Jackson Sjogren’s film and book Stuck Between Moments is a refreshing glimpse at what it means to experience contemporary adulthood. Developed over the course of several years between classes, breaks, schools, cities, and jobs, this is a collection of moments re-imagined. With a discerning eye for details quickly forgotten, Sjogren re-defines his sense of memory and nostalgia through a prismatic display of images once captured. Stuck Between Moments commands a displacement of the past and present, where memory is confronted with a novel vision of what once was. This is Sjogren’s vision of skateboarding; a vision beyond risk and skill, a dream of motion, memory, and discovery.

Sjogren’s images become timeless and meaningful in his Stuck Between Moments book, collected from the film alongside unrelased 35mm and 120mm photography.  

Find out how Sjogren developed and executed these ideas in his film and book, where he drew inspiration from, and what his take on the future of the modern skate video is below ︎︎︎

When did you start filming Stuck Between Moments, and when did you finish?

I finished my first video Color Space in 2016. Everyone was going to college and it wasn’t until the following winter in 2017 I filmed a couple clips of Jackson, Oliver, and Alex while we were on winter break. We filmed randomly like we always do. The next time was 6 months after that. Between school, it was just filming whenever people were on break and we could all hangout.

What was the initial concept like? How did you arrive at what you wanted your video to be?

Because the clips were so random, I had no idea what to do with them. I just knew that I didn't want to throw them on Instagram or post them randomly to YouTube. I really don’t like throw away clips. I enjoy sitting down and actually watching a long video that you can tell someone put a lot of effort into. I waited patiently to see what clips I got, and see what I could make with them.

How did you achieve the B-Roll?

I have always been interested in a certain aesthetic for B-roll. With Color Space I started to film VHS stuff and messed around with those images. This project is an extension of me messing around with those ideas. I used a mix of VHS, Super 8, and Standard Definition VX. I had a loose idea of what I wanted to capture but I didn't have a main concept until after. The concept came into the edit, where I had all this random stuff and asked myself, What do I want this to be about? And how do I manipulate all these different things to turn into that?

I eventually determined that I wanted to make a video on memory and motion. About how motion and memory interplay through skateboarding. How skateboarding is a good representation of how we create memories while in constant motion.

You want to film skating because you want to see what it looks like out of your perspective, and you also want to remember it.

That was a big thing too. I wanted to focus on the in-between moments. The moments that you are not consciously aware of, that are actually really special. I think a lot of that exists in skateboarding. These tiny moments that aren't the trick, but embody the idea of skateboarding.

What's some of the B-roll that comes to mind when you think about that?

Glimpses of someone’s face as they go for it, or falling, or jumping through the air, or messing up on a trick and laughing about it, or looking around their surroundings. All these seemingly insignificant actions that take place on and around what is happening. It's not necessarily why I am there.

When I was shooting the Super 8, I wasn’t shooting thinking, “Oh it’d be cool if I filmed him do this ollie”. I don’t necessarily care too much about the landings. It’s the little bails and random thinks that I care about the most.

That seems counterproductive to shooting with Super 8. You have one shot if you don't want to waste the film. So the approach of what youre talking about, capturing those in-between moments, seems very difficult. You would want to film everything, but that is wasteful with film. How do you find yourself able to capture those non-moments?

I mean, one of the things I don’t like in videos is when all the B-roll is footage of the skaters rolling up to a spot, and then the high definition footage is them doing the trick. I want there to be separation. I don't want the b-roll to be normal skating.  There is the skating, then there is the life of the skater who is doing it.

Also, I like the idea of skaters being in the most random locations in order to skate. The places you end up going to just to skate a spot, places no normal person would ever be. I only know what I don’t like, which is the formulaic approach to B-roll; skater rolling up, skater looking at the spot, trick. I was consciously trying to avoid that while shooting. Other than that it was random documenting.

I feel like the video was well balanced between the b-roll and the skating, and it kept its pace throughout. How did you manage that balance?

I’m a big fan of Pontus Alv (Polar Skate Co.), and he said somewhere that a viewer of a skate video should never be subjected to more than 30 seconds of skating. I think that is a really good rule to follow. You’re not making skate videos for skaters only. You want them to be enjoyable for everyone. When it’s constant skating, for someone that’s not familiar with it, that’s not very appealing. You become numb to it. I had that in mind while editing it, and I wanted there to be a balance between the skating, and the reprieve from it as well.

