The Red Bulletin August 2014 - UK

beyond the ordinary

DON’T LOOK DOWN

Seeking the new thrills

B I G G EST NI G H T O U T On tour with Skrillex

FULL THROTTLE

World’s coolest racing scene

Mister

Sin City J e ss i c a A l b a , M i c k e y Ro u r k e , Eva Green: Robe rt Rodrigu e z reigns over his mo v i e k i n g d om

august 2014 £2.50

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CONFIDENT WHEN IT MATTERS

the world of Red Bull

66

vintage vroom

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

Michael Muller (cover), David Harry Stewart, Nathan Gallagher

Welcome The old joke goes, ‘what’s black-and-white and red all over’ and the punchline – if you can call it that – is a newspaper. (It’s the fact that ‘red’ and ‘read’ sound the same that makes it amusing – if you can call it that.) The brilliant new Sin City film is similarly monochrome and splashed with scarlet, but there’s not so much funny about it. Like the first Sin City movie, it brings to life a hard-boiled and bloody comic-book universe, and this month’s cover star, Robert Rodriguez is the visionary pulling the strings.

Elsewhere, we bring you a fantastic portfolio of images from another world with dramatic visual impact: the high-stakes competition of American drag racing. Plus, life on tour and on stage with Skrillex and we meet the next generation of inventors. Enjoy the issue. the red bulletin

“I’ve picked the hardest job in cricket” stuart broad, page 84

05

August 2014

At a glance Bullevard

30

14 photo special Incredible images and those who have taken them

Features

Rebel with a cause

30 Robert Rodriguez

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

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

38 Jodie Williams

52

Going for gold in Glasgow

42 Extreme canyoning

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

50 Brain Storm

How to invent anything

52 Skrillex

An exclusive VVIP access-all-areas pass with the decks master

the quest for adventure

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

14

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

crown prince of edm

With a spaceship the size of a helicopter, Skrillex is filling stadiums and changing the face of electronic dance music

80

world’s greatest high

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

60 Monkey business

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

66 Roaring drama

Full-throttle US drag racing

Action 80 81 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98

Travel Bungee’s biggest my city A basketballer’s Seattle pro tools On-message off-road training Get fit for cricket Party La Santanera in Mexico Watches Diving with Blancpain gaming Sci-fi shooter Destiny music 50 Cent’s top tracks entertainment New movies save the Date Unmissable events magic moment Out of the bunker

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Michael Muller, Jozef Kubica, BEN RAYNER, getty Images, AJ Hackett

42

MATTHIAS

GIRAUD

Cushe BASE jumper / Freeskier

UNWIND WITH OUR UNCONVENTIONAL LAIDBACK FOOTWEAR FOR A COMFORTABLE POST ACTION CHILL w w w. c u s h e . c o m

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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.

The Red Bulletin inspires its readers with breathtaking pictures and brilliant copy. Now, on our fully reimagined website, you can pull up our stories any time, any place and on any device in optimal quality. www.redbulletin.com complements the magazine with more photographs, videos and unique multimedia stories. It is updated every day and has that shot of energy that makes life worth living.

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Contributors who’s on board this issue “ They’re like the smarter, better-dressed nephews of Inspector Gadget” Meet the makers, page 50

michael Muller

Anne ford

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 66.

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 Chicago-based journalist usually writes about her home city’s multitude of colourful characters. For this month’s issue, she spoke to the Windy City’s innovative inventors hoping to win Red Bull Creation for the second time. “Getting to see all these amazing inventions up close, and hear the stories behind them, was incredibly fun,” says Ford. “The guys are like the smarter, better-dressed nephews of Inspector Gadget.” Get your geek on on page 50.

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.

10

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MATTHIAS GIRAUD Cushe BASE jumper/Freeskier

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Editorial Director Robert Sperl Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck Editor-at-Large Boro Petric Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English Photo Director Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann Managing Editor Daniel Kudernatsch Editors Stefan Wagner (Chief Copy Editor), Werner Jessner (Executive Editor), Lisa Blazek, Ulrich Corazza, Arek Piatek, Andreas Rottenschlager Contibutors: Muhamed Beganovic, Georg Eckelsberger, Sophie Haslinger, Holger Potye, Clemens Stachel, Manon Steiner, Raffael Fritz, Marianne Minar, Martina Powell, Mara Simperler, Lukas Wagner, Florian Wörgötter Design Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Silvia Druml, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz, Esther Straganz Photo Editors Susie Forman (Creative Photo Director), Rudi Übelhör (Deputy Photo Director), Marion Batty, Eva Kerschbaum Illustrator Dietmar Kainrath Publisher Franz Renkin International Advertisement Sales Patrick Stepanian Advertising Placement Sabrina Schneider Marketing and Country Management Stefan Ebner (manager), ­ Manuel Otto, Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Sara Varming Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Matthias Zimmermann (app) Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Karsten Lehmann, Josef Mühlbacher Subscriptions and Distribution Klaus Pleninger (distribution), Peter Schiffer (subscritptions), Nicole Glaser (sales marketing), Alexandra Ita (subscription marketing), Yoldas Yarar (subscription marketing) General Manager and Publisher Wolfgang Winter Global Editorial Office Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221-28800 Fax +43 1 90221-28809 Web redbulletin.com Red Bull Media House GmbH Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Directors Christopher Reindl, Andreas Gall

