JON RAY CASE STUDY
A merican action man Jon Ray took up snowboarding aged 12, then found surfing in his twenties. For a lot of that time, he loved to shoot videos of himself and his friends in action. “I was filming from a young age with my friends who skateboarded. Using my dad’s Panasonic DV camera, we would make our own videos, editing tape to tape until I realised you could do it on a computer,” he recalls. At age 16, he took filmmaking more seriously, investing in a Sony VX1000 – the camera of choice for boarding at that time. “I also realised all my friends were better than me at those sports, so I shifted my focus to filming and editing. Then I really got into the technical side of cameras, lenses and editing. “Fashion also goes hand-in-hand in the skate-and-snow world. You get caught was born to get into the world of board sports. He started serious skateboarding when he was nine,
else in-between, whether on-set or off. Lighting, colourist, sound engineer – I did it all,” he says. “It was an honour and privilege working at such a huge brand within the action sports industry. I got to meet amazing people along the way and produced a lot of really cool projects around the world.” That opened up a world of epic locations and incredible athletes to film. But also, a level of expense that even large clients often can’t fund. “Many of the challenges faced in filming snowboarding, skateboarding and surfing are budgetary. But it opens you up to being more creative. I have found myself upset over not receiving what I think is enough budget to make certain things happen, but that should never hold you back. “Once you get over the fact that the action sports world will never be what it was in the golden era of the early to mid-noughties, it opens things up creatively. Some of the most memorable
up in the music and art spheres and begin to draw inspiration from outside sources. You eventually find yourself involved in other facets and genres of the arts,” says Ray. That move into the fashion side of extreme sports led to a dream job at clothing brand Quiksilver, based in the south-west of France. He upped sticks from the US and relocated, becoming the brand’s global content production editor. “I wore many hats in my role at Quiksilver, including editor, director, producer, cinematographer and everything “All my friends were better than me at sports, so I shifted my focus to filming and editing”
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