to face up to attack from transforming robots and giant dino-lizards, and watch on as our superpowered protectors battle evil villains. But the most intriguing battle, and the one closest to home, is mankind versus monkeys. In Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, set 10 years after the simian uprising and viral pandemic that began at the end of 2011’s excellent Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, a bunch of pandemic survivors encounter the ape community that has flourished as puny humans were almost wiped out. It is no spoiler to learn that harmonious co-existence does not ensue. Andy Serkis, reprising his motion-captured role as ape leader Caesar, and Keri Russell, leading lady Ellie of the survivors, tell their sides of the story.

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Andy Serkis

John Russo(2), fox film

Keri Russell

the red bulletin: So how does Dawn break, from the point of view of your species?

ANDY SERKIS: We’re in a rather idyllic utopian society, that Caesar has created, into which, very shortly, humans arrive. He’s the leader who has brought order to the tribes of gorillas, chimpanzees and orang-utans. The apes watched the humans dwindle away; they believed that humans had gone until the intrusion into their realm. This sparks in Caesar a very complicated chain of reactions – how to find accord with the humans, rather than fight against them. keri russell: The humans have struggled, and the survivors are very damaged.

They have lost so much and are clinging to each other, in a kind of fragile peace that they have created for themselves.

And, for various reasons, they the red bulletin

have to go into the woods where they meet the apes. For each side there is the need to protect your family and those you love. And at the start, neither side is really aware of the other’s situation.

What about your characters’ relationship with each other?

AS: Caesar is married with a teenage son and an infant child. He gets to know some of the humans and tries to work with them peacefully.

Two are Malcolm, Jason Clarke’s character, and Ellie.

Malcolm is a scientist, trying to reactivate a power plant.

They’re together. Malcolm lost his wife and has a teenage son.

There’s a commonality between them and Caesar’s family and a close relationship develops between Ellie and Caesar.

KR: Ellie was a nurse, fighting the virus for years. Now, the ones who are left have realised

that they are immune. The virus was a simian flu, so there is a lot of fear surrounding that, but because of Ellie’s medical background, she knows it was created by scientists. She is less frightened by the apes and more astounded by their appearance and what has happened. She really cares for Caesar and recognises straight away that he’s not just a regular ape.

What are the challenges of playing someone on your side of the battle, compared with the other side?

KR: Us humans, we’re just out there, a little bit naked, in the apes’ space. Andy is so invested, and you are there with him. That goes for all the other actors who play apes. Parkour guys were hired to do tricks. It was stunning.

AS: About 95 per cent was shot on location, in the rainforests of Vancouver, in late winter and early spring.

It was freezing. Then we went to New Orleans, hit summer, and were shooting in 100 per cent humidity. Believe me, you would not want to stand next to someone in a motioncapture suit in mid summer.

It’s physically hard, because you use muscles you wouldn’t use acting a human character.

Would you like to be on the other side?

AS: Oh God, no. Absolutely

“The heart of these movies is the apes” Andy Serkis

“Us humans, we’re just out there, a bit naked, in the apes’ space” Keri Russell not. The heart of these movies is the apes, their metaphor for the human condition.

KR: I would be an ape girl.

The battle is always interesting to dissect, it’s less murky than we can be in our complicated lives. Plus, it’s incredible what [the actors playing apes] do.

Making the original Planet Of The Apes film in 1968, actors playing apes sat with their own kind when they had lunch. It was a tribal thing. Was this the same?

KR: That’s funny. It was sort of like that. The main reason might be because the actors who were involved in ape training were together for months before the actors playing humans arrived, so there was a bit of camp v camp, for sure. Those are your people.

Who would win in a real-life humans v apes conflict?

AS: It comes down to firepower at the end of the day. But as they get more intelligent, the apes can pretty much survive.

Humans need resources. They can’t hunt or find food any more. I’m banking on the apes.

KR: Well, you know, these movies are Planet Of The Apes, not Planet Of The Humans.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is out worldwide from July 11: dawnofapes.com

Puny humans not pictured

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Where are we?

In Saint-Vincent-de-Tyrosse, at Tom Pagès’ training ground. This is the point at which a flair can be considered a success. All Pagès has to do now is land the trick. How does he do that, you ask? Read on…

In a Red Bulletin exclusive, Tom Pagès, winner of the 2013 Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour, dissects two of his signature moves: the flair and the cliffhanger.

Jump on for the ride!

his pagesty king tom Photography : Dan Vojtec

TOM PAGÈS was born on March 25, 1985 in Nantes. After his brother, Charles, crashed heavily while performing a front flip in 2010, Pagès dispensed with flips altogether and worked on perfecting other moves instead.

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3

By this point I’m already preparing to land. I stiffen myself up and hold my feet tight against the bike to absorb the force as best I can. (You can see this on the previous page.)

4

What flair!

The flair is a trick that Pagès has made popular again. There are now new versions of it, like doing it cross-legged, or the ‘tsunami’ and ‘Indian air’.

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If I get it right, my body and the bike will be in the correct position for landing. Everyone had practically forgotten about the flair. Now people know it works, that it can be adapted and that it will earn you points. You see very few volts and special flips now.

2

This is where it starts to get complicated. Contrary to all logic, I have to lean my body over to the right, to the outside. If I do it halfheartedly, my centre of gravity will move too far back and I’ll slip to one side.

1

I approach on the right-hand side and take off on the left, so that I can curve on the ramp. Your take-off point is critical to the landing. You have to get the perfect distance.

Cliffhanger No, this has nothing to do with the 1993 Sylvester Stallone movie, even if it is almost as difficult as old Snarly Face’s climbing exploits in the film. A wellperformed cliffhanger is a guaranteed blockbuster in the FMX business.

2

There are two things happening here. I use my hands to move myself away from the handlebars and I take my feet off the foot pegs. I then come away from the bike in a moment of weightlessness. It’s very important for both my legs to be in sync.

1

I lean forward on the bike as soon as I hit the ramp to free up the rear. I also have to make the bike dip by pushing the front down. That’s the only way to get both the bike and my body in position for the move.

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3

I stretch myself out and get my boots onto the fork rods. The tips of my toes are facing inwards and they’re directing the bike. To get back into a normal position, I look down, move my arms forward and pull the handlebars towards me with the tips of my boots.

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This is a nohands-landing cliffhanger. It’s tough, but the public and the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour judges love it. The distance you get decides who wins if you have the same score as another competitor.

“I train on the bike 15 to 20 hours a week.

Performing moves is as natural as brushing my teeth”

‘S i c k’N i c k

dE wit

SA’s X-Fig hter is r eady fo r battle The dominant force in South African freestyle motocross over the last decade has been ‘Sick’ Nick de Wit. A de facto pioneer of the sport in this country, De Wit started riding MX at the relatively late age of 15 before switching across to its more exuberant and downright ballsier cousin that is FMX Words: Steve Smith

craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool

side from his supremacy in South Africa, Nick de Wit’s performances overseas have showcased his pedigree.

A veteran of three Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour stops (Spain, Egypt and Germany), Sick Nick has been ranked as high as fifth in the world. He’s also competed at X Games Dubai, where he finished fourth in the Best Trick competition, and he made a guest appearance on Nitro Circus Live’s sensational three-stop South African tour earlier this year. Despite all this, having a round of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour in his backyard is still a very big deal for this South African rider. the red bulletin: Finally, South Africa will get to see the Red Bull

X-Fighters World Tour right here in front of the Union Buildings. You must be pretty amped? nick de wit: Yeah! Having the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour at home is huge for me. I don’t think people here in South Africa realise what calibre of event it is.

I have participated in a couple of them and to now be able to ride one here is a dream come true.

What are the key lessons and experiences from Germany, Egypt and Madrid that you will be bringing to the South African event?

You need good variation in your tricks and you have to take into consideration all the judging criteria in order to have a good run. They don’t just judge you on how big your tricks are, but also 47

on things like course usage, showmanship extension and a few other areas.

Is there something such as home advantage in Red Bull X-Fighters?

There will be a little, but the track is built from scratch and I won’t get any more practice on it than the other guys, so I think from the track point of view, no. But I will be riding my own bike and have all my friends and family cheering me on, so that will definitely help a lot. Freestyle is a big head game and riding in front of a home crowd will definitely pump me up.