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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

Bullevard

JENNY ODELL

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17

Bullevard

Samo Vidic

19

Bullevard

Dave Lehl

Maxime Ballesteros

21

Bullevard

Eva Stenram

22

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Paulo Calisto

Bullevard

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.”

24

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.

Bullevard

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

400

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

50

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

100

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

150

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Bullevard

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

Bullevard

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

32

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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ONe-track

min Her Olympic dream vanished with injury, but J o d i e W i l l i a m s is back in top-level international competition. But, for the sprinter known as Money Legs, will all her hard work pay off? words: ruth morgan

F

p h o t o g r a p h y : s h a m i l t a nn a

or most people, resting up is a good thing, but for Jodie Williams it’s torture. When The Red Bulletin catches up with her, the Hertfordshire sprinter is suffering from a cold, which has necessitated the only two days off training she can remember taking. Not running, she explains, in no uncertain terms, drives her crazy. There’s no questioning Williams’ dedication to running the 100m and 200m, and by any measure she’s damn good at it.

Aged 20, she’s passed more athletics milestones than most do in a lifetime. By 16, the athlete dubbed Money Legs by school friends held the World Junior 100m title, among many others, and from 2005 until 2010 she was unbeaten, winning 151 races in a row. Now in the big leagues of the senior competition, Williams made the cut for last year’s World Championships, where she competed against her idols. Now, after physical setbacks, she’s in the form of her life heading towards this month’s Commonwealth Games, well on track for the international success so many have predicted for her.

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d young gun Williams entered her first county race when she was six, and out-ran the 10-year-old competitors. At 11 she joined her local running club and never looked back

tough test “Missing the Olympics was so hard. I went along to watch and it was a mistake.

I started crying and had to leave�

the red bulletin: How is 2014 treating you? jodie williams: Other than this horrible cold, I’m in a really good place, actually. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I was in Florida for two months from March until the beginning of May, for training, and I ran a new personal best time in the 200m, my first for four years. I was only two hundredths of a second off my personal best in the 100m, too. They were my season openers – the fastest I’ve ever opened in my life. I’m finally back to where I was before April 2012, when my injuries started.

Injury forced you to miss the London Olympics.

Yeah. I tore my left hamstring, then developed tendonitis, which gave me a knee injury as fluid was draining into it. When the Olympic trials came around, I’d only trained for 10 days or so, which was in no way acceptable.

But you still gave it a go?

That was the only shot I had at what I’d been dreaming of since I was a little kid – an Olympics on home soil.

I ended up tearing my hamstring again on track. It was so painful, but it wasn’t the physical pain that made me cry. I was devastated I’d lost my chance at competing at London 2012.

Then it’s just been injury after injury.

It’s been a weird feeling being injuryfree. I’d forgotten what it felt like.

You train for seven hours a day, six days a week, so you must feel as if you’re finally getting the payback for all that work?

It’s an amazing feeling to know everything has all come together at once, as there are so many components: diet, gym work, track training, your mental state.

At the moment, I feel like a welloiled machine.

The only hiccup this year has been a blackout you suffered after a race in February. What happened?

I had my first indoor races for a couple of years, and I was feeling good, I was ready. Then I felt very dizzy before the race. I still managed to compete, but I fainted just after I crossed the finish line.

I couldn’t remember the race I’d just run at all. There was no obvious answer for it, and I’ve felt fine since. I think my body did it just to test me.

How much of running a good race is down to mental toughness?

Your mental state affects you hugely in this sport and people always underestimate it. There were times in 2012 when I was physically fine, but I just couldn’t sprint as I was so scared of tearing my hamstring again. Once your mind says, ‘No’, you can’t push past that point, which makes the mental side harder to deal with than pain. You can lose your confidence so quickly, and sprinting is such a confidence sport. But I’m a lot more mentally prepared for this year. I used to be a very confident runner, mentally tough, and I’m back in that place. When you’re on that start line you have to know that you’re going to win and no one else.

The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow begin at the end of July. What are your predictions?

This will be my first Commonwealth Games and that’s exciting. My aim is to at least make the finals. The Commonwealth is a strange competition, as it’s a selection of nations you don’t get in other competitions. We have the potential for all the Jamaicans to turn up, which would make it an incredible race. There’s a big buzz around about the Games already, with it being held here. Plus the UK team is in amazing shape. I predict great things between now and the Rio Olympics.

