Whippets: What Went Down During the Making of Kids

Eric Alan Edwards, the acclaimed cinematographer behind Kids,, in his debut solo show Whippets , adds another chapter to the film’s lore. Through his vivid snapshots and memorabilia documenting the Kids’ creation, Edwards offers an intimate glimpse of it’s most iconic scenes. He believes the photographs in Whippets are “voyeuristic images of a film that is in itself voyeuristic” allowing viewers to take from the exhibition what they wish; whether it’s the cast’s attitude of rebellion or a sense of anti-try hard style that has inspired numerous street brands and skate crews.

Kids, and the ethos that goes along with it, is deeply rooted in NYC but has unexpectedly become a cultural touchstone and cult favorite amongst the new wave of Japanese skaters. It’s fitting then, that Whippets premiered at Galerie Hideout, a migratory art gallery taking place in Shibuya’s Mustard Hotel under the curation of Johnny Le. The event featured a live DJ set from Makoto Nagatomo, the founder of Upstairs Records and Bar, a Shimokitazawa hub for rare vinyls and drinks, which included sandwiches from BUY ME STAND, a skater favorite for quick bites, and apples flown in from the Japanese Alps from Son of the Smith. The opening evoked a close knit community energy while drawing in an eclectic crowd including everyone from the movie’s diehard fans to the next generation of Tokyo’s underground, proof that Kids and Edwards’ photos still resonate 29 years later.

<em>Installation view, Eric Alan Edwards: Whippets, Galerie Hideout, Mustard Hotel Shibuya, Shibuya City, Tokyo, September 4—11, 2023. Courtesy Johnny Le</em> — *Installation view, Eric Alan Edwards: Whippets, Galerie Hideout, Mustard Hotel Shibuya, Shibuya City, Tokyo, September 4—11, 2023. Courtesy Johnny Le*

Whippets is a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the movie Kids when it was initially shot in 1994. In addition to taking the BTS photography featured in this exhibition, you were also the cinematographer of the film. How did you get involved with Kids?

The way I got involved with Kids was, I was shooting a film with Gus Van Sant in Toronto called To Die For with Nicole Kidman. Gus is one of the executive producers on it, he gave Larry my name, and then I just flew down for the weekend from Toronto to New York to interview with him and Harmony. We went around looking for locations and I liked them immediately, so I agreed to do it. When I was finished with To Die For I basically had two weeks before they wanted to start filming, so I went down to New York and jumped right into it.

Was your partnership with Larry and Harmony a leap of faith or did you have a premonition of how influential the film would become?

I responded to the script. But when I read a script, it's still this way, at first it seems like just a bunch of words on a blank sheet of paper. I like to think that a script is like an architect's blueprint for a building. But in a way it's even less information than that because I can’t imagine all the images that are going to be there. I have to go look at locations and then it builds slowly. I was 38, 39, 40 years old? These guys [the cast] are all 15, 16, down to 13 years old. Those little guys on the couch scene, they were 13.

In many ways Kids seemed equally like a recipe for disaster or an opportunity for a groundbreaking piece of art. What was the general mood when taking these photographs?

Kids certainly had the potential to fail given that there were no experienced actors. I don't think Rosario [Dawson] or Chloë had acted before this. But of course Chloë had a certain status and was known as kind of the “It” girl, for style in New York even then.

Harmony's script was amazingly tight, it was very well paced and it was complete. Larry was completely fresh to directing but he had intense street smarts. He's heavy duty, he experienced the things this film was all about in his own life. It's certainly not a documentary, nor is it a documentary drama, it's not something where we just collected footage, everything was staged and everything was worked out.

But I think the amazing thing is that all of these actors and these non-actors were amazingly good. They were authentic, and there was never a weak moment in the whole thing. They were skateboarders and they were good. Their purpose in life was to escape, not to be in a movie.

I think the amazing thing is that all of these actors and these non-actors were amazingly good. They were authentic, and there was never a weak moment in the whole thing. They were skateboarders and they were good. Their purpose in life was to escape, not to be in a movie.

Were the behind the scenes antics captured in your photos as chaotic as what happened on screen?

It's funny because I went back and read the scripts and watched the movie again recently. The thing that was amazing is that how tightly Justin and Leo are doing their lines. They might vary a verb or two, but they're pretty bang on page. There was a bit of chaos when making the movie, Justin getting out of control and stuff. You know, for kids that were that young..well I couldn't have done it that age. I think they were smart. For them to memorize those lines and be able to repeat them, they were just naturals at it.

Where it got crazy was when you had all the boys in one room doing whippets and then you had all the girls in their room. We were cross-cutting between two places in the city. The dialogue the girls had to cover was, again, really specific. In those scenes when you had that many girls in a room or you had that many boys in a room, they were throwing lines around and often if there was a mistake or some girl forgot her line, another girl would get it in. It was almost like, they jumped in because they were all talking in the same spontaneous way. The great thing about shooting in really cheesy apartments was that it was real. And that came through really clearly.