What’s your preparation been like going into the event – do you do anything specifically for the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour?

You definitely need to prep for this event.

It is one of the toughest FMX competitions in the world and I will be going up against the world’s top riders. There is a lot of mental prep that I need to do, as well as riding and physical training, too. I am spending a lot of time on my bike, just refining my old tricks and learning a few new ones to throw out during the event.

From an overall strategy point of view, what is the best approach in this competition? Do you save some of your best tricks for later on?

Red Bull X-Fighters is tough because you have to go through a few elimination rounds before you get into the final.

You need to give it 100 per cent right from the beginning if you want to make it all the way. Maybe you’d save a really risky trick for the final if you weren’t 100 per cent confident in it.

What’s your signature move?

I don’t really have a signature move, but I was the first rider to consistently land the backflip in South Africa and I think that has stuck with me. I’m constantly working on new tricks and moves to stay ahead, though.

What are you busy working on at the moment? Is there something that you haven’t tried in competition yet?

There are a few things, but I don’t want to give away my secrets just yet! Once I have perfected them and got them ready for competition, I’ll throw them out in August.

What are the highlights of your career so far? And we’re not only talking about the results, but maybe places you’ve been to or people you’ve met.

It’s tough to pinpoint individuals because my riding has taken me all around the world, but places like Singapore and Taiwan must be the top locations on my list. Obviously riding in the Madrid stop of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour was a highlight – when I was up and coming, I always wanted to take part in that one.

It felt amazing riding in front of 20,000-plus 48

Hometown hero: Nick de Wit has ranked as high as fifth in the world in FMX

“F r eest y l e is a big he a d g a me. R i d i n g at h o m e wi ll pu m p m e u p ”

craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool (2), Alfredo Escobar/Red Bull Content Pool

Flight path: Nick de Wit performs at a Red Bull X Fighters Jam in Talcahuano, Chile (above) and in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa (left)

screaming Spaniards. But now Red Bull X-fighters is coming to South Africa, I’m sure that will knock Madrid off the top spot.

Tell us about the bike you’re riding.

What’s the basic spec and what are the mods made for FMX? It’s a KTM 350SXF four-stroke. I do a few mods to the suspension and plastics, but the motor is pretty standard. I also bolt on an aftermarket exhaust pipe to give it a bit more power. The suspension is modified to make it a lot stiffer for the hard landings, the seat is cut down, and

the sides of the airbox are cut out so I can grab the seat and do all the seat-grab tricks. I also have a set of flip levers that I bolt onto the handlebars which get flipped out when I do my backflip trick.

You don’t get this good without paying the price. Tell us about some of the injuries you have sustained.

FMX is a tough sport and it looks all nice and pretty when we fly through the air, but when things go wrong, it’s not so nice. I have been pretty lucky with the injuries, even though I’ve had a lot of crazy crashes. I’ve separated my shoulder and had some screws put in there, broken my wrist, and torn all the ligaments in my knee. That needed surgery, which put me off the bike for about five months. Not fun. All the hard landings are pretty tough on your body and I have to make sure I’m in top shape to withstand it all.

Tell us more about your life off the bike.

How do you chill out? What are your hobbies or passions outside of riding?

When you are a pro athlete there isn’t much time for anything else. You either seem to be training, riding or organising your next trip, but what I do enjoy on a day off is some mountain biking or MX riding. For something really different, I like going away to the bush with my wife, Roxanne. I grew up on a smallholding, so I like open spaces and enjoy escaping the hustle and bustle of the city.

And, finally, what will 2015 hold for Nick de Wit? Next year is going to be a big one for me and the sport of FMX here in South Africa. I think all the momentum and excitement from Nitro Circus Live and the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour will open a lot of doors for us, and I want to build FMX in South Africa to a level where we can have a few riders out on the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour. I’ll also be travelling more and will carry on pushing to be the best FMX rider I can be. facebook.com/Nickdewit.co.za

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the

quest for

adventure Where most of us see a w a t e r f a l l , W a r r e n Ve r b o o m hunts for plunging downward routes between lethal rocks, roaring water and hidden ridges. Is freestyle canyoning the next big extreme sport? He thinks so Words: Alex Lisetz Photography: Jozef Kubica

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The fall guy: Warren Verboom has mastered the art of freestyle canyoning

W arren Verboom is a little boy in the body of a 32-year-old man. The young boy beams out of Verboom’s eyes when he talks about dropping into white water and somersaulting over the edge of waterfalls. Verboom the Elder and Verboom the Younger have made a deal.

The little boy provides the crazy ideas and the cockiness needed to give things a go; the man brings experience and ability, and gains a sense of achievement with every new trick he pulls off.

“You wouldn’t dare,” says the boy, when he dreams up some new daredevil stunt.

Every time, his grown-up self answers, “Wanna bet?”

This was how Warren Verboom first learnt to ski-jump, then BASE-jump and then fly in a wingsuit. “But at some point,” he says, “I stopped being scared as I was about to take the leap.

That was when things got boring.”

To keep things interesting, the Swiss invented a sport with plenty of youwouldn’t-dare: freestyle canyoning.

The first rule of freestyle canyoning is forget everything you know about canyoning. Canyoning is about traversing a canyon from top to bottom in the direction of the water.

“It’s a wonderful way to enjoy nature,” says Verboom. But there’s very little that the little boy can get out of enjoying nature.

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So Verboom, who is 1.8m tall and has 80kg of muscle, combines canyoning with elements of other sports. He leaps from rock to rock in the middle of a waterfall like a freerunner and jumps into the water like a high-diver. He can read a wall like a climber and gauge the flow of the water like a kayaker.

“Freestyle canyoning has huge potential,” he says, “because it allows sportsmen and women from all sports to reinvent themselves.”

There are unspoiled locations just waiting to be discovered and new tricks to be invented or adapted.

On another level, playing with thundering natural forces makes you confront fears head on. “When I’m standing up over the edge of a waterfall and I’m thinking about the trajectory I might work my way down or leap down,” he says, and then pauses. His eyes, with their subtle laughter lines around them, are again the eyes of a little boy looking in a toyshop window: “Then, that tingling sensation is back.” He first felt it aged three, when he looked down from the edge of his bunk bed to the floor.

“You wouldn’t dare,” thought the three-year-old.

And his slight little body answered, “Wanna bet?”

It was the first time Verboom went to nursery in a cast and he wore it with pride. “The thrill I felt and the triumph at having conquered my fears are the feelings I’m still chasing,” he says.

“ T he secret is to work with the force of the water, not against”

Rock ’n’ roll: freestyle canyoning is art, sport, acrobatics, freerunning, diving and climbing

Water great leap: Verboom jumps from a height of 11.5m, with sideflip and backflip

“ F e a r s t r i ke s w h e n I come up with a new idea which sounds crazy” The cost to date of making it to this land of no fear is 10 broken bones, dozens of strained muscles and bruises and a fractured skull. “But nothing serious has ever happened to me when I’ve been freestyle canyoning,” he says, dismissing a torn ligament and four perforated eardrums.

THE WATER IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU Verboom, the son of a Swiss mother and Dutch father, moved across Switzerland to Ticino two years ago. It is a particularly welcoming place for canyonauts; the canyon he is training in today – the Val d’Iragna, which canyonauts love for its tricky abseiling – is just one of many. Verboom has a canyoning guide with him, with thorough descriptions of the key places in the canyon. “No canyoning while the snow is melting,” it says, in bold, and the awe-inspiring pictures make it clear why. Violent torrents of water unleashed over the waterfall in spring are more powerful than any canyonaut, however well trained.

Yet on this Monday at the end of May, the pictures in the guide seem a little placid compared with the thunderous reality. Verboom presses himself up against a flat piece of rock in his suit to escape the torrents of cascading water. “The secret,” he bellows through the spray of fine droplets, “is to work with the force of the water, not against it.”

With three or four quick moves, he climbs the wall by the waterfall and balances on a round rock that is so narrow he can’t get both feet on it. He swats away the noise, the wet, the cold, until all that’s left is concentration. To his right, water cascades down into the valley.

His landing area is only about 2m2 and the water isn’t the same depth everywhere. “I can’t dive into the middle of the water,” he says, “because it’s too shallow there. I’ve got to go as close as I can to the rocks on the left – the ones you can’t see from here.”