You’re still young, but do you feel like a fully fledged senior athlete?

There are a few of us coming up together so that makes it easier. I still get star-struck, like in Glasgow, Usain Bolt could turn up, or Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the Jamaican Olympic 100m champion.

She’s been my idol since I was a girl and I could race her in the finals. It’s still feels strange to go from sitting on your sofa as a little kid watching these athletes on TV, to being in the lane next to them in an international competition. It makes me want to run better, faster. I don’t want to just be there, I want to be a contender.

You certainly sound convincingly tough…

I’m a completely different person outside athletics. In general life, I’m a bit ditsy, I do stupid things and laugh at myself. In my sport I’m very dedicated, so when people watch me on the TV they think I’m serious and focused, and when they meet me and I fall in through the door, I’m not what they expected. That’s typical me, falling over myself, which you wouldn’t think from a person who’s meant to be co-ordinated.

I save it all for the track.

Does ‘saving it all for the track’ mean a lot of nights in?

Yep, me, my boyfriend, Junior, and our rabbit, Coco. I’m not out on the town a lot, let’s say. We’ve just finished watching 24, which was so good. We made it through eight series and a movie in a couple of months. Now we’re about to start the new series, so that’s what we’ve been doing with all of our time. Then after that will be Luther.

Do you ever question your decision to devote your life to running and all that requires from you?

I ask myself why I do this fairly often, but I’m never tempted to quit; I can’t stand quitting. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The hardest thing is the normal life you sacrifice. I love what I do, and when you’re in it you don’t really remember what you’re giving up, then comes the off-season. You’re free, you realise there is a world outside athletics. You can see your friends and socialise. It’s always a crazy month. But then training starts again and I always go back into it 100 per cent. You don’t remember nights in the pub or the pain of training all winter in summer when you’re winning.

“on the start line, you have to know you’re going to win, and no one else”

the red bulletin

twitter.com/JodieAlicia27

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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 47

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 48

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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Skrillex jump-starts a show on the Midwestern leg of his tour

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Skrillex is the busiest man today in electronic music: over 300 shows a year, eight-figure earnings, touring with a laser-spitting spaceship.

With an all-areas pass, The Red Bulletin finds that, despite the spectacle, he’s still a punk at heart Words: Cole Louison Photography: Ben Rayner

it’s warm… but getting less so at 6pm at the Iroquois Amphitheatre, an airy, covered, outdoor space in Iroquois Park, in Louisville, Kentucky. The car park and the road through the nearby woods are packed with cars carrying crowds for a sell-out show.

There are 3,000 people on their way.

About one in 50 of them has perfected the look of tonight’s main attraction: flopped-over hair with one side shaved, dark-framed glasses, and those O-shaped, lobe-hole earrings that comedian Louis CK described as not knowing how to describe.

Some wear DayGlo beads, headbands and bodystockings reminiscent of ’90s raves. It’s not hard to pick out patterns of planets and stars, and the smiling Martian head from the album cover of the man they’re all waiting for: Skrillex.

Terri Macskimming, a mum in her everyday clothes, standing giddily with her 12-year-old, Andre, cheers in excitement.

“My son told me, ‘There’s this music called dubstep,’ and I said, ‘What the hell is that?’ and I love it now,” she says. “You can dance to it and yet it’s mellow,” she adds.

“I don’t know how he pulls that off.”

The musical style she’s describing, electronic dance music, EDM, is the USA’s fastest growing music genre and a worldwide smash. A turning point came five years ago, when producers such as David Guetta started to work with mainstream pop artists, making massively popular records that incorporated elements of trance, house and dubstep. Today, young EDM artists play stadium shows and main slots at huge rock festivals. According to Forbes magazine, in 2013 the world’s 10 highest-paid DJ acts (nine men and the trio of Swedish House Mafia) pulled in US$241 million – more than the payroll that year of the New York Yankees, or Real Madrid, and about two-and-ahalf times that of the Dallas Cowboys.

On the list, with US$16m of annual income, which has no doubt increased since, is Sonny John Moore, also known 54

you know the king of dubstep as skrillex. on tour, he’s sonny

Derided by some as a “button pusher”, Skrillex responds that the genuine emotion he inspires in an audience is his art

as Skrillex. In only four years, the 26year-old high-school dropout has won six Grammys, gained 16 million Facebook followers, and earns all that money despite giving away much of his music for free.

Backstage a few hours before his show, Skrillex is a short blur in all black with damp hair, sprinting from his dressing room, down a hall with several signs pointing the direction of the stage, past catering, past buses, past people displaying passes with various levels of backstage access, to the stage entrance.