Kids was lauded for its realism and achieved that by casting mostly non-actors. It seems like the cast really took their roles seriously, were they thinking “This is really going to become something!’ or sort of like “Okay, this is a gig I’m doing”?

I think Leo and Justin both were pretty serious about it. You know, they knew that they were acting in a movie. I don't know if they sought out to be actors before this movie happened or not. That's a good question… like, what were they in it for? Larry really marshaled a lot of goodwill about it. They were sort of all in on the deal, you know, and I think Larry made them comfortable.

Nobody was under any kind of pressure. They could kind of toss it off and not [go through with the film], but, to a degree, somebody had an ambition to be an actor, it's kind of mixed. So I think a lot of people just came in and were like “Yeah okay, I'll do it”. Larry had the ear for it. I think that's a tribute, something to be said about Larry's casting abilities, they were good.

Kids started out as unflinching narrative about teendom but has evolved into a fashion mood board, influencing everyone from local skaters to the designers behind brands like BOTT and Son of The Cheese. Why do you think Kids has such an enduring style legacy?

Kids, if it was anything, it was an attitude. No matter what participant you were, you had this attitude. It was very much a street thing. The script and therefore the film spoke the language. They walked the walk and talked the talk.

But see what was happening then in terms of clothes and music... I know one woman came into the gallery in Tokyo and she was pointing out the shoes in [one of my pictures] to me. She goes, “Oh, those are Air Walks and those are this and this and this”. And it's funny because I was looking at the shoes earlier when I was setting the show up, I was kind of looking at the shoes going, “How many of these shoes do I know”? Because I just used to wear my Simple OS sneakers or I’d wear Converse. But [in the film there was] Supreme, there was Stüssy... I really like the Stüssy shirts you know? Those were kind of established brands then. So it was kind of... manufacturers were capitalizing on this whole scene. Chloë was an influencer before the word was invented.

The great thing about shooting in really cheesy apartments was that it was real. And that came through really clearly.

Whippets debuted in Tokyo at Galerie Hideout and attracted a crowd of skaters who weren’t even born when Kids came out. Why do you think the movie has such an unexpectedly big impact in Japan and the new generation?

I think the film is universal because it speaks the language of the street and more importantly, it speaks to youth. It had such veracity. It showed that there's an adult in the room that understands, yet it's made by somebody older than the kids. I mean that's kind of the medium and the message, right?

I understand even as someone on the outside looking at Japan, that [as a society] it can be conformist, they're taught to play well with others, you know? I can only speculate how much unrest there is in youth or when you're an adolescent [in Japan]. I really was wondering when I was in Tokyo, “What does this mean to them”? I just know that to the people I talked to, it was important to them.

Kaito (the founder of skate label Son of The Cheese and a Tokyo underground legend) said it was the reason he started skateboarding. I think it’s because it's truthful about [adolescence] and when you're discovering sexuality. It's broader than just rebellion. It's a very nihilistic movie really when I look at it. It's very dark, but there's good in people and they have innocence as well.

Why choose to display the photos in Whippets now, decades after the snapshots were taken?

I've had a still camera in my hand since I was 10 years old. And I've always been keen on it. I prolifically take pictures. I'm just one of those. Even then, when it was expensive, and you had to consider each picture because it was on film and not digital. In the early films I worked on, people tended to use my pictures when they were doing publicity because some of the films that we were working on were very cheap movies. Sometimes those were the only pictures they had. I always just let them use them.

It's more of a memoir. It's more of a journal. I've always had them [the pictures in Whippets] because sometimes they've been used for publicity. But I've never put them together in a way to form a show. The reason is because I'm busy and I'm usually shooting movies. I think it was going over to Japan and realizing people in another country had seen the film. And Japan can't just be the only country that saw it. It seems like it's culturally sort of important [to viewers in Japan].

I have a lot of pictures, if you saw 10 pictures there [at the exhibit], there’s really about 25 I really wanted to build the show into. I took the opportunity because Johnny Le offered it to me [Whippets’ curator] just to show them also, the [Mustard Hotel] offered so I jumped at that chance to do it. Strangely, this is the first time I've done it. And there's a lot more pictures. So I'll probably keep trying to do all of it.

This is your debut solo photo exhibition after a pretty impressive career as a cinematographer, what’s next in your journey as a photographer?