Verboom bends down and hurtles towards the blind spot. The wall beneath him isn’t a vertical drop.

It is a steep slope, so, to be safe, he needs to make sure he can get 2m out. Then he performs a backflip before landing in the water feet first.

“In water as shallow as this, your legs are your shock absorbers,” he says later.

But the moment that determines whether a trick will work or not comes much earlier in the process, when he launches off. “You have to be very steady on both feet and very calm inside, regardless of how big the drop is. And you can only jump when you have absolutely no doubt in your mind that the jump is going to go exactly as you imagined.”

Verboom has learned how to proceed by doing 2,000 parachute jumps, but what of fear? When does it kick in?

And your tingling sensation?

“Much, much earlier,” he admits.

“Fear strikes when I come up with a new idea which sounds totally crazy.

And when I realise that I’ve got to go through with it because I won’t be able to put it out of my mind until I do.”

FIRST DIVE, THEN JUMP Not everyone thinks that what Verboom does is 100 per cent sensible.

“They think I’m mad because all they see is a guy doing backflips off a waterfall,” he says, “but they don’t see 55

what I’ve done beforehand. That I’ve abseiled down there however many times. That I know every rock and every eddy. That before every jump I do a dive of where I’m going to land to be on the safe side, even if I’ve landed there safely a number of times already.”

Verboom also applies his coolheaded strategic planning and methodical implementation of vision beyond his immediate sporting goals and to his wish of establishing freestyle canyoning as a new extreme sport.

Three years ago, he surrounded himself with a crew of cliff divers, freerunners and artistic gymnasts, naming them the ‘deap’ team. In 2012, he attracted sponsors and shot The Beginning with the deap crew, posting dizzying trailers on YouTube. Now he is releasing his second film, Continue.

Next he wants to design and manufacture a range of professional equipment for canyonauts.

“I mean, look at us,” he says, stretching out his arms. “We look like clowns. Neoprene diving suits, skateboarders’ helmets, climbers’ harnesses and none of it is really ideal for our purposes.”

PRECISION LANDING “Freestyle canyoning is most fun,” Verboom says, “when you combine a number of elements in a single run.”

On this particular occasion, he is 18m above a pool of water and is looking at the waterfall crashing down into the valley to his right from the vantage point of a horizontal ledge. He pushes off and leaps feet first 3m into a smooth gully, which drops almost vertically like a old waterslide that wouldn’t get past health and safety today.

To disperse the energy of impact, his shoulders, back and legs have to hit the gully at the same time while he keeps his head raised. “Like a judoka doing a shoulder throw,” he says.

Verboom lands in just the right spot. A little bit higher and the water is too shallow. A little bit lower and it’s too steep. A little bit to the left there’s a sharp edge. And a little bit to the right, he’d be hurled out of the gully.

He fine-tunes his tricks in swimming pools and on the trampoline. Once he’s at a waterfall, there’s no margin for error. The cascading water pushes him a few metres further down and sends 56

If he hasn’t got enough speed, h e’ l l g o s m a s h i n g into a rock him flying. If he hasn’t got enough speed, he’ll go smashing into a rock.

But Verboom leaps into the air, does the trick known as a Gainer grab flip and dives into the pool of water, into which the waterfall disgorges.

When he clambers out of the water, he can’t stop looking up.

“Up there. That other promontory,” he says.

If he leapt off there backwards, he could squeeze in a cork before landing.

“You wouldn’t dare,” says the little boy in him. deapcanyoning.com

The trick known as a Gainer grab flip, with a little extra complication: the rock juts out 2m from where Verboom takes off. He can only see where he is going to land once in motion

brain storm Meet the makers: a group of aspiring inventors and engineers leading the charge to create the most innovative new products and future technology Words: Anne Ford Photography: Hank Pearl

B T EC H T I TA N S Bill Fienup (below right) and his Chicago-based MB Labs team are hoping to win the 72-hour innovation competition Red Bull Creation for the second year in a row. This year’s event will be held in Detroit on July 8-12

ill Fienup and his colleagues are fast, but they’re not furious. Maybe that’s why, after finishing last year’s entry for Red Bull Creation – a nationwide annual competition in America in which six teams of inventors have 72 hours to conceive and build an invention based on a given theme – they calmly stood around and drank a couple of beers, rather than pointing out to their stillworking competitors that they had finished a full 90 minutes early.

“We didn’t gloat,” says Fienup, a tall, cleft-chinned, poker-faced 33-year-old mechanical engineer known for attending Halloween parties in an amazingly functional homemade Inspector Gadget costume. “That’s not really our style.”

Whatever their style was, it worked.

Fienup’s Chicago-based team, MB Labs, won Red Bull Creations, and the US$10,000 prize, for coming up with Autoloop, a musical instrument that allows users of any age or skill level to make sounds by putting marbles onto a sensor-laden table.

“The judges were blown away by the complete re-imagination of what a synthesizer and musical output device could be,” said Greg Needel, the competition’s head judge, at the time.

As gratifying as it was to win the contest with a novelty music item, the members of the MB Labs team have set their sights on greater prizes. MB Labs is part of the maker

movement, a growing technologybased DIY culture. This new breed of makers create and invent using both artisan and modern methods. It’s a broad umbrella term, but in simple terms, Fienup says, “a maker is someone who builds something physical”.

Those somethings tend to be of a mechanical or technological nature.

Think of a DIY nut who discovers things like open-source learning, computeraided design and 3D printers. There are plenty of them, and they often meet up and share ideas at Maker Faires or through Make magazine.

MB Labs’ core members include Fienup, software engineer Josh Billions, new-media artist Harvey Moon and electrical engineer Daniel Lindmark.

Going to the next level means working together, not just to prepare for the next Red Bull Creation event in July, but also as a full-time product development consulting firm. “If you have an idea for a project that involves hardware, but don’t have the expertise to pull it off on your own, we’re your people,” explains Billions, who, with Moon, launched MB Labs in 2011 while studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “We try to add design or personality to everyday objects.”

One of their projects is Scout Alarm, a home security system that can be controlled via smartphone, requires no monthly fee and is so customisable that it can be used to guard anything from a bathroom window to a liquor cabinet.

Facilitating all this is another business in itself. Earlier this year, Fienup, Billions, Moon and colleagues Dave Hull and Kyle Sowards funded Catalyze Chicago, a collaborative workspace for hardware entrepreneurs.

Visiting the facility is like strolling into Willy Wonka’s workshop. While a lot of serious and lucrative work goes on here, so does a fair amount of goofitude.

On one wall hangs last year’s Red Bull Creation qualifying project, an installation called Persistence consisting of a 1.8m LED-laden robotic arm that draws on a phosphorescent canvas. Users submit drawings on the MB labs website, and the robotic arm re-creates them in glow-in-the-dark form on the canvas.

“Most of the submissions have been either really cool designs or drawings of cats,” says Billions, “though when we launched the website, we were all sitting in a dark room watching the canvas and tapping out code, and a 6ft penis shows up. I told the story to my mother later, and she was like, ‘Oh, that was me.’” redbullcreation.com

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A Limpopo sunset lights up the Oppikoppi main stage and tent town (affectionately known as Mordor) that springs up to accommodate thousands of fans

Oppi

The biggest music festival in South Africa is about to get even bigger as Oppikoppi turns 20 with another spectacularly eclectic line-up Words: Evan Milton

koppi derius erasmus

20-YEAR ODYSSEY

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very year 20,000 fans and revellers trek to a thorny patch of bushveld outside the platinum mining town of Northam in Limpopo province.

The reason? Oppikoppi, an annual music festival that is much more than a massive party with five stages and over 120 acts. Oppikoppi has become a pilgrimage, with as many stories about the road trips required to get there as there are tales of free living once you’re through the gates.

In the early years, your proof of entrance was a piece of nylon rope clamped around your wrist with a crimped lead fastener. Nowadays, Oppikoppi has its own currency, helicopters that deliver beer and an augmented reality app. The festival even pre-dates the democratic South Africa, with precursor concerts held in what’s now called ‘Top Bar’ before the first Oppikoppi took place in 1995. Dubbed ‘Festival of Rock’, it drew 1,200 fans and a line-up that included Afrikaans rock stalwarts Valiant Swart, Koos Kombuis and Piet Botha’s Jackhammer along with the African fusion-inclined N’goi and industrial rock purveyors Battery9.