Milo & Otis, the LA-based duo who are opening tonight are indeed starting the show. Sonny – everyone on tour calls him Sonny – stands there, bobs his head and hums along for a few seconds, looks at his cracked phone, then runs back to his room, allotting a glimpse of smoke, a laptop and a bottle-strewn table, and shuts the door.

“He’s frazzled right now,” says a guy named Skrause, Sonny’s road manager on tour, who says that his boss is putting the finishing touches on a track that he wrote earlier today. Though seemingly always bobbing, making music or going “WHOOOOOOO” when he runs by or meets fans, in person Skrillex is polite and focused, though no less enthusiastic about basically everything.

Two nights later, he’s seated, after a dinner mainly of salad at a big round

he played 322 shows in 2011, spinning as many as three gigs a night

table in the mostly empty Crystal Ballroom, deep inside Detroit’s Masonic Temple, the biggest of its kind in the world (the venue was his idea). He’s in a chair yet still seems to move, speaking in a fast, happy manner accompanied by hair-flopping nods. This constant energy has kept him really, really busy in the last couple of years. He played 322 shows in 2011, spinning as many as three gigs a night, usually two sets, and the afterparty. In late 2013, he was finishing Recess, his first full-length album (after seven EPs, the first of which, Gypsyhook, in 2009, was released under the name Sonny). Recess is dense but playful and it begins with a found clip from an old science lecture, accompanied by the rising sound of a take-off: “To get 1,000 miles from Earth, a rocket would need this much power, this much power, this much power...”

T

onight is the fifth show on the new edition of his Mothership Tour, with 20 stops in the US as the first leg of the global tour. “To me it’s all about making experiences,” he says.

The tour, which he first performed in 2011, in the US, Canada and Europe, has been redesigned by Skrillex, to include a state-of-the-art light show and a custombuilt spaceship from which he DJs in the cockpit. Hydraulic lifts raise the ship up and out over the crowd, pouring mist, while the large screen behind him displays everything from mesmerising Art Deco patterns to a looped clip from Full House, a 25-year-old US sitcom.

In 2011, the show and the music attracted a lot of attention. A young DJ with a strange haircut introduced many Americans to a genre called dubstep,

There’s dressing up, and then there’s getting dressed up for a Skrillex concert

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skrillex's laser spaceship is the size of a helicopter

Skrillex at the Iroquois Amphitheatre in Louisville

and blew away his audience with a pyrotechnic show that was just as powerful as the music. It was a success, but on a somewhat smaller scale. For the 2014 version, Skrillex and his creative team worked for five months in a 3,050m warehouse in downtown LA, brainstorming, experimenting, building, rebuilding and rehearsing. The spaceship is the size of a helicopter, the screen is three storeys high and stands like a wall of glowing liquid. Spotlights swivel and change location on mechanical arms, shoot light beams as dense as orange juice in every colour of the rainbow.

Six cannons placed at the front of the stage alternately shoot fog and fire.

After it’s dismantled, the stage equipment fills eight truck trailers.

Skrillex’s dressing room is marked by a sign taped to the door that reads SKRILL-VILLE. Outside it, with the crowd noise building, Skrause and a few of the touring crew are wearing coveted ALL ACCESS passes around their necks: black tickets with the three trademark three slashes Skrillex puts on all his records and merchandise. The sound of a husky laser beam comes from the dressing room and down the hallway. No one’s allowed in right now. “He’s in creative mode,” says Skrause. He and the crew make a post-show plan. There is a curfew tonight because the plan is to pack up, hit the road as soon as Skrillex is done at 10.50pm, sleep on the bus, like they do most nights when there’s a show the next day, and get into Cleveland at about 4am.

In another room, technicians are eating with stagehands, assistants and others. The hierarchy is complicated, but there are touring crew, assistants, 58

tour security, local security, police, medics, caterers and the people whose only job is to print out and tape up the signs around the venue pointing to the stage or catering or each dressing room.

The bigger the place, the more signs.

Tonight there are about 20.

Everyone who works around the stage wears boots and jeans hooked with carabiners that hold preposterous numbers of keys. Each of them has a radio clipped on their belt or back pocket. It looks like this cast of characters knows how to party, and while a good time is certainly being had, it’s worth noting that wild Skrillex-on-tour tales are not in evidence on this flight of the Mothership. There was group jogging before the show, and a high-powered juicer is spotted on the natural foods

bar. The one night out involved a few drinks and a sad bar in downtown Cleveland, with a lone dancer and topless waitress. The crew stay in whatever nice big hotel is available and no one seems to be waiting around lobbies or in hallways for a glimpse of the talent. He’s probably somewhere on his cracked iPhone.

While Skrillex is a running, tapping, yelling blur much of the time, things change as it gets closer to show time.

In the DJ booth for a run-through of the light show, he says very little, staring straight ahead at the control panel on the first mezzanine. The blue spotlight they have on him, he says, “is too hospital-y”.