I've been wanting to do a book on Gus Van Sant. Gus and I met each other in 1974 as juniors in high school and we became buddies. And I just took thousands of pictures. So I have 30 years of pictures of him. It's a little bit of a vanity sort of thing, but I really would like to do a book that has a volume of these pictures. Just the repetition of so many pictures is interesting. And also aging as you go is interesting. I think it's gonna be a weird format though. It's gonna be kind of like, I don't wanna say experimental, cause nothing's experimental in the world… I’ll have fun with it. But in the interest of the viewer somebody better narrow it down. [Laughs]

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The Club Is Coming to the Stage

We enter and make our way to what is approximately front left of the DJ booth, where we’re accustomed to dancing at clubs in New York. “So is this a techno club or a dance performance?” yells an uncertain participant in my boyfriend’s ear. He laughs, bouncing along to Ben UFO, and yells back, “It’s both!” The club has long been a hot topic in European contemporary dance but it is only now making its way into New York performance venues, largely through transatlantic tours. R.O.S.E. follows recent examples like Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1 (May 2024), (LA)HORDE’s Room with a View at NYU Skirball (October 2023), and Gisèle Vienne’s Crowd at BAM (October 2022).

Do these performances compromise the club’s spirit — a space idealized for its anonymity, dark lighting, and thundering music? The notion of the club as a utopian escape is admittedly just that — an ideal — because of how its intense conditions can create barriers to entry. Still, the club remains sacred for many, a place to forge connections and embrace an alternative state of being. Looking at how performances transfer this spirit to new settings reveals what aspects of the club are essential and those that aren’t.

Sharon Eyal, R.O.S.E. 2024. Photography by Stephanie Berger, courtesy of Park Avenue Armory.

Eyal’s dancers make their entrance. The lighting shifts from roving blue to yellow spotlights as Ben UFO’s tracks transition to more melodic beats. Clad in deconstructed lace Dior lingerie with dark red tears painted on their faces, the dancers move cautiously in a tightly maintained pack, slicing paths through the horde with hoof-like steps and jerky leg extensions. After around ten minutes of this controlled choreography, the dancers vanish as the lighting shifts back to blue and Ben UFO picks up his dubby beats. The club, as we knew it, resumes. This cycle of tightly executed movements and free-flowing club-goers repeats several times, each time emboldening the dancers to plunge further into the crowd.

Clubbing in a building once built for the U.S. Army National Guard on Manhattan’s Upper East Side turns out to be surprisingly successful — at least for the audience. What starts as an awkward, scattered group searching for their non existent seats gradually gels into an engaged, bouncing crowd that erupts in cheers each time the dancers enter and exit. Performance patrons who might never step foot in a club find themselves swept up in its potential for communion, moving in unison with fellow ticket holders. But it isn’t until the very end of R.O.S.E. that the dancers finally break free from Eyal’s choreography and join the fired-up audience in a brief moment of improvisatory movement with the music. By keeping her dancers at arm’s length, Eyal seems more interested in the club as a backdrop for her signature movement style than wholly as a space with meaningful stories to be told.

Michele Rizzo, HIGHER xtn. 2024. Photography by Cameron Kelly courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Back in May, I attended Wire Festival, a multiday electronic music event at Knockdown Center that had no shortage of organically united dancefloors. It attracted a crowd of seasoned ravers who were eager to celebrate the start of spring as they danced alongside DJs who played well into the daylight. I left Wire in an afternoon daze to see Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1. My sleepless euphoria only deepened as the performance unfolded, starting with a lone dancer who looked plucked out of the festival.

The dancer, dressed in sneakers, baggy jeans, and a tight tank top, shuffled slowly into the gallery, perfectly in sync with the looping bars of an understated electronic melody. Soon, other dancers, clad in the same staple rave uniform, joined him — each having traveled from Europe for the U.S. museum debut of HIGHER xtn., which premiered at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2018 and quickly became a fixture at kunsthalles and festivals across the continent. As the score’s tempo climbed, the choreography locked into a 16-count sequence, which the dancers executed with precise synchrony. They remained intensely focused, never making eye contact with each other, as they sought release in the endless repetition of synthesized beats. Once the dancers reached their limit, they stopped the sequence and exited the gallery, one by one.

HIGHER xtn. used the focused daylight of the gallery to highlight the meditative release found in the repetitive movements that dominate dark dancefloors. The performance’s restraint brought more consistency and intentionality than Eyal’s all-encompassing club construction in R.O.S.E. Yet both performances offer enticing entry points into club culture for those who may not frequent raves. Rizzo’s ecstatic, hypnotic repetitions reveal how the club can mirror other meditative practices, while Eyal’s interpolation of performance and clubbing helped hesitant audience members blossom by the end. Still, both works overlook one of the most underappreciated aspects of clubbing — its potential for individual expression. HIGHER xtn.’s pristine uniformity especially risks promoting the outdated techno trope that there’s a “right” way to dance to electronic music.