“We started with band weekends before the festival began. Remember, this was on a farm far away from anywhere, with no curfews and no ‘The bar closes at this time,’” says Carel Hoffmann, co-founder of the festival. “As soon as anyone had enough energy, they got up on stage and played. Koos and Valiant played for about 10 hours, on again and off again.

Oppikoppi was well known for all sorts of rock and roll mayhem. It was an endurance race. Anything that could have happened, did happen. But it was always all about the music, and it still is.”

More than 1,500 acts have played Oppikoppi since its inception – that’s not counting the discontinued Easter festivals, the year they brought Koppi to the Cape, 62

Above: co-founder Carel Hoffmann’s answer to the 2013 BewilderBeast theme Below: The main stage dons horns for BewilderBeast Right: Fokofpolisiekar lead singer Francois van Coke

“Oppikoppi was known for all sorts of rock ’n’ roll mayhem.

Anything that could have happened, did happen”

Crowd-surfing is mandatory at any self-respecting rock concert

john hogg, courtesy of Oppikoppi

the New Year’s parties and the band weekends. That’s a lot of bands, so two classic snapshots will have to suffice…

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t’s 2001, at what was then the 206 stage – an early haven for electronic and DJ’d music that paved the way for the Red Bull Studio Live stage, which this year celebrates its fifth anniversary at Oppikoppi’s 20th bash. People are joking about how die-hard rock fans are wearing handwritten T-shirts that read ‘P.A.T.A.T. – People Against Trance And Techno’.

Most festivalgoers still restrict themselves to the main and secondary stages that cater to the rock bands, but a growing number venture up and over a ridge, and then down a perilous slope studded with shin-damaging boulders.

DJ Bob and The Blunted Stuntman have been playing for about five hours and dawn is breaking. A guy in orange 63

overalls slips on the descent – he’s not the first, and he won’t be the last. He is saved from hitting the dirt by the fact that he’s attached to a friend by a length of hessian rope. What is more impressive is that they manage to ensure that none of the five 5-litre wine bottles tied to the rope between them shatters on the rocks. “Are you OK?” someone asks. “Ja,” they say, “We lost our campsite and we’ve never heard this music before, but it’s lekker and we’re gonna camp here instead.” Two days later, they’re still at the 206 stage, although only one wine bottle is left.

Another snapshot. Collaborations have always been part of South Africa’s music landscape, and festivals allow for them to be showcased. Someone’s playing the headline set; it could be Fokofpolisiekar or Springbok Nude Girls – there is a massive burst of guitars and bass.

A rapper joins them on stage, drops some lines and then readies himself to drop the main bomb: a stage dive that means he needs to clear almost 4m between the stage and the metal crowd barrier. He stalks back, sprints, jumps and makes it. The crowd goes wild and the rock ’n’ roll continues.

The rapper has been there before, back in the mid-’90s with The Original Evergreen, then later with Max Normal, and as a key part of Oppikoppi’s ‘Way Of The Dassie’ theme in 2007. His name is Watkin Tudor Jones Jnr, better known as Ninja from Die Antwoord.

Oppikoppi, birthplace of stars.

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he early years of Oppikoppi are very blurry for me,” says Francois van Coke, vocalist for Fokofpolisiekar and, later, Van Coke Kartel. “I heard I got hung in a thorn bush one year, and apparently I broke off the TV in one of the band rondavels and I had to pay for that. I was on the cover of Sondag kissing a guy with the headline ‘Siesa! Van Coke soen ’n man!’ (‘Yuk! Van Coke kisses a man!’).

“When Fokofpolisiekar played in 2012, I think that was our greatest show ever, with about 15,000 people watching us.

I think everyone in South Africa should experience Oppikoppi at least once, and if you do it once, you’ll want to do it again.

It’s dirty and dusty and debauched, but there’s something about that top bar that makes it halfway between Heaven and Hell, and that’s a good place to be.”

Oppikoppi has woven itself into the very fabric of South Africa’s music and cultural tapestry. It started when live 64

The rapper has been there before. His name is Watkin Tudor Jones Jnr, better known as Ninja from Die Antwoord

This picture: Kobus de Kock of the Black Cat Bones; Above Left: The 206 stage, precursor of the Red Bull Studio Live stage Below left: Ninja and Yo-Landi of Die Antwoord

Right: Sibot playing the Red Bull Studio Live stage Left: Wynand Myburgh of Fokofpolisiekar rocking out at Koppi 2004

derius erasmus, Fokofpolisiekar, sean brand, Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool, Liam Lynch

“That top bar is halfway between Heaven and Hell, and that’s a good place to be”

Everyone who went has a tale, like when drummer Marius Appelgryn spent three days handcuffed to a bar music was something of a counterculture: a way to celebrate being human in an apartheid political system that tried to deny humanity. It was there when live music was a haven for artistic expression as record company shareholders demanded made-forplay radio hits. And it’s still here now, when live music performance has resurfaced as the lifeblood of the music industry as record sales dwindle.

Early festivals were characterised by far-from-prying-eyes excess. Everyone who went has a tale, like when drummer Marius Appelgryn spent three days handcuffed to a bar. Or when the Wolmer 66

Above: the Oppikoppi maypole Below (from left): one reveller loses herself in the festival spirit; Valiant Swart and Capetonian blues man Albert Frost (left); Haezer at the Red Bull Studio Live stage

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hat of Oppikoppi 2014, christened ‘The Odyssey’ and featuring a line-up of more than 100 artists revealed via a press campaign with a spokesperson named Themis, the ancient Greek Titan who decrees that which shall be law?

There are South African gems like 20-year reunion gigs for Urban Creep (the Durban rockers of the 1990s) and alternative rockers Springbok Nude Girls; a return for voice-driven hipsters The Muffinz; and post-indie rockers Zebra & Giraffe will be pre-launching their new album. There’s also maskandi ancestorhailer Madala Kunene, Soweto funk-rock visionaries Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness and rap innovators PHFat. Oppikoppi has previously hosted big international names like Groove Armada, Diplo, Violent Femmes, Bullet For My Valentine, Billy Talent and Eagles of Death Metal, as well as underground winners like Saul Williams, Soulwax, Purple Sneaker DJs, The Used and Enter Shikari.

‘Odyssey’ is no exception, with international highlights including

Wolfmother (the Brit, Grammy, ARIA and MTV Award nominees from Australia), indie survivors Editors (UK), dollar crooner Aloe Blacc (USA), female singer-songwriter sensations Cat Power (from America, but a Brit Award nominee) and Sarah Blasko (a multiple ARIA Award winning Australian).

Singer-songwriter Willy Mason (USA) will also be making the trip, as will seasoned festival rockers from Canada (The Last Supper), France (Inspector Cluzo) and America (Rival Sons).

“Against our will, we had to grow up over the years, which is inevitable if you start having a bunch of people on your payroll, and have to think about keeping 20,000 people safe, and with toilets and showers,” says Misha Loots, who is known in the music industry as Oppikoppi’s festival promoter although his business card simply says “Ambassador of Goodwill”.

“Oppikoppi was started by people inviting bands to play in their bar, and the only reason they did that was because they wanted to see that band. You can’t please all the people all the time, but we’ve never booked a band we didn’t want to see ourselves – and that’s the spirit of this festival. It’s about the tunes.” oppikoppi.co.za

sean brand, john hogg, Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool

crew – as the extended fan-family of hard rockers Not My Dog were known – decided to waterski behind their Land Rovers across the bushveld. Or when the bar first had the cane specials – the ones where you bought a shot and got a free tot of brandy. But there was also a thread of true delight in celebrating the music, rather than establishing a brand or pushing a market.

“When they asked us to play, we didn’t know how to answer the question,” says turntable master (and ex-Prophets Of Da City pioneer) Ready D, recalling how erstwhile Cape Flats rap crew Brasse Vannie Kaap were invited to showcase their brand of Afrikaans rap to a very different Afrikaans audience back in 2000. “We got to the festival and were being driven to the stage and someone shouted, ‘Stop! Stop the bakkie!’

We didn’t know what was going to happen, but they wanted us to stop because there was a girl just lying in the road, listening to a band. A woman!

