• creature pants (1994) aka 'Rolling 4 Deep'
• summer 96 (1996)
• episode II (1998)
• about time (2001)
• waste of time (2006)
On each page, along with the video itself, is a brief story about how each one came about and what it means to me. I have to write this stuff down before I am too old to remember it!
Back in 2001, I produced a DVD called ‘over time’ that contained the first 4 of my skate videos. This DVD came about thanks to one person, Ant Morgan. In those days the top skate companies were still releasing videos on VHS but Ant was way ahead of the game in creating and authoring a skate DVD. Phil Howes also hooked me up with an alternative cover. However due to the cost of a writing a DVD back then we could only produce 5 copies. They are in the hands of Ant, Marcus Andrews, Phil Howes, Mark Longman and myself! I have called this site 'over time' in honour of the DVD that never got its deserved release.
 |
| Phil's cover (1 of 4) |
 |
| Ant's O.G. cover (1 only) |
 |
| 2001! |
 |
| Overtime main menu |
As I write this it is late 2010, and I am sat in sunny Queensland Australia, my new home. I migrated here in 2007 with my wife Kirsty and earlier this year we became a family of 3. I couldn’t be more excited about anything!
But that is about my future, and this site is not about the future, it is about the past....a past spent mostly in not so sunny England. From sometime in 1987 until around 2001 my main past-time was skateboarding, and the place to be was Southend-on-Sea. During that period I skated with literally hundreds of dudes, some of which became my good and lifelong friends. I could not imagine a better way to grow up and I want to thank anybody I have ever had the pleasure of riding a skateboard with. Those memories are eternal. But there are other sites out there dedicated to reminiscing about those times and I have a much more specific purpose here; to showcase a particular aspect of skateboarding...the skate video. To kick things off there is a brief history below, of how I came to make skate videos in the first place. I hope you enjoy the videos, I certainly enjoyed making them!
Why skate videos?
In 2010 teenage culture is dominated by Facebook, Twitter and youtube. Virtually every skate video ever made can be instantly seen on youtube, free of charge. Quite amazing. It is almost incomprehensible then, that back in the mid 80's, when I first started skating, we did not have access to any skate videos at all. The best we had was the Hollywood film ‘Thrashin’. In my first summer of skateboarding, my two main skate friends (Lee Curtis and Tony Howell) and I had 'Thrashin' on almost permanent hire from our local video store. I have no idea how many times we watched that film but I have definitely seen it more times than even Star Wars, which means I have seen it a lot!
A year or so after 'Thrashin', our thirst for a real skate video grew stronger and word was out about a video called ‘The Search for Animal Chin’. One of the older guys from the youth club we used to hang out at, named Charlie, was supposedly selling a copy for a tenner. Charlie was not someone we ever spoke to because he was a pretty scary dude and ten pounds was a lot of money back then! Despite this we somehow got word to Charlie that we wanted the tape and we went round to his house to seal the deal. All I really remember is Lee going to the front door, alone, and returning victorious with the video in his hand. I can safely say that I have never seen any other film, skate or otherwise, as many times as Animal Chin. To this day it is the greatest skate video ever made and it changed our lives. Many great skate videos would follow through the proceeding years but from the moment I saw Animal Chin, I knew I wanted to make my own skate videos.
Nowadays making a skate video is a relatively straightforward affair and is part and parcel of modern skateboarding. Everybody has access to a video camera, they all come with built in connections to youtube, and editing software is easily downloaded. However during the late 80's the skate video was a much more significant event. Powell Peralta ruled the scene and the Bones Brigade videos like Animal Chin were almost Hollywood like in their scale, length and production budgets etc. Those videos really set a high standard but were a far cry from the reality of Southend in the 80’s, where only the wealthiest families had video cameras. Never the less my quest to film, edit and mix my own skate video had begun. This site now houses the 5 videos I ended up producing over a 13 year period and tells the story of how each one cane about. I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed making them!
Gav Martin 2010
2010
gavinmartin101gmail.com