Soon we the fans will be voting to cut Nike's nine Chosen semifinalists into the three last crews standing. But how well do we really know these ruffians? It seemed only prudent to hit the top surf crews with a penetrating questionnaire.

Today's answers come from Hank Gaskell, Albee Layer and Matt Meola of the Chomp Proper crew.âè

Q: Who's the smartest member of your crew?

Hank: Me. I am oldest and wisest.âè
Albee: Well it's definitely not Matt. Probably not Dege. And I don't think it's Hank, either... Weird.

Matt: I'm pretty sure we all think we're the smartest.

Q: Who drives the best car?

Hank: Me. It's a silver 2004 Toyota Tacoma. Albee crashed his truck, Dege has a lame low-rider, and Matt's is like mine but an ugly red color with no 4WD.

Albee: I just totaled my truck. It was the coolest. The rest of them drive Tacomas, but Dege has a pretty amazing little beater truck that bottoms out on everything. Haha.

Matt: Dege has a mental Filipino low-rider truck with rims. He really fits in. Especially when he's home in Hana.

Q: What's one of your crew's finest moments?

Hank: The intake. Can't go into detail, sorry.âè
Albee: Definitely when we hiked up to that waterfall to do the slide and jump and whatnot. You had to be there kinda thing. It was a great time.

Matt: Willie Vibes at Veg Out.

Q: What's an embarrassing crew-member story involving a girl?

Hank: Wow, there are a few. All are R-rated though. I'd say Albee and a Mexican stripper. Sorry, no details again.
Albee: Matt's sex life. Ask him.

Matt: Hank has a super good one where he almost took out his own eye.

Q: If you guys were a band, who would you be?

Hank: Led Zeppelin. I feel like they had a lot of fun in their prime, as do we. I doubt we'll ever be as Rock 'N Roll as them, but Albee claims he can sing like Robert Plant.
Albee: "Dege and The Guys."
Matt: "Dege and The Guys."

Q: If you had to come up with another name for your crew, what would the backup name be?

Hank: Maui Boys, or Rainbow Unicorn Attack.
Albee: Probably something almost as lame as some of the other crews. Haha. Naming your crew is actually really hard to do without sounding cheesy. Luckily we have that random Chomp Proper thing that no one knows about.
Matt: The Chosen Ones.

Q: What's your crew's official drink?

Hank: Coconut water.
Albee: Ginger Rush. (I'm only 20.) Matt: Ginger Rush.

Q: If you could choose your winning surf trip in the Chosen contest, what would it be?

Hank: Boat trip to Indo. Can't go wrong with that.
Albee: I'm not sure. I think a boat trip would make everyone the happiest. I'd rather go on some mysto trip camping in the desert of West Oz or something though. But if it was a boat trip, I'd want Carissa to come. Haha.
Matt: I think an Indo boat trip would be insane.

Q: If your crew could get sponsored by one company, who would it be?

Hank: Nike would be pretty good! Haha, but I'd choose Apple, because I need a new computer.

Albee: The company that makes Ginger Rush, or Naked Juice.
Matt: Costco, so we could have endless BBQ supplies.

Q: What's a good crew-member fight story?

Hank: Albee and Dege had an MMA fight against each other. You can find it on YouTube. It was pretty funny, but Dege is too nice to really beat up Albee.
Albee: Me and Dege fought when we were like 16 because we bet each other we could beat the other one up. It turned out really lame 'cause a hundred people watched and everyone thought that we thought we were nuts. But we were just muckin' around.
Matt: They bet $100 that they could beat each other up. After the fight they both thought they won. Nobody got paid.

Q: If you could add a celebrity to your crew, who would you pick and why?

Hank: David Blaine, because he can do magic. We'd win for sure.
Albee: Jack White. He would supply the crew with amazing jams at all times. We'd win just 'cause of the background music.

Matt: Cat Stevens so he could play music at our BBQs.

Whether you're crafting the perfect sponsor-me video, making your first independent surf film, or dropping a creative crew edit in Nike's Chosen contest, editing skills are a must. But you don't have to be an expert; start with these tips from a real pro, San Clemente's Chris Steblay. Chris is the creative force behind the "Noticed" Neck Rash crew in Chosen, as well as a professional surf filmmaker for a laundry list of clients. Last week he gave tips on how to film surf action; today he brings you wisdom from the editing suite.

"Just like shooting, editing is an art form," says Chris. "It takes time and practice to get it down. With applications always changing and new software coming out monthly, it's not just about how well you can edit but also how well you stay on top of new developments. Sometimes you have to geek out a little bit and learn new ways to approach old things. Editing can overwhelm you when you're new to it, and people tend to over-amp and try to overdo it. Here are some tips to make the most of your time behind the computer and maximize the impact of your cut."

Chris's 5 tips on good editing:

1. Start small. If you're learning, don't jump right into the big leagues with Final Cut Pro. The program takes years to learn and will make your head explode if you are on a deadline. There are tons of entry-level programs that will help you get the basics of how video editing works. Then, when you're ready, step up and get a pro-level application. They are amazing, and once you know how to use them they'll treat you right.

2. Log your footage! There's nothing worse than getting asked for a clip years after you shot it and not being able to find it. The trick is to use keywords that will help you organize and find footage. Everyone has their own method of how they like to label clips, so play around and find one that works for you and your workflow.

3. Pick good music. Music is hard sometimes, especially if you have to work with a small selection of licensed tracks. The biggest trick is to not be too picky and choose stuff most people will like -- not just you and your friends. You might think Weird Al Yankovic is hot stuff, but most people won't sit through the video if they're over the song.

