Skateboarding tool repurposed to help find locations

Another post about skateboarding! Kind of...

The other day in class, instead of doing my work, I was doing skateboard related things on my computer. More specifically looking for more hills to skate down. Arturo walked up behind me, and instead of criticizing me for not doing my work, he was interested in the website I was using. Its called "findhills.com" and its pretty simple to use. Its a topographic version of Google Maps,  and you can find the slope between two points on a road by simply clicking them. It will give you a detailed breakdown of the elevation, elevation change, average grade, steepest grade, ect.

And it also incorporates Google Earth and street view, so you can see your location more realistically while still at your computer. 

After I showed Arturo findhills.com he told me that I should write my next blog post about it. Originally I was super skeptical, because it really doesn't seem that useful in a location scout application. And truth is, its not. If I'm attempting to find locations I'm never going to use findhills first. There are few reasons to use it over Google Maps. But, that one time where you do need a location on a hill, its an amazing tool. So overall, don't use it, unless you need it. 

My experience at the Toronto Film Festival

This past weekend I ventured to Toronto, Canada with a few of my friends during the Toronto Film Festival to see a film premier that he had worked on. It was an amazing experience.

The film didn't exactly get accepted into the film festival however. Or really even get submitted. Here's a preview.

My friend spent ~2 weeks traveling across the country with other skaters, skating hills, parks, ledges, and anything else they could find. I got the opportunity to see the video premier before it was even released online at a party with all of the skaters in the video.

The day after that was an event called The Toronto Board Meeting. Basically hundreds of skaters meet up and skate through the middle of Toronto and we all wear a suit and tie, get it, "board meeting."




Here are some pictures from the event:

All photo credits go to "skate invaders"

There was an insane amount of media coverage, from skaters, videographers, news teams, and even a drone. Being around and spending time with the guys who premiered the film helped me learn a lot about making professional quality skateboarding media. While there isn't really much money to be made in the skate industry, or any money at all, taking this skate trip made me realize how open I would be to living on the road and working in the skate industry producing media for various companies. 

Follow Cameras in Downhill Skateboarding

As none of you probably know, I love downhill skateboarding, and will probably try to incorporate that into many of my blog posts. This one is going to be about driving dangerously close behind a skateboarder while having a DSLR rigged to the front of the hood with a suction mount.

Getting good moving footage of skateboarding can be difficult, there's really no safe way to do it without putting either yourself, the skater, or the camera at risk of getting broken. Regardless, skaters will do it anyways. One of the most popular methods of doing so is using a follow car, and driving no more than ~10 feet behind the skater. Here's an example of that:

This is my good friend Liam Hayes, skating down a famous run in Malibu, CA. This entire time, the follow car (driven by Alex Ameen), is ridiculously close to him to ensure good footage. Most of the time these videos are shot on a DSLR, with a wide angle lens or a fisheye at about 8-15mm focal length.

Here are some pictures from other angles of shooting follow runs.

In this last picture, you can see two DSLRs, as well as extra lights attached to the car. Two cameras ensure different angles without having to drive the run multiple times, and the lights are attached for various reasons, often to shoot night follow runs, as seen in this video: 

I've driven and skated during a few follow runs, and its equally scary to be in each position. When skating a follow run, don't look back! You have to have insane amounts of trust in the driver not to get too close to run you over, and believe me, it gets too close for comfort too often. Being the driver, you have to make the decision of where the safest distance to follow from is without sacrificing the quality of the shot. Normally I try to stay ~7 feet behind the skater, but this can be difficult on open roads with speeds of up to 55+mph. When driving that close, you can barely see below the skaters butt over the dash. Here's a screenshot of me getting a little too close to my friend, Dan Snyder, on a follow run I drove.

Overall it adds an extreme element of danger to an already ridiculously dangerous sport, but its worth it to get the shot!

Dog Boarding: it's what it sounds Like...

Daniels, composed of the same two cinematographers who shot the fantastic Passion Pit music video for the song "Cry Like A Ghost" which we previously viewed in class, are also masters of short comedic videos. One video in particular that I found to be really well shot and edited is the short, Dog Boarding. This video is set to the song "Helena Beat" by Foster The People.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Daniels) use skateboards with stuffed dogs on top of them and ride them through a skatepark and over various obstacles. They also use a green screen to make the heads of the dog boards seem alive, which I found extremely creative. There are also real (and ridiculously adorable) puppies, shots of which are added and cut in a way that it looks like they are getting stomped down on and slid across half pipes.

In order to make the heads of the dog boards look real, which added to the overall reality of the boards themselves, they filmed the dogs' heads in front of a green screen, then added them to the shots in post production. It's such a simple idea, but it was executed with great precision by Daniels. The cinematography is just as great as the editing. Most if not all of the shots are lit perfectly by natural lighting, and the video cuts to the song in a way that perfectly incorporates the drops of the skateboards to the beat.

Thank god they make it clear that no dogs were harmed in the making of the video, because they look so real!

The Greatest Music Video I've Ever Seen

Anyone who has seen The Tree of Life by Terrence Malik knows how breathtaking the long tracking shots are and how much they contribute to the overall beauty of the film. Today I viewed a music video to the song "Open Eye Signal"by the producer Jon Hopkins, that was shot in a very similar way; steady cam tracking shots during what is known as "magic hour"- either dusk or dawn when the sun casts dramatic shadows and gives everything it touches a certain aura. The video followed a young rough looking teenager who skateboarded his way from southern california all of the way to the north. He traverses several deserted places, each oddly eerie and awesome. Each shot is skillfully executed and mapped out, and the scenery is simply breathtaking. An example of this is when the camera goes over a small bridge. At first there are dynamic lines in the framing which slowly straighten themselves out like a grid you'd see on a preview screen.  Here is my favorite shot in the music video:

If you like directors such as Malik, I highly recommend you view this! Jon Hopkins "Open Eye Signal" (Official Music Video)