My topic of inquiry has been an interesting journey. Finding ways to cover and explore the movement of wheeled objects in a less typical fashion to the usual approaches. As mentioned in other posts, I worked with three other people while experimenting with filming for this inquiry. The three people I chose to work with are good friends of mine, so it was easy to get hold of them. They are all good skaters, so it wasn’t an issue at all needing to get them to move in a particular way while skating. I only ended up working with these three as I ended up having an amount of footage which Robin seemed to feel was plenty to work with and I agreed as it probably was not a good idea to ‘bite off more than I could chew’, like I tend to do. With the bus trialling footage – I worked alone on this.

My responsibilities in arranging all of the filming proved a little difficult as finding a time where we were all free during the day, was hard. There was one day that I spent with just Louis C, to film a little and spark some ideas. Then there was one day where I could see Louis C, Louis T and Zak altogether. It wasn’t a very long period of time either, so we had to make do. The fact that Louis T and I both work together meant that we were either at work together, one of us was working or one of us was at uni in the daylight hours. We spend plenty of time altogether socially – but it’s during the night and that time wouldn’t encompass the vibe I was after. I also don’t have the lighting equipment or means to transport it if I were to film something in a “new light” (no pun intended) to the nature of a typical skate video. I suppose I could have found a location with street lights, but I didn’t really know of anywhere accessible for all of us when my car has stopped running. As well as not really looking to film at night time, my discussion with Robin about the beauty of the environment I had shot the skate footage in – was what I wanted to stick with. The almost wholesomeness of it was not classic to a skating environment.

The guys I worked with were great, but there were often times where they would want to do particular tricks in front of the camera and I kept having to assure them that it’s not really what I was after, it was more the movement – so I told them to film from their POV almost, holding the camera and trialling to do tricks. They liked this idea, but admitted it was pretty hard to coordinate keeping the camera on the board and being able to see their footing on to the board simultaneously.

The hefty part of the laborious factor lay with the guys as they were the ones performing the action, I was merely just directing them around and telling them to travel down the streets again for me et cetera. I chose the shots and divvied out to them, the small motions which I wanted to capture on film. I really wish I was a little better at skating so I could have been more involved in that sense, but the really shaky handheld footage is an interesting juxtaposition to the smoothness which a skateboard encompasses when travelling along flat ground. Shows that detachment not only of myself to the hobby, but that it would not be a way which you’d try to capture a “proper” skating clip.