“I don’t like it. No way. Can we try different hues?”

The light goes out, someone in the dark makes a joke about John Hughes

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Left: Skrillex is blur of activity during the show.

Below: Audiences are embracing Skrillex’s live performances

movies, and there’s laughter, but not from Sonny. He takes a sip from a red cup, a drag off an American Spirit, and stares straight ahead. Here, in the cockpit of the new spaceship, a mammoth, shadowy, angular thing of dark grey metal, it seems he really could take off and fly. Someone pushes a button and on come two finer, paler beams of light in the washed-out blue of old jeans.

He nods. “Yeah. Yeah. OK. How does that look?”

It looks good. Good vibes all around.

“We have no trouble with EDM,” says Caleb Meyer, a burly, goateed security guard, stationed between the crowd and the stage. Only a few minutes left before Skrillex will enter the spaceship. Meyer’s mumbling into his radio, trying to direct masses of concertgoers to their seats.

They stampede around him, but Meyer seems relaxed. “Everybody’s just having fun here. The hardest thing to do is getting them to stay in their seats.”

They don’t stay in their seats. The house is on its feet well before Skrillex appears onstage, in the light-radiating spaceship, and throws a switch that emits a low, throbbing hum out into the crowd. He sways out over his

“there can’t be anything fake when you feel a crowd’s passion” the red bulletin

mixer and raises his hand to the 6,000 which wave towards him. The ship steadily rises in a nest of smoke and an explosion of spotlights. Within a minute he’s standing over the turntables, side mullet already soaked with sweat.

“Everybody all right!?” he asks, as the lights reach and pull out into the audience, turning from crimson to Martian green. The crowd erupts.

Yes. Everybody’s all right, especially Sonny, despite recent criticism of his work and his music. As audiences and corporate interest in EDM grew, its credibility as a genre was questioned,

by EDM insiders as well as watchers and critics. Deadmau5, fifth on that Forbes list, with US$21m of yearly income, referred to Skrillex and other EDM artists as “button-pushers”.

Since they don’t scratch records, he says, something is lost.

Discussing this after the gig, Skrillex seems to be not so much above it as to simply not care. “It’s not controversial for me because I don’t give a f––k,” he says. “It doesn’t offend me.

The Ramones played three chords. It wasn’t about those three chords. It was about the energy and the movement.

So I love that criticism. It’s part of what makes this rebellious. That it’s not how people normally make music.”

He points out his basic set-up on this tour, and that anyone with a computer can make and upload EDM, yet very few are very good.

“It all comes from the top down,” says Skrillex. “If you see the audience going crazy, then you see a real connection with the music. There can’t be anything fake up there, when you

feel that real passion. And I think with my crowds, it’s the real thing.”

There’s nothing fake about the handwaving, joyous vibe of his audience.

Backstage now, some of the Skrillex fans, are waiting nearby, led here by assistants for a meet-and-greet. Paxton Titus, 15, from Howell, Michigan, holds a pencil portrait of Skrillex that was done by his 10-year-old brother, Carver. “He does something totally different than what you hear on Sirius XM,” he says, referring to commercial-free subscription radio. “He shows you can be artful and not fall into the trap of electronic music where 95 per cent of the stuff is the same. Female vocals, a build-up to bass drop, then the drop and then the beat. It’s the same structure.

Skrillex follows his own structure.

He has his own monster sound.”

Mandee Edwards, 24, came here from St Louis, about 440 miles away, and spent two hours preparing her makeup, go-go boots, and a black-and-white waterfall-like hairpiece. “His music makes people happy,” she says.

A door opens and Skrillex runs up to them with a loud “Heeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

He shakes hands, hugs, poses for selfies, and signs pictures, passes, shirts, a chef’s jacket, a pack of cigarettes and an assortment of arms and hips he’s told will become tattoos. He promptly signs Titus’s brother’s portrait and has a photographer take a picture of it. After half an hour, his manager tells him it’s time to go; they have two shows in Toronto, and getting this entourage over the boarder in the middle of the night is no easy task. He thanks each fan, raises his hands in apology, then is led upstairs by two guys with radios.

He’s always been very close to his fans. Be it meet-and-greets, Instagram or giving them his music first and free, it touches on the DIY ethos of the punk shows he played as a kid. It’s out of appreciation, but it’s also integral to him as an artist. Skrillex needs to create, but he also needs to put stuff out there. That openness is key.

“It’s a quick way to make stuff and to get a reaction. If it’s too contrived, like a punk show at a venue with $20 beers, kids don’t subscribe to that. Kids subscribe to realness. There’s a YouTube video of a two-year-old rocking out to Skrillex. That’s cool, because at that age there’s nothing else that can persuade you. There’s no media. There’s no scene.