We had never seen anything like it.”

Cue the morning after Brasse’s breakaway success set, and countless new fans are humming their earwormcatchy chorus: ‘It’s the Fords, and the Nissans, and the ’Toy’s and the Beetles.’

Classic

Drag THE RULES HAVE REMAINED UNCHANGED FOR 60 YEARS: STRAIGHT TRACK, TWO LANES, TWO CARS, GREEN LIGHT AND THEN IT’S FEET TO THE FLOOR TO SEE WHO’S THE QUICKEST OVER A QUARTER OF A MILE. DRAG RACING IS PURE SPEED, ROARING DRAMA AND LUCKY ESCAPES. DAVID HARRY STEWART HAS CAPTURED IT ALL ON CAMERA

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Drag racing has its origins outside the law. American soldiers returning from the World War II were running low on adrenalin at a time when cars were getting cheaper. Two plus two made illegal drag races held on old airfields and racetracks. Races today are organised and run professionally.

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DR AG R ACING IS OLD SCHOOL: IT’S EITHER YOU OR THE OTHER GUY. YOU USUALLY KNOW YOUR FATE WITHIN A FEW METRES

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AMBITIOUS BEGINNERS WILL HAVE CARS WITH 400BHP. AF TER THAT, THE ONLY WAY IS UP. MORE THAN 600BHP? NOT A PROBLEM

HEATING YOUR TYRES IN A BURNOUT, FOR MAXIMUM TR ACTION ON THE STARTING LINE, IS A DR AG R ACE RITUAL

Drivers are strapped into bucket seats and hunched up in cages of steel tubing. They wear helmets, neck-braces and fireproof overalls. When something goes wrong in drag racing and the elemental force of these cars is unleashed in a way it shouldn’t be, lethal danger can arise very quickly. These cars are made for acceleration, and not much else.

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Muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s gave rise to the idea of fitting the largest, most powerful, noisiest engines in affordable mid-range cars. Those cars had names like Barracuda, Fury, Superbird and Charger and looked good, too. They were dangerously good – they still are, especially when drag racing.

DR AG R ACING HAS NO AGE LIMIT: YOU’RE NEVER TOO YOUNG FOR THOSE MAGICAL 12 SECONDS OVER A QUARTER OF A MILE IN A 40-YEAR-OLD CAR 76

The V8 engines in these classic cars have anything up to 10 litres of capacity and breathe through man-sized air scoops in the bonnet.

A good excuse to dust off the old girl, along with like-minded people, and a day out for all the family, too. In some parts of the US, drag racing has a fairground feel. Two governing bodies, the National Hot Rod Association and the International Hot Rod Association, have many different categories of competition, increasing chances of a driver winning silverware.

Bikers are also welcome.

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Right foot on the accelerator, left foot on the brake. Put the car into drive. Warm up the tyres. Roll up to the starting line. Don’t give an inch. Wait for the lights on the Christmas tree. Foot off the brake, hang onto the steering wheel and feel the sweet madness of acceleration build until your car conks out.

SMALL, LIGHT AND STYLISH: CLASSICS LIKE THIS 1972 CHEV Y NOVA ARE PREORDAINED FOR ETERNAL LIFE ON THE DR AG STRIP 78

dhstewart.com

WINGS FOR EVERY TASTE.

CRANBERRY. LIME. BLUEBERRY. AND THE EFFECT OF RED BULL.

Tough stuff: speaker and smartphone protection in one MUSIC, page 92

Where to go and what to do

ac t i o n !

T r a v e l / G e a r / T r a i n i n g / N i g h t l i f e / M U S I C / p a r t i e s / c i t i e s / c l u b s / E v e n ts

Take the plunge

Bored with normal bungee jumping? take a trip to macau and confront the highest bungee in the world AJ Hackett

travel, page 82 Long way down: the launch platform is 233m above ground

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Action!

travel

And anoth er thing Must-do in Macau

Cheer on Don’t miss the Macau Grand Prix, a thrilling F3 battle through the city streets with some of the world’s best drivers: Michael Schumacher is a former winner. macau.grandprix. gov.mo

b ungee It takes guts to plunge off anything tall, let alone the highest launch platform in the world At 233m above the ground, the bungee platform at China’s Macau Tower is the world’s highest, a leap so lofty that the man behind it, long-time bungee jump proponent AJ Hackett, had to devise a new type of bungee cord. Since it opened in 2006, those with the requisite resolve have been hurling themselves into the fresh air over the city for five seconds of freefall at up to 200kph. Henrique Ferreira, one of the managers at the tower, has jumped 17 times, but is still considered a rookie by the longest-serving Macau Tower staff members, who boast more than 900 jumps each. It doesn’t get any easier.

“It still makes your heart race to stand on the platform,” says Ferreira, “whether it’s your 10th or 1,000th jump.” Miguel Soares, a 29-year-old electrical engineer from Portugal, took three years to pluck up the courage for his first jump. “Then once I’d booked it, I started to lose sleep,” he says. “When I got to the platform it was totally terrifying. Every part of your body is screaming, ‘What the hell are you Bungee prices start doing?’ Then they count you down and at around US$360. you drop. The first second is pure horror; Jumps should be after that, it’s the most amazing feeling, booked roughly like you’re flying. The first thing you think two months ahead: ajhackett.com/macau at the bottom is ‘I want to do that again.’”

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Get high Take the cable car up the Guia Hill for amazing views.

Then hike even further up, on the route known as The Walk of 33 Curves. en.macautourism. gov.mo

Advice from the inside Keep your head up…

“My advice is don’t look down,” says Miguel Soares. “Really: don’t. Until you get there, 233 [the height in metres] is just a number.

When you start to see cars the size of Micro Machines below you, it bends your mind.”

…but don’t miss the sights “Make sure you open your eyes,” says Henrique Ferreira. “On my

first jump I didn’t open them until I was rebounding as I was freaking out, so as a result missed the incredible view.”

Chip in Anyone feeling lucky after a bungee jump should visit one of the Vegas-style casinos Macau is famous for, like the Wynn Macau with its giant dragon. wynnmacau.com

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AJ Hackett, macau.grandprix.gov.mo, shutterstock(2)

Greatest high

Towering ambition: could you jump off that?

Action!

My City

N 4 5 t h S t

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Seattle american basketball star jamal crawford owes his career to the inclement weather of his beautiful hometown

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W e s t S e a t t l e B r i d g e rgin e M a

Jamal Crawford plays for the Los Angeles Clippers and has also turned out for the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks and Atlanta Hawks, but he still pines for the city where he grew up in the Pacific Northwest.

“Seattle is the most beautiful place in the world,” says the 34-year-old NBA guard. “It has the coolest people and it’s totally different from anywhere else.” Even though the Emerald City has not hosted a basketball team since the Seattle SuperSonics left in 2008, Crawford is proof that it’s a perfect place to raise an NBA star. “It rains so much in Seattle, you’re indoors a lot, so I stayed at the basketball gym,” explains Crawford. “It definitely had a direct influence on my game and who I am as a person.”

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lake Washington

Drizzle to dribble

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Jamal Crawford has spent 14 years in the NBA

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Crawford’s seattle sights

1 Seattle Pro-Am

Basketball Seattle Pacific University “We have a lot of guys already committed for this summer,” says Crawford of the July 5 to August 30 event. “Rajon Rondo said he’s coming, so is Gerald Wallace and Paul George.”

2 Key Arena

305 Harrison Street “The Key Arena is really good because it’s got a real nice setting. They can make it really, really dark in there, so all the focus is on the stage. I’ve seen Sade and Kendrick Lamar there.”

c ity b eats seattle music landmarks

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3 Pike’s Place Market

4 Dick’s Drive-In

86 Pike Street “My grandfather used to live above this place. When I see a picture of Pike Place Market, I can see his apartment. Make sure you visit the fish stall, where you throw what you buy to the guy behind the counter.”

115 Broadway East “This place is a Seattle staple. Macklemore shut down the whole bus line on Broadway and filmed a video on top of Dick’s. It’s unique.

The shakes are really good.

Even Bill Gates goes there.”