Maybe this shortcoming is, in fact, a benefit. For habitual ravers jaded by one too many sunrise sets, it’s a reminder to return to the club with more intention. If you pause and peer through the darkness, you’ll see hundreds of people moving to the same beat, each with their own subtle variations. This collective choreography is a ready-made spectacle that doesn’t need validation in a theater or museum. And when the music shifts slightly, you can watch the ripple effect sweep through the crowd while feeling the new beat in your body. Maybe this small bit of magic is best left on the dance floor.

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Porsche SCOPES Brings Art, Music, and Design to Toronto

The festival was a full immersion into Toronto’s dynamic creative energy. Day one set the tone with DJ collective Living Room, followed by an experimental performance by Claire Rousay that captivated the crowd. Jewelry designer Steff Eleoff unveiled her Porsche Taycan 4S art car installation—a bold fusion of automotive and wearable art inspired by her Sedona ring—while OVO Sound’s Naomi Sharon and DVSN wrapped up the night with powerful, genre-defying performances.

We witnessed SCOPES Toronto bridging underground and mainstream with day two’s lineup. DJ Korea Town Acid’s set paved the way for Angelphroot and Dameer’s debut of BASSMATI, a track blending South Asian influences with bass-driven sounds. Chippy Nonstop’s return to Toronto and Richie Hawtin’s extended set were milestones of the evening, proving that the city’s underground scene has a global resonance.

The final day featured standout performances from local pianist Harrison, Indigenous artist Tia Wood, and hip-hop visionary Sean Leon, who elevated his set with a live choir. Moonshine Collective’s film and musical performance explored themes of African utopia, showcasing art’s power to bridge culture and technology. Rising Toronto star SadBoi, who paused her tour to perform at SCOPES, further underscored the festival’s commitment to nurturing local talent.

Throughout the weekend, we experienced installations from artists like Mitsu Mitsu and culinary creations from Bar Mordecai, capturing the multifaceted creativity Porsche SCOPES brought to Toronto. This milestone 10th edition, open to all, allowed Toronto’s vibrant arts scene to thrive, underscoring SCOPES’ mission to celebrate local talent while connecting it to a global audience.

office had the chance to connect with rising star SadBoi ahead of the event. In our conversation, she shared insights into her creative journey and reflected on what performing and growing up in Toronto means to her and her work.

How are you, and where are you at right now? You told me you were traveling.

Um, I’m good, I’m feeling really good right now. I’m traveling back to Salt Lake City. I had a show yesterday in Seattle. I’m on tour right now with Coco and Claire.

How is touring life treating you? Do you like it?

I love being on the road. To be honest, I feel like I don’t know—like I’ve had good experiences and bad ones—but this time it’s really fun, especially with the people I’m surrounded by. It’s also the longest tour I’ve been on; I have about four more weeks to go. I’m trying not to think about how many days I have left.

Do you feel homesick?

Yes, because when I start thinking about how many days are left, I start to miss my dogs. I’ve just been trying to stay in the moment—I don’t even know what day of the week it is, to be honest with you.

Oh, sweet! What are your dogs’ names?

Jillian and Winston. I know, they’re crazy names.

You’ll be performing at SCOPES in Toronto, which is where you grew up. Do you feel like the crowd is different when you perform in Toronto compared to other cities?

Yes, I mean, Toronto just feels different because it’s home. Every time I come back to perform, something in my career has changed. The last time I performed in Toronto, people just wanted to have a good time, and I’m excited to perform back home again to see everyone’s reactions. I know it’s going to be different from the last time. It’s exciting to see your own growth. Toronto is a tough crowd, though. If we’re with you, we’re really with you.

So, they’re super picky? You have to gain their respect, or what is it?

I think Toronto people are in their own world, but when something really connects with them, they’ll lose themselves in the moment. But it takes something to bring them out of that. Toronto crowds are tough because even if they like you, they won’t show it outright until they’re really vibing with you.

It’s like a vibe check, right?

Exactly. They’ll enjoy your performance, but it’s hard to explain. When people visit Toronto, they often say, “Oh, you guys are so nice,” and I’m like, “I don’t think we’re that nice, we’re just polite.” Like, you can walk down the street, and no one will say anything, but it’s just our mannerisms.

You mentioned Toronto can have a moody energy, especially at night, and that the underground night scene there really inspires you. Can you talk more about what makes Toronto's nightlife so influential for you?

Absolutely, Toronto has this unique energy that comes alive at night. Similar to New York, there are the popular clubs everyone knows, but you need to find your niche—the people who know where the real parties are. I remember going to raves in high school yards, sneaking in because I wasn’t old enough. Events like Baby, Jerk!, and Yes Yes Y’all were pivotal, exposing me to DJs blending dancehall with EDM—something I hadn’t seen before. Toronto nightlife is moody and intense, but when everyone’s out, it’s like the whole city is alive.