Or stereotypes. You hear something and it makes you feel. I think that’s a good sign.” alientalk.skrillex.com

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She’s a survivor: Keri Russell plays Ellie, one of the few remaining humans battling the apes after a viral pandemic

battle planet XX Editor John Russo(2)

Illustrator

for the

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King of the swingers: Andy Serkis reprises his role as the intelligent ape leader Caesar

this man is an ape. she’s out t o s av e m a n k i n d . S ta r s o n 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 dinolizards, 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 virus survivors encounter the ape community that has flourished as puny humans were almost wiped out.

It is no spoiler to learn that harmonious coexistence 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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the red bulletin: So how does Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes 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, the 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 up in Caesar a very complicated chain of reactions – how to find accord with the humans, rather than fighting against them.

KERI RUSSELL: The humans have struggled, and the survivors that are left are so damaged. They have lost so much and they are clinging to each other, in a kind of fragile peace that they have created for themselves. And, for various reasons, they have to go into the woods where they encounter the red bulletin

Fox Film(3)

the apes. For each side there is the innate need to protect your family and the people you love. And at the beginning, neither side is really aware of the other’s situation.

Even in the trailer, you can see there’s more to the conflict than just the battle.

KR: Matt Reeves, the director, talked a lot about the idea of the thinking man versus the animal instinct, that war, that struggle.

Which is difficult in this case because Caesar is so enlightened, and when I say there is a nobility to him, he does have that. He seems fair. In a way, animal instinct is fair, it’s true: fight or flight, eat or don’t eat. It’s less murky, less fuzzy, than we can be in our complicated lives.

AS: Both tribes in this film are families: the theme of the film is family. An overriding sense what you would do to protect your own. Tribalism and… empathy and prejudice. Some of the humans are very prejudiced against the apes. Some of the apes are prejudiced against the humans. The humans are going through this awful period of survival, the end of resources, whereas the apes can survive with very little and humans are desperately struggling to survive. So power, in the sense of resources, is what causes the humans to come into the apes’ territory, to reactivate a hydro plant so they can have electricity.

That’s what sparks the conflict.

What about your characters’ relationship with each another?

AS: Caesar is married with a teenage son and an infant child. He gets to know some of the humans, trying to find a peaceful way of working with them. Two of them 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

Monkey do: Dawn Of Planet Of The Apes sees the title characters on the offensive… and this time they’re armed (top and middle); less fractious times at the chimps’ tea party (bottom)

“belie v e me… you don’ t wa nt t o s t a n d n e x t t o someone in a motion-capture suit i n s u m m e r ” the red bulletin

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, in it. That goes for all the other 63

actors who play apes. Parkour guys were hired to do tricks. It was stunning.

AS: About 95 per cent of it was shot on location, out in the rainforests at Vancouver, in late winter and early spring. It was freezing. Then we went down to New Orleans, hit summer, and were shooting in 100 per cent humidity.

Believe me, you would not want to stand next to someone wearing a motion-capture suit in the middle of summer. It’s physically hard work, 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 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, less fuzzy, than we can be in our complicated lives. Plus, it’s really incredible what [apes actors] do.

Why do people seem to like the Apes franchise so much? It’s been rebooted twice and has lasted for eight films (and a TV series and a cartoon) over 46 years?

AS: It does have a strange, enduring quality. Obviously, the anthropomorphism of animals still holds great interest for us.

We watch a lot of wildlife programmes, and what’s interesting is that we all secretly anthropomorphise the animals

when we watch these documentaries, we like to be able to relate to animals.

So in the movies, to have these characters throwing the mirror right back at us is important, as well as entertaining. You are able to say things that would sound polemic if they were told in a more conventional way.

KR: Aside from the sci-fi element, which is incredibly attractive and mysterious, and which will go on forever, I feel like I see this story in the news every day. Two different civilisations trying to understand each other, a family trying to protect itself, parents trying to protect their children.

Trying to survive, when that’s what the other side is trying to do, too, but all this other stuff gets in the way. That’s the resonance of the story for all this time.

Making the original Planet Of The Apes movie in 1968, actors playing apes sat with their own kind at lunch. It was a tribal thing. Did anything like that happen making this film?

KR: That’s really funny. It was sort of like that. I think the main reason might be

because the actors who were involved in the ape training were together for months before the actors playing humans came down, so there was a bit of camp-versuscamp, for sure. Those are your people.

During breaks on set, did people practise their impressions of Charlton Heston’s famous line from the first Apes film: “take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”?

AS: Have I ever tried to say that? I don’t think I have, but I could if I was forced to.

KR: There was none of that. As much as I thought I would be laughing and joking about ape things, I wasn’t. Everyone was so good and so into it. We were all into it; sincere but not too serious.

With franchise sequels, there’s often a feeling of a reheated version of an earlier film, but Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes seems like it’s very different from Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes?