EMP Museum

El Corazon

Weirdly designed and featuring the only Nirvana exhibition you’ll ever need. empmuseum.org

Also known as the Off Ramp and the place where Pearl Jam first played. elcorazonseattle.com

5 Seward Park

5895 Lake Washington Boulevard South

“This neighbourhood is located in the south of the city, right on Lake Washington.

You can sit here and look out across the water all the way to Mount Rainier 90km away.”

Seattle Center Fountain The place for vigils of departed music legends. seattlecenter.com

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Action!

Pro Tools

Prepared In the back, emergency equipment for unexpected incidents that you should always expect

O ffRoad don’t get lost without ’em

Relaxed Comfortable drivers go faster: power steering and ample leg room ease the passage in races, which can last up to 12 hours

led helmet light Its strongest light setting equates to 1,200 candles. trailtech.net

Cushioned Independent suspension, with added external compensation tanks, can deal with holes of up to 35cm

Stretched The long wheelbase (214cm) means sure and steady handling, even at high speeds over rough terrain

Triple Extreme Race Light This superdurable lamp works at speeds up to 80kph. trailtech.net

Path finder O FF-ROAD HOW TO WIN DESERT RACES (HINT: A BIT OF DIY HELPS) Off-road desert racer Derek Murray drives a Can-Am Maverick Max 1000R

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Last year, Derek Murray and his brother Jason celebrated their first victory in the Best In The Desert racing series at the Vegas to Reno event. At 870km, it’s the longest off-road race in the USA, and the Murray brothers conquered all in a utility vehicle of their own devising.

Their modified Can-Am Maverick

Max 1000R runs on a water-cooled two-cylinder motor with 101hp, the most powerful of its type. “One advantage is its reliability,” says Derek. “We had very little downtime compared to our competitors. As long as us drivers don’t mess up, the Maverick will get us to the finish.” murrayracing.com

Lifttrax When stuck in mud or sand, this inflatable recovery set has a loading capacity of four tonnes. lifttrax.com

the red bulletin

46534/RW

As seen on DStv / SuperSport

In 2014 we bring you the greatest motorsport events.

Catch the Formula 1, World Superbikes, MotoGP, Le Mans 24 Hours, Nascar and many more.

Live on your World of Champions.

Action!

workout

England's all-rounder: Broad is a left-hand batsman and righthand fast bowler

Broadly brilliant: over 2,500 runs and 410 wickets for England

Pitch perfect c ricket World-class all-rounder Stuart Broad reveals the secret to surviving cricket’s roughest role “I’ve picked the hardest job in cricket, being a fast bowler,” says 28-year-old England Twenty20 captain Stuart Broad, as England prepare to take on India in five Tests and six short-form games this summer. “We get 10 times our body weight going through our knees and ankles every time we bowl. I’m 85kg, so that can add up. During a test match day we wear a GPS, and we travel 18km a match on average, between walking, running and sprinting, so the legs feel heavy towards the end of the day. The injury rate is high in bowlers. We get a lot of stress fractures, either of the feet or the back where the bones are under pressure all the time, so you have to make those areas of your body strong. But we’re playing up to 250 days a year, so you can’t do any training that makes you feel too stiff and sore: you need to be ready for your game.” stuart-broad.com

doggy style

d o t r y t h i s at h o m e “People assume bowling power comes from your shoulder, “ says Broad, “but it’s all from your legs, so I keep them strong. Lunges work the thighs, glutes and hamstrings, and keep your core fit, too.”

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fast balls

“We train with those ball launchers dog owners use,” says Broad. “We cover them in carbon-fibre tape and throw cricket balls at each other. I can bowl at 90mph: these are faster. The ball really flies out, so we’re training at higher-than-match intensity.”

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Hold a weight in each hand. “It should be a challenge, or you won’t work your core,” says Broad.

Step forward, bending your knee, with your ankle in line with it. Push the other arm towards the ceiling.

Bend legs to 90° in a full lunge, the back knee should not touch the floor. Extend arm in line with ear.

the red bulletin

Nathan Gallagher (2), schecker.de

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME

Action !

watches

fathom it WHAT WATCH TO GET WET IN 2014

Treasure of the deep

Alexander Linz

BLANCPAIN FIFTY FATHOMS A French frogman and a Swiss watchmaker together devised the first modern diver’s watch There’s no future in diver’s watches. In the early 1950s, that’s what most Swiss watchmakers would tell you. But one of them had a different view: Jean-­Jacques Fiechter, the CEO of Blancpain, a keen scuba-diver who was working on a prototype of a watch he could use at his favourite pastime.

A 1953 model Meanwhile, in January 1952, Fifty Fathoms Captain Robert Maloubier founded an elite unit of frogmen, and the means by which to train them, moved, the marked dive start within the French Army. He was time could only be moved earlier, also on the hunt for wristwatches not later. Elapsed dive time his men could wear underwater. could not be increased, and so Fiechter and Maloubier divers would not run out of air. provided the solution together.

Maloubier thus received the The captain wanted a watch first modern diver’s watch that would be waterproof in the world: the Fifty at depths of up to 100m, Fathoms (a depth that was easy to tell the equivalent to 91.44m). time on and that had a American, German, bezel, a ring around the Israeli and Spanish edge of the dial, that could forces frogmen followed The NO be turned to mark the start suit, as did Jacques RADIATIONS sign time of a dive. The dial and Cousteau, who gave on the dial of a bezel were to be black; the 1968 model Fifty the Fifty Fathoms markings and numbers publicity thanks to the big and bright so that you popularity of his 1956 deep-sea would see them in the dark. documentary, The Silent World.

Fiechter’s robust watch had Collectors are especially a self-winding mechanism, fond of a rare and specific Fifty protected, inside soft iron, from Fathoms model. In order to potentially damaging magnetic satisfy US navy conditions of fields. He put a humidity indicator, use, the watch had to show the in the form of a circle on the dial, time equally well at all hours of at six o’clock. If it detected moisture the day and night. So, militaryinside the watch, it changed spec models used an iso­tope colour from blue-and-pink to pink. of promethium to make the Another of Fiechter’s bright ideas indications glow in the dark. concerned the bezel. He made it so These watches had, ‘Danger. that it could only be turned antiIf found, return to nearest clockwise. So if it was accidentally military facility,’ engraved the red bulletin

Classic

Today’s Fifty is waterproof up to 300m

on the case. The civilian watches of the time had the nuclear sign of three triangles in a circle, on the dial in place of the blue-and-pink humidity indicator, with the words ‘NO RADIATIONS’ at the bottom of the circle. Those ones fetch the big bucks on eBay.

Robert Maloubier today (left) and in 1955 (below) coming up from a dive with a Fifty on his wrist

solid gold

Precious metal model is what it says on the tin

500 Fathoms Only 500 made; x10 waterproof, up to 914m

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Action!

party

Ambient tropical electro kitsch. We like the sound of that

MORNING A F TE R That mezcal got to you? Try three typical Mexican hangover cures

MENUDO Maybe beef tripe soup doesn’t sound too great now, but this very spicy and heavy broth filled with soft meat and served with tortillas has magical powers.

Playa player

Beachfront fun was very different when La Santanera opened its doors in Playa del Carmen, in south-east Mexico, just over 10 years ago. Most of the party places there were run-of-the-mill. “There were no alternative places to have a good time around here,” says Alejandro Gamez, owner of La Santanera. “Most of them played nothing but very mainstream pop.

The only other option was nearby raves, but they only played trance or progressive house.” Enter Gamez, who bet against the house and instead made his La Santanera a place of electronic dance music, which at that time was just breaking through.

His club was unlike anything in Playa.

“We created a funky setting on an openair terrace, with a dancefloor inside that feels more ‘underground’. ” La Santanera manages to be kitsch yet sophisticated, a bit sinful, very playful, with a Caribbean vibe. People instantly loved it, and it changed the musical culture of the city.

It remains one of Mexico’s top clubs. “We try to be one step ahead,” says Gamez, “and people really respond to that.”

La Santanera Calle 12 Mza 30 Loc2, Playa del Carmen, Q Roo, México 77710 lasantanera.com

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La Santanera raises the city’s night-time temperature

CARM EN GET IT La Santanera newbie: Here’s what you do

Drink The owner recommends to dump the margaritas and go for the really good stuff: “Mezcal Papadiablo straight,” says Alejandro Gamez, “and maybe a beer as a chaser.”