4. Easy on the effects. Film burns, jump cuts, and transitions -- they're all good stuff, but only in moderation. People tend to overdo it and get too hung up thinking the effects will make their video look better, but that's not always true. Less is more.

5.Trash the weak clips. Sometime guys get hung up on certain clips for any number of reasons. The fact is that if it sucks for any reason, you might not want it in your edit. It takes time and experience to figure out how to trim down, but it's all about coming across to your viewer at 100%. If you're struggling to fill three minutes, maybe chop it down to two and keep only the best stuff.

Check out more from Chris via his production company, Seeworthy Project, and check to see whose creative editing takes them to the semifinals in Nike's Chosen contest at the end of this month.

With just under a week left in The Chosen skate contest things are really heating up. That Skate Show's James Fitzgerald and Taylor Jett came out from Houston to try to live the California dream and man, are they doing it big. Big spins down Hollywood High? Check. Some nostalgia with a line on the Long Beach ledges? Check. Back to Hollywood High for a pro worthy banger ender? Check, check, check. These two skaters are definitely destined for big things and made the right move moving west to showcase their talents in skateboarding's backyard instead of praying and waiting to be discovered in Texas. Life is short and sometimes you got to go out into the world and seek out your dreams. We're stoked on these two young guys. Keep up the hard work. The skateboard world will be watching.

Dropping in with less than two weeks to go in the Nike Chosen contest, the Get Rad crew from Santa Cruz, CA wants to end it with a bang. They shimmied into the mix and quickly racked up hundreds of views and Likes, more by the minute, and are sure to push their campaign until closing time on July 30th. Get Rad is a crew you can stand behind -- good surfers, great humans -- as we learned in talking to crew member Kyle Thiermann. Here's what he spilled.

What's the word, Kyle?

Kyle Thiermann (Get Rad crew): Just been on Facebook. For the last few days I've spent more time on Facebook than in my entire life, telling all my friends to check out the movie.

How'd you hear about the contest, or what made you want to rally a crew?

I heard about it through [fellow crew member] Kyle Buthman. We're pretty much best friends, and we both cruise around and surf and make movies together. That's definitely an original thing about our crew: we're all the surfers and the filmmakers. We didn't hire a filmmaker to do this, we make it all ourselves.

Who's in your crew, and how did it come together?

There's me, 21, Kyle Buthman is 23, Austin Smith-Ford is 23, and Matt Meyers is 24.

We chose our crew based on the fact that we're all best friends and we surf together every day. Born and raised [in Santa Cruz]. We've been pretty much best friends since we were like 11 years old.

What's each guy into, outside of surfing? What do you do with yourselves?

One thing that I think is definitely unique about us is how we're all doing such completely different things with our lives, and I think it's cool that forums like the Nike Chosen contest, they allow for people to show their personality and get themselves out there, even if they're not the people who are on the 'CT.

Kyle, he's a filmer for Quiksilver -- he just took off to Puerto today to film the [Quiksilver Pro] for them.

I'm doing the Surfing For Change series, which is based on environmental and social activism, where I go on a surf trip and then cover an environmental issue happening there.

Austin Smith-Ford and Matt Myers are both doing their thing as well. Austin, aside from what we mentioned about him in the video, he's a pretty dynamic person. He participates in this youth program called The Core, where it's getting the youth of Santa Cruz into healthy activities. So like every Wednesday night they go and have dodgeball tournaments, or they have surf classes where Austin will go teach the kids how to surf -- just healthy activities. Him and Matt Myers are pretty much heading up The Core this year, which is pretty cool.

Then Matt is also a Junior Guard in the summer. I know we all talked about him kind of being the partier of the crew, which he is, but at the same time he's involved so much in helping kids out.

What are your plans for the next two weeks to try to get Chosen?

We actually just printed shirts, so we've got T-shirts coming out around town. You can see on our profile, the Get Rad shirts. Then I just talked to the Santa Cruz Sentinel and they're doing an article about it. The thing is that we entered kind of late in the game, so we're coming from behind, but we're getting a huge amount of support and we're climbing the ranks pretty fast. The next step is for Nike to Notice us, because once they Notice a crew it blasts it out to a much wider audience. But I just sent a message out to my Surfing For Change email list -- definitely using all the social media techniques I've used for my activism movies for this contest as well.

Straight out of the fine print in Nike's Chosen contest, a winner will advance and be selected "based on which Crew best embodies the values of style, creativity and camaraderie." See that first word? Style. It always matters, out of the water as much as in. And few know style like this cat: Matt Meola of the Chomp Proper crew. Here are his thoughts on the subject.


Matt Meola:

"I appreciate rail surfing a lot just because I think that's my weak point, probably because of what I grew up surfing. I surf in super windy conditions and I was always just trying to do airs. It definitely shows here on Maui, 'cause most of the kids from the north shore where it's windy and bumpy, they don't have the same style as the kids from the west side who surf Honolua Bay all the time. It definitely shows. Me and Albee [Layer], I feel we surf really similar. We surf together every day in the same spots. And then like Granger [Larsen] and Dusty [Payne], who are both from the west side, they have the whole power-carve thing down."

"So when I see people doing super gnarly carves like Parko and Mick, that gets me psyched just because I'm not that good at them. It looks like the simplest thing but really it's pretty hard to do, and if you can do those with style and then link into other big moves I think it makes a good surfer."

"For someone who's not a surfer, it's probably hard to recognize what good and bad style is. But if you're a surfer, I think we're all super picky on where your arms are when you're doing an air and if you're butt's sticking out and stuff like that."

"I feel like in surfing, style is everything. You can be doing the craziest stuff ever, but if you're style's all flailing around, no matter what you're doing it's going to look bad."