KR: This one is dramatically different, a big leap from the last one, especially visually. They had a whole new take on it. Matt has made it kind of magnificent.

“A l l t h e a c t o r s p l ay i n g apes are so invested i n i t. parkour guys were hired to do t r icks. I t was stunning”

Looking good: visual effects artist Joe Letteri received an Oscar nomination for his work on Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes – can he go one better this time round?

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the red bulletin

Monkey Business Bananas grow on trees; so does Apes movie money Planet Of The Apes (1968) First film; all-time sci-fi classic and one of all cinema’s best endings.

Budget: $5.8m Box office: $32.6m*

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970) Charlton H back, underground, in a silly anti-cult/anti-nuclear parable.

Budget: $4.7m Box office: $19m*

Escape From Of The Planet Of The Apes (1971) Apes flee to then-present-day Earth; best sequel is exciting and moving.

Budget: $2.1m Box office: $12.3m*

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (1972) “The apes are revolting!” Yes, they are, and this film’s not much better.

Budget: $1.7m Box office: $9.7m*

Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973) First wave fizzles out; tired, cheaplooking man-v-monkey match-up.

Budget: $1.7m Box office: $8.8m*

Planet Of The Apes (2001) Tim Burton plus Mark Wahlberg plus ace make-up equals damp squib.

Budget: $100m Box office: $362.2**

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011) Second reboot: old-style, smart blockbuster and surprise critical success.

Budget: $93m Box office: $481.8m**

Fox Film (2), John Russo

US$, unadjusted for inflation *US only **Worldwide

It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen something so epic-looking.

AS: Matt, who is brilliant, goes through the heart and soul, the emotional content, of this movie. It is ambiguous, too. It’s not giving any answers. Life is complicated, and so it is for the apes and humans. It’s a very good mirror to the current world situation: people trying to survive with regime change and absolutism. It goes back to the heart of what the original the red bulletin

films were doing – the metaphorical nature of these movies should not be underestimated. If you’re going to be in a blockbuster movie, for me personally, these are the ones I would want to be in because they’ve got something to say before wowing with visual effects.

It feels very real, almost historical.

You can’t spoil the movie, but what about a real-life humans versus apes conflict: who would win?

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

They can’t hunt or find food anymore.

I’m banking on the apes, really.

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

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

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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 74

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 76

dhstewart.com

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Infiniti Red Bull Racing Fan Package 12 Months + Pinset + Team keyring + Sebastrian Vettel driver flexfit cap

ÂŁ 2590

For only Simply go to www.getredbulletin.com

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 80 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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Drizzle to dribble

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Jamal Crawford has spent 14 years in the NBA

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Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

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

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THE KIA OVAL

LONDON, ENGLAND

26TH JULY 2014

BUY TICKETS AT: REDBULLCAMPUSCRICKET.COM

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.

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Nathan Gallagher (2), schecker.de

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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.

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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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watches

fathom it WHAT WATCH TO GET WET IN 2014

Treasure of the deep B LANCPAIN FIFTY FATHOMS A French frogman and a Swiss watchmaker together devised the first modern diver’s watch

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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

Alexander Linz

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 moved, the marked dive start means by which to train them, time could only be moved earlier, within the French Army. He was not later. Elapsed dive time also on the hunt for wristwatches could not be increased, and so his men could wear underwater. divers would not run out of air.

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

Collectors are especially Fiechter’s robust watch had fond of a rare and specific Fifty a self-winding mechanism, Fathoms model. In order to protected, inside soft iron, from satisfy US navy conditions of potentially damaging magnetic use, the watch had to show the fields. He put a humidity indicator, time equally well at all hours of in the form of a circle on the dial, the day and night. So, militaryat six o’clock. If it detected moisture spec models used an iso­tope inside the watch, it changed of promethium to make the colour from blue-and-pink to pink. indications glow in the dark.

Another of Fiechter’s bright ideas These watches had, ‘Danger. concerned the bezel. He made it so If found, return to nearest that it could only be turned antimilitary facility,’ engraved clockwise. So if it was accidentally

Classic

Today’s Fifty is waterproof up to 300m

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Š JÜrg Mitter

Li k e What you Li k e

Your Moment.

Beyond the Ordinary

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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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WHAT’S INCLUDED Arrival 11am 2 nights’ accommodation Boot Camp breakfast, lunch & dinner menu (restricted calorie controlled diet) Pre-arrival support and communication Welcome talk & arrival Blood pressure check 4-6 Exercise sessions per full day Champneys massage 25 mins Thalassotherapy pool treatment 25 mins Diet and exercise talk Dedicated member of fitness to support and guide Complimentary robe hire & flip flops Depart 4pm (vacate room by 11am)

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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.