Why did you choose the music you did? And do you think it worked well?

I wanted the music to connect to some degree. I didn’t want it to be too boring, like the same song over and over again, but I wanted it to feel like a good playlist, songs that flow together and have a similar theme to the video; this idea of memory, motion, and dream. I really enjoy the films of Gregg Araki, who uses a lot of Slowdive and other shoegaze bands. That style most aligned with what I aimed to portray.

Do you think you brought anything you learned from school into making this video?

Laughs. I know that if my teacher would have seen my editing process, she would have thought I was a complete moron. I went about it the worst way. Everything was disorganized, clips from all over, everywhere. It was a nightmare. But this was also very important to the video.

I really enjoyed the process of reshaping everything into something that was coherent. The madness of pulling everything together and making it into something that makes sense, was very rewarding. But trying to do that is really hard, and moving forward I’m going to avoid doing it that way. I’ll do small scale stuff like that, but not a big project, it’s good to have a general idea behind things in the beginning.

Was there anything/anyone else that inspired you to make this video specifically?

A big thing for me was finding outside influences, whether it was meeting people, or watching more movies, or just getting out of the bubble of what I typically watched/experienced.

For specific people, it would have to be Julian Klincewicsz, David Lynch, and Harmony Korine. They all have a very distinct visual style which inspired me. This video was a process of discovering that for myself.

The skaters that were in this video, there was a different batch than the last video. What did they bring to the film, other than their skating, if anything?

It was cool to include different crews. As everyone is growing up people are heading in different directions and you don't see everyone as often. It's cool to introduce different people into the group. That’s a cool part about skateboarding, you get such diverse groups of people coming together around one thing.

The title is Stuck Between Moments. Can you explain that?

The first meaning is literal. All of us in this transitional period of our lives, getting through college, taking moments in between school, like holidays and weekends, to get together to skate, and make something out of it.

The second meaning is about the in between vignettes I aimed to capture. The details of the skater and the skateboarding, the way people's bodies move, and capturing the unintentionality of what people do. I would film something I didn’t think I wanted, and then find out later that I did.

And the last meaning is a joke, but the editing process of being stuck between this mess of footage.

Three levels deep to this title.

Yeah, it’s a little much. Laughs.


I think we all were stoked to see any footage. Was there ever any pressure to get tricks, or to finish the video?

The pressure was there randomly. I remember Alex and I going out a couple times and being like, I leave for school tomorrow, lets do something gnarly really quick. It's always impossible to find a last trick, but I think that this was a cool thing about the video. Most of the clips in the video are clips of us skating, randomly at a spot, hanging out, and no pressure getting clips. I don’t think there was very much pressure on anyone.

But at the same time, the skating was really good. I think every skater showed considerable progression.

Oh 100%. I think everyone, especially from Color Space, was considerably better, and that’s always cool to see.

It was cool as a viewer who was there for Color Space, to see Alex have the opening part again. It was like “Alright, this is a Jackson video.” And then it became what it was from there which was sick.

Hell yeah. The project definitely serves as a documentation of everyone's progression in skating and my own personal progression with making art and videos.

What was something that you brought to this video that your previous video Color Space didn't have?

Virtually everything. Laughs. I wanted it to be more connected and I wanted it to mean more. I think that's a big struggle with skate videos. It’s a fine line between filming skating, and wanting it to mean more than tricks. Not to talk bad to any of the skaters in it, but it’s not like we’re the gnarliest skaters out right now. The bar is so high so it's not like we're going to be hitting that. But I wanted it to be more than just the tricks, and I wanted the video to speak more to the skaters themselves. I wanted to capture them as individuals, this time in our lives, and bring the viewer into that space.

Dope.



Alright. Who’s the worst skate filmmaker out right now?

Laughs. I’m not a big fan of homie videos that are an hour long. Hijinks stuff, not a fan of that at all. Unless I know these people, then why do I care if your homie is screaming in the camera, or telling off a security guard?

What’s the worst trend in skate videos?

I think a pretty awful trend is demeaning different people. I really hate how in a lot of videos there is like a homeless dude, or random people on the street, and skaters are on this level above everyone else.

I'm not a fan of skaters being put on a pedestal above normal people. And I think that is in a lot of skate videos. Like a hot girl walking by, and skaters yelling some shit.  

We’re just trying to have fun.

No fun.

Well, great work on the video Jackson. Thank you!

Thank you!