POZOLE The pepper broth made with corn, meat (usually pig’s backbone), oregano and radish is an extremely popular cure for all ailments, especially alcohol-related.

Wear “People often try to impress by dressing up. Here, that won’t cut it,” says Gamez.

Instead, he suggests to be true to yourself and “then everyone will notice you.”

Chat up Because there are people from all over the world here, the all-time classic “where are you from” is a cast-iron conversation-starter.

“Also,” Gamez says, “be kind and have fun.”

CHILAQUILES You can’t go wrong with fried tortillas, very spicy sauce (green or red chillies; as long as it burns) and protein, like fried eggs or chicken, all covered in fresh cheese.

the red bulletin

Bennett Sell-Kline for TheBPMFestival.com(3), shutterstock.com

P laya Del Carmen There was only pop music and raves at Playa Del Carmen before La Santanera. Now the club leads the way in the party city

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Simply go to www.getredbulletin.co.za or call 0860146247 or Fax 0865691192 When you subscribe to the Red Bulletin in the June, July or August issues, not only will you receive a limited edition, imported Red Bulletin Sigg Water Bottle, but you will also go into a draw to win one of 10 double tickets to see the mind blowing spectacular that is Red Bull X-Fighters. Subscribe now and save the date – Saturday the 23rd of August in Pretoria – and you could be a winner!

Action!

games

Gunning for success: US$500m will spent on the making and marketing of Destiny

small wonders Out soon for your tablets and phones

Darklings Season 2 of the iOS adventure game is in black-and-white and will have you ‘drawing’ symbols on the screen to win. mildmania.com

It’s calling you

up next

Green shoots

Destiny Can the creators of Halo strike gold twice with a new sci-fi shoot-em-up?

It’s 13 years since the groundbreaking Halo appeared, or two generations in gaming terms. Halo was a launch game for Xbox, reason enough to buy the console, and its sequels thrive, but the developer that made it, Bungie, is no longer involved – a bit like JJ Abrams making new Star Wars films while George Lucas looks on from afar.

Since its last game, Halo: Reach, in 2010, Bungie has been at work on Destiny, which this month enters its beta phase, so that the superfans who pre-ordered the game proper, due in September, can iron out the kinks. So far, what’s been seen of the game is both unsurprising and exciting: it’s a massive sci-fi shooter, in the vein of Halo, with stunningly beautiful graphics. What’s really innovative is Bungie’s attempt to make what they’re calling a ‘shared-world shooter’, to mash up a fast-paced first-person shooter with the multiplayer elements of games like World Of Warcraft.

It’s not just fans hoping for something special to put the H-word to the backs of minds: US$500 million will be spent on making and marketing Destiny – a sum slightly more than will be spent doing the same for Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII. Which one is destined for greater success? destinythegame.com

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OC:TANE

Plants V Zombies is back

The original Plants V Zombies proved that casual games, especially on a phone, could be as actionpacked as the flashiest console title. In August, the latest version debuts on PS3 and PS4 (it’s already out on Windows and both Xboxes). Juiced up for PlayStation, the contest is as full of beans as it is in the palm of your hand.

Shades of future racer Wipeout – and those are some great shades – with a Tron-like feel and up to eight players.

Available on Android and iOS. syncinteractive.co.uk

popcap.com

Nickel and dime

It all adds up: Madden turns 15 If there’s a more perfect sports video game than Madden, and there probably isn’t, it’s because it’s the sports sim that comes closer to the real-life action than any other. It feels like you’re immersed in a game of televised American football when you play, rather than playing a gamified version of the sport. This latest one, out in August, promises to be the biggest and best yet.

80 Days As in Around The World In: steampunk challenge that’s part game, part narrative adventure.

The story unfolds in 150 cities. iOS only. inklestudios.com

easports.com/madden-nfl

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Action!

music

new Toys In May 2000, Curtis Jackson, a 24-year-old drug dealer, almost dies in a New York City street battle. The incident changes everything: Jackson concentrates on his rap career under the name 50 Cent, and records his first album in 2003, with Dr Dre. Get Rich or Die Tryin’ becomes the fourthmost successful hip-hop album of all time and launches a career. Since then, Fiddy has been making films, writing books and designing trainers and headphones. Does that leave any time for music?

“Of course. But good things take time,” says the 38-year-old, referring to his first album in five years, Animal Ambition, out now. Here he reveals five songs that served as inspiration.

‘Bieber is the new Jacko’ P laylist Dope anthems, message soul and the classic of classics: rap giant 50 Cent blasts off into his musical cosmos

50cent.com

1 Marvin Gaye

2 Rick James

3 Michael Jackson

“Around 1970 most soul singers made big hit love songs. But Gaye wrote about different things. It was absolutely groundbreaking because he wrote songs about social injustice like not being able to pay taxes in Inner City Blues. Despite all that, the song sounds so smooth you can sing it in the shower. Gaye is a great observer, that’s why I worship him.”

“The best dope anthem from the coolest guy in the world. Rick James was the granddaddy of every bad boy, although he’d wear tights and braids with bangs and all kinds of crazy stuff. Shortly before his death in 2004, he talked about his egomaniac rock star excesses in a brilliant sketch with comedian Dave Chappelle. You really have to see it.”

“Looking back, I think this 1992 song is Jackson’s best, partly because of the video. It’s a nine-minute journey to ancient Egypt with Magic Johnson, Iman and Eddie Murphy. Everyone you see actually meant something, he didn’t just pick pretty people. The only living artist who has a shot at possibly being like Jackson is Justin Bieber. I’m serious!”

4 Curtis Mayfield

5 Prince

“From the strongest soundtrack yet made.

When you hear Pusherman you get a feel for the film Superfly: cool gangsters in the 1970s. Mayfield’s music feels like a complete thought, almost like he watched the film then wrote it. It inspired me to give Animal Ambition a consistent theme throughout the record.

It’s about prosperity, same as the film.”

“Prince really outdid himself with the Purple Rain album. The title track is timeless.

For me that’s the best compliment for a song. How do you write a timeless song? I really don’t know. An artist tries to write a classic with every song, but there’s no formula for it. But if there was, then Purple Rain would be the model.”

Inner City Blues

Pusherman

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Mary Jane

Purple Rain

Three apps for music lovers

Beatguide Keeps you up to date on the club scene in 15 cities worldwide (with more to come) and provides preview DJ sets. Choosing nights out is a whole lot easier.

Remember The Time

WhoSampled Which soul classic did Jay-Z sample for his latest hit?

This app analyses your music library and shows from where the stars have pilfered.

Au d i o -active gadget of the month

Grace Digital Eco Extreme Handy outdoor loudspeaker pumps music from your MP3 player or iPhone.

A full charge gives 30 hours of play, plus it protects your device, too. It’s dust-resistant, waterproof to 5m and can survive a drop of up to 10m.

A must for music-loving adventurers.

ecoxgear.com

PhonoPaper Record a sound; it’s synthed like an ’80s robot; a visual like 10 mashed-up barcodes is created; print that; other app users ‘scan’ it to hear the sound. Trippy.

the red bulletin

KATHERINE HAWTHORNE

Got rich, did not die: Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson

FATE DOESN’T ASK. IT COuLD ALSO bE mE. Or yOu. David Coulthard.

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l ights, Camera, Action!

Q& A : Lu l a C a rva l h o

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The film’s cinematographer reveals what happens when man meets turtle Words: Geoff Berkshire

Performance-capture technology has completely changed the face of Hollywood’s visual-effects extravaganzas.

From Gollum in The Lord of The Rings to the Na’vi in Avatar, some of the best known non-human characters are now played by flesh-and-blood actors on a stage before being transformed in post-production.

The latest revival of those pizza-loving heroes in a half shell, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, uses performancecapture technology to bring its titular quartet to life. We asked director of photography

Lula Carvalho to tell us what it was like filming real actors playing ninja turtles. the red bulletin: What was the most surprising thing for you about your experience with performance capture? lula carvalho: I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

I like imagining elements that were not there, but will be after post-production.

What are the advantages to shooting characters via performance capture rather than conventional visual effects or CGI?

I believe it will look better and more real at the end because of the performance capture. Also, it does feel more ‘alive’ to have a person in front of the camera. It is a very efficient way to use the ability of the actor to act and keep that in the final product.

