This video completes the trilogy of skate videos that Marcus Andrews and I started ten years earlier in 1996. To be frank, we were well past our prime when we decided to make this video and were not skating together very regularly. To that end we decided to bring on board two more ‘over the hill’ dudes!
Consequently, the legendary Richard ‘Higginson’ Higgins and Keith ‘Kez’ Spence joined us on our mission to make a skate video in our thirties. The video is essentially a compilation of footage that we pulled together on a number of skate weekends in Leeds, Milton Keynes, London and Southend in around 2006. We had no real objective other than to try and get some good footage, which in the end became a lot of comedy footage!
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| Keith Spence, Richard Higgins and a stolen car |
For the edit of this video the Martin Brothers again teamed up (which means my brother did all the hard work) but we were also joined by Marcus for the final edit decisions. As none of the 4 skaters really had strong enough footage for a solo section we decided on a different approach, trying to bring out some of the more comedic elements. The video is made up of four main sections:
1. Intro
The intro sets the tone for the whole video and starts with a pretty funny session involving me and a Milton Keynes rail. There are various shots of failed tricks and general despair, which is pretty much a good summary of our skating ability in this video. The music is a song called 'Dreamer' and is by a band called 'Eleven Thirty Four'.
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| Gav Martin, Milton Keynes (2006). Good Times. |
2. Whatever Lines Necessary
This section features all four skaters and our best skating in the video. The music is Ray Frazier and The Shades of Madness ‘I who have nothing’, a classy number.
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| Marcus Andrews frontside tailslide Milton Keynes |
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| Rich Higgins fakie flip Leeds |
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| Keith Spence bin ollie |
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| Gav Martin nosewheelie Milton Keynes |
3. Not on Top
This section captures the essence of the video, that fact that we were all somewhat past our prime. There are some good tricks in here but it is mostly pretty amusing slams and general poor efforts, all to the wonderful melodies of Herman Dune’s ‘Not on Top’. Quite so.
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| Game over |
Marcus said this is his favourite section in the video as it features the best skating and some good but seemingly sad music, Greece is the word! These tricks could be the last we ever film together. I hope not!
This video was far more fun to make than the others because I really did not care so much about the skate footage. This was just 4 dudes having fun on a skateboard. As it should be.
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| Marcus Andrews, having fun. Note, not a stolen car. |
Gav Martin 2010
The main regret I have with this one is that we didn't get enough footage before time ran out. Especially Higginson. The crispness of the picture & a lot of the colours look great, and the editing was also another step up for Al on the previous vids. So whenever I watch this, there's still a part of me that thinks about how much better it could have been if only we had skated more and got more footage.
ReplyDeleteI think that the thing I am most stoked about for me personally with this video is the amount of hood footage I have. I mean, seriously - is there any better footage than hood footage?
And yes, I'm still of the opinion that the outro is my favourite section. Best footage and best music. Still stoked on the fact that I learnt full cabs and got one on film in the same one hour session - people could be forgiven for thinking that I could actually do them on the strength of this!
Overall though, I'm really happy that this video accurately represents where skateboarding ended up for us towards the end of my career. Fun times with good friends, where we spent more time laughing than we did doing tricks. I'm also really grateful that I got the opportunity to help with the editing in some small way (and I'm still really proud of the idea to put the ages & job titles up with our names!).
I also sincerely hope that somehow this isn't our last...