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KATHERINE HAWTHORNE

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

Your favourite artists share their personal playlists: Headphone Highlights on rbmaradio.com

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

Ride it

at Lee Valley VeloPark Track | BMX | Road | Mountain From

ÂŁ6 Book now

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Events

don’t miss festival Fun further afield

11 July

sun There’s not much music at the three-day Naadam fest in Mongolia.

The focus is on ‘manly sports’ like wild horse racing, archery and wrestling. Drink airag, the potent alcoholic mare’s milk that fuels competitors. discovermongolia.mn

19 sand Common man: Dai Greene is set to appear in Glasgow July 11-12

Scot sport For the first time in 44 years, Glasgow is hosting an athletics Grand Prix.

The Diamond League event is a big draw for star names – Usain Bolt, Mo Farah and former hurdles world champion Dai Greene have all competed in previous years, and it’s the perfect warm up for the Commonwealth Games, which kicks off in the city a couple of weeks later. diamondleague-london.com

What started as a group of mates dragging a sound system out to Spain’s Monegros Desert has become, 20 years later, the country’s biggest two-day celebration of electronic music. monegrosfestival.com

23 july

Enter now for September 20

July 18-19

Blaze a trail

Box clever

The Helly Hansen Beauty and the Beast trail marathon is designed to test runners to their limits. The Beauty comes courtesy of West Wycombe Park in Bucks, where six laps of ascents and descents will leave competitors questioning their sanity. Get training now. hellyhansenbeautyand thebeast.co.uk

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Since 2002, the Lovebox festival has filled Victoria Park in London with good vibes, banging bass, a fun fair and plenty more. This year is no exception, with big hitters like Nas and M.I.A. (right) appearing alongside some of the coolest new acts, like Bondax and Throwing Snow, who will be playing the Red Bull Music Academy stage. loveboxfestival.com

sea Europe’s biggest hip-hop festival, Fresh Island, has stars including Rick Ross, Method Man and DMX pitching up for three days on the beautiful pebble beach of Zcre in Croatia. fresh-island.org

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Rutger Pauw/Red Bull Content Pool, universalmusic, lv aquathlon, Cornelius Braun/Red Bull Content Pool

july

August 5

Double dose Anyone with energy left over after a day at work can test themselves on land and in lake at the Lee Valley Aquathlon, a two-sport race which pits people of all abilities against each other in an open water swim of either 250m or 500m, followed by a run of 3km or 5.5km around the East London scenic country park.

FOR EVERY ADVENTURE

visitleevalley.org.uk

July 12-13

Eyes on the skies The Flying Legends Air Show takes the historic IWM Duxford airfield in Cambridgeshire back to the 1940s.

On the ground, live wartime music, tanks and a vintage village set the scene. In the air, 70-year-old aircraft return to the skies they once dominated. This year they’re joined by The Flying Bulls, a collective of pilots bringing Allied planes to the party, among them the distinctive American WWII fighter, the P-38 Lightning. iwm.org.uk

Photo: Black Diamond/Keith Ladinski

27 SPECIALIST SHOPS NATIONWIDE London: Covent Garden, Westfield London, Westfield Stratford, Kensington High St & St.Paul’s One New Change • Cambridge Lion Yard • July 25-27

August 7-10

Petrol heaven

Country live

Every type of dream car will be parking up at the Silverstone Classic, their bonnets moistened by salivating petrolheads from around the world. Alongside the models on display, there’s racing action out on track courtesy of classic Formula One cars, a plethora of sportscars, touring cars and many more. silverstoneclassic.com

The Beacons Festival promises a seductive combination of music and arts in the Yorkshire Dales.

Some of the musical highlights include indie-rock outfit British Sea Power, rapper Action Johnson and beatmaster Erol Alkan. There’s a cinema, vintage market, live theatre and cabaret for the inter-dance downtimes. greetingsfrombeacons.com

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Xscape Milton Keynes • Bristol • Tamworth Snowdome • Manchester • Chester • Liverpool • Xscape Castleford/Leeds • Glasgow intu Braehead • Aviemore • Fort William The North Face Stores London: Covent Garden, St.Paul’s One New Change, Westfield London & Westfield Stratford • Cambridge Lion Yard • Sheffield Meadowhall

www.ellis-brigham.com Summer catalogue out now > follow us on

Magic Moment

The King of Greens golf tournament is for sporting stars who have achieved success in other disciplines. The winner of this year’s event, at Windlesham Golf Club, near London, was Scottish snowboarder Ben Kilner. Seen here, exiting the bunker in style, is freestyle skier PK Hunder of Norway, captured by photographer Lorenz Holder. king-of-greens.com

Bunker shots are easy. The trick is to not hit the ball Old golfing proverb lorenz holder

Sand now for something completely different

The next issue of the red bulletin is out on august 11 98

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RED BLOODED PERFORMANCE INFINITI Q50 EAU ROUGE CONCEPT www.infiniti.eu

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.eu