Would you recommend this process to other cinematographers, and do you think it will become more prevalent in films?

Yes, I would recommend it and it will be more prevalent, but I also think each project has its own characteristics,

“ The reality is that in one movie you blend a lot of different techniques” and the creative minds involved should always find the best solution for each project. The reality is that in one movie you blend a lot of different techniques together.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is out worldwide from August 7 teenagemutantninjaturtles movie.com

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member of the undead. Director Jeff Baena reveals how to get the perfect shot: “We had half a day in LA’s Griffith Park, the second to last day of the shoot.

The concern was we wanted to make sure it was that beautiful golden light that

Don’t you hate it when you have to haul an oven?

you only get for an hour maximum. This location is on my route when I go on hikes. That day in particular everyone was really nervous because it involved a lot of different elements: stunts, visual effects, special effects, and special make-up effects.

Aubrey had that stove harnessed on her – it was fake but still pretty heavy. We had a flatbed truck up there, and every time we would cut she put the stove on the truck so she could stand and take the edge off.”

Out worldwide from August 15 the red bulletin

MMXIV Paramount Pictures(2), PMK.BNC

HOW’D YOU GET THAT SHOT?: LIFE AFTER BETH Zombie comedy Life After Beth stars Dane DeHaan (The Amazing SpiderMan 2) and Aubrey Plaza (Parks And Recreation) as a Los Angeles couple whose relationship transcends the afterlife: she dies in a hiking accident and returns as a

p ro m ot i o n

Must-haves!

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1 Zenith Watches Zenith, creator of the El Primero movement, is teaming up with the famous British rock stars, the Rolling Stones, with the launch of a new El Primero Chronomaster 1969. This 250-piece limited edition watch is a blend of DNA from Zenith and the Rolling Stones. With the famed Rolling Stones logo, the iconic red tongue and lip design and the historic colours of the El Primero, midnight blue and slate grey chronographs which are associated with the iconic cut out in the dial over the beating heart of the movement, a signature of the Zenith manufacture. Price on Request.

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www.picotandmoss.co.za 2 MWeB’s softWare doWnload store Whether it’s Security Products, Business Tools, PC/Mac Utilities or Design and Digital software you’re looking for, we’ve got it. Thanks to MWEB’s new software download store, you can now buy and download a multitude of software products. And with specials like 50% off Norton Anti-Virus, now just R99.99 and Norton Internet Security also 50% off, now just R199.99, you definitely don’t want to miss out. Just another way in which MWEB is making your Internet experience that much better. *T&Cs apply.

www.softwaredownloads.mweb.co.za to see more amazing launch offers

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3 MiZUno WaVe KaZan A lighter more dynamic shoe for the trail runner who likes a little more feel for the terrain. Other features include Concave wave and XtaticRide engineered to give optimum trail security and performance. Outsole has X-Lugs that deliever great multi-directional grip especially suitable for softer ground. Xtsatic groove on the outsole allowes foot to flex and grip terrain while absorbing forces from uneven ground. R1699 avaliable at The Sweat Shop.

www.mizuno.co.za 4 octal helMet The Octal helmet sets the standard in safety and design features. Octal, named after its specially designed features to protect the ocular socket and occipital lobe. The density of the helmet foam is low so that even slow speed falls will activate the protective foam. Road users easily detect the helmet colour schemes with logos being reflective, adding additional security in low light conditions. The Octal has 25% more frontal intake ventilation than other helmets.

All in all, a fantastically good looking helmet which has the most sophisticated design features to protect in the event of an accident and has functionality to ensure all the rider’s comforts are met. R4 047

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www.puremotionsports.co.za

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5 GaMMateK fitBUG orB The Fitbug Orb, can be placed on a belt, wrist, or lanyard, or even clipped on or beneath clothing (it ships with a wristband and belt clip) and tracks a wealth of information including, steps, aerobic steps/time, distance, calories burned, speed and even sleep. This information is sent to mobile devices and the KiK digital coach platform. R899.

www.gammatek.co.za

Action!

save the Date

Who? Local boy Nick de Wit will fly the flag for South Africa against the world’s most extreme FMX riders, including Tom Pagès (France), Levi Sherwood (New Zealand) and Josh Sheehan (Australia).

August 23

Daredevils take flight The biggest and maddest freestyle motocross series on the planet, the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour, debuts in South Africa at one of the most stunning locations the country has to offer. The World Tour finale in Pretoria will see the world’s wildest FMX riders throwing down heart-stopping tricks that will be judged on variety, execution, style, course management and energy. Tickets are available at Computicket.

Where?

The 101-year-old Union Buildings, the seat of government, will provide a classical South African backdrop, and a great view of the action for hardworking politicians.

Check it out!

Tricks are constantly evolving, but keep an eye out for nerve-janglers like the flair nac, tsunami flip, bike flip, body varial and double grab indy flip.

redbullxfighters.com

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the red bulletin

don’t miss

August 2

Winner takes all

ink these dates in your diary

Six months of the most gruelling, intercontinental rugby competition comes to a climax with the Super Rugby final.

If a South African team goes all the way, they’ll have the rest of the country right behind them. If not, rugby fans will move swiftly along to Springbok season, which resumes two weeks later.

17 july

Coffee & chocolate

superxv.com

Sharks fans are hopeful for success

July 23-August 3

Wealth of nations

craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool, getty images (2), Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool, Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool

What started out as the British Empire Games in 1930 has morphed into a mini-Olympics featuring 70 nations (without, of course, the Americans and the Russians) and 17 sports, ranging from athletics to wrestling. South African interest at the Commonwealth Games will focus on swimming, rugby sevens, cycling, hockey and track and field.

glasgow2014.com

An expo totally dedicated to the decadent pleasures of coffee and chocolate? What more is there to say? Coffee.

Chocolate.

Mmmm. At Montecasino in Fourways, Sandton. coffeechoc.co.za

18 july

August 7-9

Bushveld Odyssey

99% Zulu Vernacular standup comedy goes mainstream with a show that’s 100 per cent comedy in 99 per cent Zulu. Emperors Palace is the place to be if you’re in Jozi, but the show is also playing in Durban.

It’s not the oldest music festival in South Africa (that’s Splashy Fen), but it is the biggest and the craziest and boasts a quality lineup (Gangs of Ballet and Editors for starters) that is by far the most diverse you could ever wish to see. Oppikoppi celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and if that’s not a good enough reason to take a road trip up north this August, then nothing else will be.

computicket.com

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oppikoppi.co.za

august

Blacks Only

the red bulletin

August 17

August 16

Czech out

Trans Baviaans

After taking the world championship by storm last year, and enjoying an equally swashbuckling start to the 2014 season, the Spanish wunderkind Marc Marquez will be the rider to chase when MotoGP descends on the Brno Circuit for the Czech Republic Grand Prix. czech-moto-gp.com

Billed as the toughest single-stage mountain bike race around, the Trans Baviaans takes in 230km of riding, 2,540m of climbing, and some of the most spectacular scenery in the Eastern Cape. Not that riders will see much of the Baviaanskloof as they race through the night, chasing the sunrise as they journey from Willowmore to Jeffreys Bay. transbaviaans.co.za

The 10th anniversary of the Blacks Only comedy show kicks off at Emperors Palace.

It’s hosted by co-founder and original funnyman David Kau and features a who’s who of irreverent jokesters. emperorspalace.co.za

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The mental game Freestyle motocross rider Nick de Wit needs perfect mental and physical poise to execute tricks such as this superman backflip. “You have to come to terms with having a 100kg motorcycle above your head,” he says. “Otherwise, the slightest hesitation could throw you off balance and… Let’s just say it’s not good.” redbullxfighters.com

“I would not be able to live life without riding and jumping” Nick de Wit, Red Bull X-Fighter

The next issue of the red bulletin is out on august 12 98

the red bulletin

Craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool

Magic Moment

RED BLOODED PERFORMANCE INFINITI Q50 EAU ROUGE CONCEPT www.infiniti.co.za

INSPIRED PERFORMANCE

Model displayed: Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge Concept. This is a concept car and is not available for purchase.

Concept cars are automotive studies and may look different when released. For more information on this and the Infiniti Q50, visit www.infiniti.co.za