From ollie to dolly: Why skateboarders flip to directing

I don't know if there's another sport where so many of its practitioners have moved into the arts”, says Stacy Peralta, former world number one skateboarder and award-winning director of seminal skate movie Dogtown and the Z Boys. 

“You don't see this from kids who do motocross or downhill ski racing. There's such a connection with skateboarders and all the various art forms.”

It teaches you to manage failure and to adapt.

This connection is notable, but nothing new. If you came of age in the late 90s, few things would have imprinted on your consciousness quite so vividly as the sight of a fictional dance group busting dubious moves in the video for Fatboy Slim’s Praise You. The leader of that ill-coordinated crew was also the film’s creator, Spike Jonze. By the time he treated the world to his breakdancing skills, Jonze was already a well-established music video and commercials director. 

Like so many who would go on to make the transition, his roots were in skateboarding.

Above: Stacy Peralta's groundbreaking doc, Dogtown and the Z Boys.

There is a perception that skateboarders lack the arrogance or hostility often associated with other sports. It is a kind of zen Patrick Swayze in Point Break energy that feels closer to surfing than more conventional competitive disciplines. That apparent absence of ego might be because if you skate, you fail more than you succeed, and when you fail, you fall hard.

That war of attrition breeds a sense of determination which is vital for any would-be filmmaker. Andrew Litten came out of the skateboarding and music scene in Atlanta before winning the Clios Young Director Award. He attests to the need for doggedness: “With directing, you live in a world of rejection most of the time. Skateboarding is very similar. You will be trying a trick for hours and hours. You might even go back to the same spot multiple days to get it right.”

With directing, you live in a world of rejection most of the time. Skateboarding is very similar.

It also gives you empathy for those you are filming. “As a filmmaker, you're really tasked with encouraging the skaters on the other side of your lens to get the trick. You're bought into it with them. So, you learn discipline, you learn how to work with actors, you learn how to create an environment where people can be who they want to be.”

Peralta also sees the value of the tougher side of skateboarding: “It teaches you to manage failure and to adapt.” He might have learned these lessons skating in empty LA swimming pools as a teenager, but they are equally vital in a profession where there is only one constant. “In filmmaking, everything always goes wrong. There are sound problems, light problems, location problems. There are always problems and so filmmaking requires constant adaptability.”

Above: I Don't Know What You See In Me, Andrew Litten's thoughtful promo for Belle and Sebastian.

With the ad industry currently getting slammed by everything from AI to ever-dwindling budgets, those hard-fought skate skills arguably make creatives who come from that world particularly valuable in the current climate. As founder and CCO of award-winning global content studio Ntrōpic, Nate Robinson sees a clear parallel. “In skateboarding, you do not give up. Ironically enough, when you think about our industry now, and with everything going on in production as a whole, it's all about perseverance and grit.”

But that sense of getting back on the board, or getting the next shot, no matter what, is only one of the reasons skateboarders thrive when it comes to filmmaking. The ability to deal with all kinds of people in often tense situations is baked in, and that stands you in good stead when you are away from the relative safety of a set.

In skateboarding, you do not give up.

Growing up borrowing his dad’s camera to shoot his friends skateboarding in the local village, director and DP Tim Crawley went on to work with everyone from Vice to the BBC. He values what he learnt filming skate videos in cities around the world. “We spent a lot of time on the streets, sometimes in not very nice areas or sometimes in nice areas where we were not wanted. You're used to a slightly weird guy coming up and thinking, right, I need to keep an eye on the kit but also, I shouldn’t judge them too much.”

From a technical point of view, making skate videos is also a natural stepping stone into shooting commercials and music videos. These are mediums which often demand a sense of perpetual motion and call for unexpected camera work. After all, if you are telling stories in under a minute there is no room to lose your audience’s attention.

For Crawley there is a distinct overlap in shooting styles because, “there's lots of gimbal work in content and videos these days and that’s similar to what we used to do. I'm quite used to skimming the camera across the floor with a wide angle or a fisheye, so the floor zooms underneath it. Whereas if you didn't know that you might hold it at waist high and it doesn't quite look as good.”

Above: Music video Breather and ad Palace x Gap, featuring DP work from Tim Crawley and Jeremy McNamara.

Camera work is only one part of shooting skate videos, and what you get from coming out of that DIY world is an appreciation of all facets of the filmmaking process. The most successful directors are the ones who understand not only their role but those of everyone else on set, and one of the best ways for that to happen is to have done them yourself.

Robinson is certain that having had this sort of experience, “has served not only me as a director, but also in Ntrōpic.” It is a lesson he is keen to pass on to others. “Everybody that comes through, I always teach them about not just what they think their main superpower is, but to care about all the pieces. Because that's what makes you a more holistic filmmaker, somebody who understands all the different aspects of it. I attribute that to skateboarding wholeheartedly.”

If you're trying to learn how to be a filmmaker in the skateboard world, you're the guy with the camera, you're the DP, the director, the editor, the producer. You're not really working with a crew. You're not dealing with agencies. It's kind of renegade.

For Jeremy McNamara, a lifelong skateboarder who has shot work for Nike, Google and Palace, this multi-tasking is “the best and worst thing at the same time.” For all it gives you in raw skills, you still have to step up when it comes to being part of a bigger machine.

“If you're trying to learn how to be a filmmaker in the skateboard world, you're the guy with the camera, you're the DP, the director, the editor, the producer. You're not really working with a crew. You're not dealing with agencies. It's kind of renegade. So, I don't know if it prepares you for production, because you don't really learn anything about how that world works until you're in it.”