William Strobeck (born March 17, 1978) is an American filmmaker, director, videographer, and photographer based out of New York City.[4][5][6][7] Strobeck directed the skate videos: cherry (2014), BLESSED (2018), CANDYLAND (2019), STALLION (2021) and PLAY DEAD (2022).[8][9][10][11][12]
Early life
Born in Syracuse, New York to a single mother, Strobeck grew up with his grandmother, mother, and other family members.[13] His mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when Will was growing up which resulted in her not being around for a period.[13] Strobeck moved around living with different family members until his mother found proper treatment.[13] After receiving treatment and reentering his life, Strobeck's mother encouraged his creativity and freedom.[13] Strobeck describes the void left by his mother's partial absence in his childhood as having a strong influence on his creativity.[14]
Filmmaking
As a young teenager in the 1990s, Strobeck first started filming his friends outside the Everson Museum of Art in the center of Syracuse.[15] At the time, the museum considered skating an art form and allowed the skaters to skate the plaza in front of it.[15]
In 1996, Strobeck moved to Philadelphia at the age of 17.[16] Strobeck filmed skateboarding during the Love Park skate scene from 1997 until 2003.[17] As the popularity of the Philadelphia skateboard scene grew, Alien Workshop offered Strobeck a daily retainer to be a skate videographer for the company.[14] By 1998, Strobeck had quit community college and doing deliveries to work on the Alien Workshop video Photosynthesis full time.[14] In 2004, Strobeck self funded a day in the life film starring Mark Gonzales and Jason Dill, titled DIZZY.[18]
In 2006, Strobeck directed "McBeth - Mark Gonzales" - The Journal, No. 17 - starring Mark Gonzales, running 12 minutes and released with Krooked skateboards.[19]
In 2009, Strobeck teamed up with Gonz and Jason Schwartzman to make the video for the track 'Any Fun' by Schwartzman's Coconut Records' solo project.[5]
Strobeck produced a section for TransWorld's 24th video, The Cinematographer Project, released in 2012, featuring Mark Gonzales, Alex Olson, Jake Johnson, Austyn Gillette, Danny Garcia, Dylan Rieder, and Jason Dill.[5]
In 2012, Strobeck released a short film: "My Lovely Mess," featuring Chris Kennedy, Lizzi Bougatsos, Chloe Sevigny, Lily Ludlow, Stacy Strobeck, Tara Subkoff, David Clark, Alex Olson, Lil' Naomi, and Natasha Lyonne.[20] "My Lovely Mess" was described by one reviewer as "haunting but often very funny."[21]
Also in 2012, Strobeck began filming his first feature length video for Supreme called Cherry.cherry was released in 2014, featuring a large variety of skaters in a series of montages accompanied by a two parts, one by Paulo Diaz and one shared part by Dylan Rieder and Alex Olson.[22] Cherry, Supreme's first skate video in almost 20 years, received positive reviews from fans and critics.[23][24]
In 2015, Strobeck released SICKNESS, a collaboration between Supreme and Thrasher that is set in the San Francisco Bay Area. Featuring Aidan Mackey, Sean Pablo, Sage Elsesser, Tyshawn Jones, and Kevin Bradley.[26]
In 2016, Strobeck released Pussy Gangster a 10-minute long collaboration with Supreme featuring Tyshawn Jones, Sage Elsesser, Kevin Bradley, Sean Pablo, Ben Kadow, Na-kel Smith and others.[27]
In 2016, Strobeck released KING PUPPY a 5-minute long collaboration between Supreme x Nike SB, featuring Grant Taylor, Kevin Bradley, Eric Koston, Sage Elsesser, and Sean Pablo.[28][29]
In 2018, Strobeck released the 84 minute-long BLESSED, also through the Supreme brand studio. BLESSED features 2018 SOTY Tyshawn Jones, Ben Kadow, Aidan Mackey, Sean Pablo, Vincent Touzery, Jason Dill, Kevin Bradley, Mark Gonzales, Na-Kel Smith, Sage Elsesser, and others.[30][31][11][4]
In 2019, Supreme (in collaboration with San Francisco-based skate crew GX1000) and Strobeck released CANDYLAND, a feature length skate video dedicated to Pablo Ramirez.[10]
In March of 2021, Strobeck released STALLION, another feature length video that was filmed in Milan and meant to coincide with the opening of Supreme's Milan store.[32]
In November of 2021, Strobeck released MIND GOBLIN , a twenty minute full length video filmed in Berlin featuring Tyshawn Jones, Sage Elsesser, Kader Sylla, Ben Kadow, and others filmed in Berlin such as Vincent Touzery .[33]
Supreme - full length video - filmed in Berlin[33]
Photography
Art exhibitions
In November 2019, William Strobeck opened an art show, My Lovely Mess, at MILK gallery featuring large scale photographs, projectors playing his skate videos, and a recreation of his bedroom in the middle of the gallery.[61][62][63][64][65]