With Labor Day Weekend upon us, there’s no denying that fall is in the air and winter is fast approaching. While there is still plenty of time to skate before frigid temperatures and snow storms bury your favorite spots, filmers everywhere are taking stock of their clips, and planning for a long winter of editing footage. So what better time to offer some pointers on how to WOW the internet with homies’ skateboarding abilities.
I’m going to start out by admitting that I am not a filmer or video editor of any kind. I have barely ever held a camera, much less filmed people skateboarding and then put an edit together. HOWEVER, I pretty much live on the internet and have seen an absurd amount of videos, most of them involving skating and snowboarding with the occasional cat video my girlfriend makes me watch. So while I may not be adept at the process, I can certainly tell you what shouldn’t be publicly shared on the world wide web.
Let’s learn from others’ mistakes, shall we? This one comes to us via the alias “Pete” and holds many lessons for a young grasshopper such as yourself.
There that was… and here’s what we can learn from Pete:
1. Learn how to use a camera
This might seem obvious, but you would be surprised. If you look in the description of this video, it says none of the clips are Pete’s, they’re all from ClipHive. Bad start. If you’re “so down” with skating, go get your own clips! Get a part time job at McDonalds, save scratch, and get a camera. THEN, hop on your board, cruise to the park, make some friends, and film them ripping. Also, if for some reason you’re using something like ClipHive, get clips that don’t suck! The skating wasn’t terrible, such as the ollie onto a picnic table, kickflip out, but the quality was awful and they were shakier than a crate full of Mexican jumping beans in an earthquake. Once you have your camera, practice using it by making videos of you pranking your sister or something funny until you’re ready to take it to the streets.
2. Cut the words
In case you didn’t notice, this was “Edited by Pete.” And in case you didn’t see the awkward title stating that in the very beginning, Pete was kind enough to leave it at the bottom of the screen for us to look at the entire time. How thoughtful! And then, if you forgot you were watching a skateboard video, because that’s totally possible, Pete graciously included the word SKATE in the corner for the first 30 seconds. Finally, I have no beef with thanking people for watching, but the last 20 seconds didn’t need to say thank you, we got it after the first wipe. Less clutter, more good clean skating.
3. Keep the music game proper
I try not to hate on other people’s music choices, so I’m going to ignore that fact that this video could have been the soundtrack to a Transformers porn, but music selection needs to be more meticulous. The song in an edit can literally make or break it, so just throwing your favorite track at the time over some clips never looks good. You have to create a vibe, evoke an emotion, and fit the song to the shots. This goes back to point #1, since it would definitely be easier to match the mood of the clips if they were your own. Also, the random song stop and change is a no go. At least fade out the song with the footage or some other super basic editing technique. Don’t just drop it and start another one on top of some nauseating timelapses of skateparks with too many zoom in and outs.
4. Tap into some creativity
Now I know we can’t all be Pablo Picasso’s or Salvador Dali’s, but dig a little deep when you’re putting an edit together and think of something that you’d like to see in a skateboard edit… then make it happen. The web is literally and figuratively FLOODED with videos of the following formula:
Lifestyle shot -> Some clips -> Lifestyle -> More clips -> Ender -> Credits
And that’s all well and good, but I’m saying if you want to stand out, spice it up. One of the best things on the internet are the Pyramid Country videos. I’ve kindly provided one of my personal favorite as an example, but hit THIS LINK to check out more on Thrasher.
Friggin’ nuts right!? But that, combined with unique skating, is sure to get you noticed.
5. Have fun
This seems about as obvious as the first point I made, but people forget it all the same. Don’t get caught up trying to be “cool” or “legit” and just have fun filming your friends being idiots and eating sh!t. Look at the Baker and Deathwish videos! They’re arguably the best videos out there from the bigger players in the game, and technically speaking, they suck! It was just a group of homies who bought a camera and started filming skating and hijinks… and it’s awesome! Don’t ever forget why you love skateboarding, and the second you care too much and it stops being fun, quit filming and go ride for the hell of it.
Well, hope that helped. If not, hopefully you were entertained by the videos and my ranting. Either way, I’ll leave you with this amazing example of a terrible Trick Tip because it legitimately made me LOL. Cheers.
