Shrinking Attention Spans & The Search For the Perfect-Length Skate Video

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Collage by Francesco Pini
📊 Data Analysis & Graphs by Pete Glover of 4PLY Mag
📼 Data Courtesy of SkateVideoSite

It has never been easy to make a full-length skate video. Today, it might be harder than ever.

If you’re Josh Stewart, owner of Theories of Atlantis Distribution and the filmmaker behind the Static series, videos just take time. So much time, in fact, that he says Brett Weinstein, who stars in the forthcoming Static VI [58 minutes], put out a half-dozen other video parts with his Chicago crew, Deep Dish, in the time it took to finish the latest Static.

Or, if you’re a company man like Deluxe team manager and videographer Tim Fulton, you’re fighting everyone else’s schedule. If someone on Real has enough footage for a part, Fulton says, it’s unlikely everyone else is also close to completing a part — and even then, skaters are eager to get their footage out. So they put it out.

More »

Like Glowstick, We Crack Then Shine

Antonio tomfoolery in the QS Dunk that is coming out pretty soon :) Photo by Jason Lecras

From a skate house above a chicken shop by Southbank to a GQ feature: Fashion-writer-who-actually-skates-and-can-write, Noah Johnson, profiled the minds behind Palace for a feature in Famous Men’s Magazine™.

Heckride interviewed Johnny and Mitchell’s brother, Andrew. Very excited for Coots’ video ♥

There is no shortage of crust evangelists working in New York skateboarding today, but every once in a while, there’s a part so endlessly dedicated to spots with eight things wrong with them that you need to stop and give #respect. Charlie Cassidy’s 4 x 4 part is one of those, and Vague mag has the part + an interview with him about it. The cast of In Crust We Trust would be proud :)

More »

Getting Them Royalties Dodging Them Bumblebees

It’s heartwarming to see world renown design principles from 12th & A make their way to skateable spaces all the way across the Atlantic.

“Their video Grains, filmed across the soybean belt of Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, veers far off interstate arteries and urban sprawls to extract tricks from crumbling loading docks in Joliet, dilapidated stadiums in Gary, polished-stone plaza ledges in downtown Peoria.” As most skate content has drifted towards Instagram and nothing has much staying power, the idea of a “video review” has sadly become a relic of skate publications past. That’s a bit sad, considering a resounding, well-written recommendation of a not-so-obvious video (or something you simply neglected to click on) still means a lot. I bought Grains after reading Boil the Ocean’s new review of it, and can’t say I would’ve been compelled to do the same if I saw a part of it on Thrasher or YouTube with a Big Cartel link under it ♥

“The most dominant example of genre loyalty is DGK’s whopping 92% use of hip hop.” Someone culled Skatevideosite’s entire database of soundtracks and put together an infographic-based portrait of #musicsupervision in skate videos over the past four decades — and somehow, despite the fact it has been a recurring joke on here for ~10 years — Big L isn’t the most oft-used rap artist.

Head over to Live Mixtapes R.B. Umali’s Vimeo page to hear the full version of Zoo York’s Mixtape soundtrack with NoDJ tags no skate noises over the music.

Skate Muzik also did podcast with R.B. about how the iconic soundtrack came to be.

The water sports section from Spirit Quest, where they put a condom on a VX, is now online ;) …as is Ben Gore’s hill-heavy Static IV part.

Theories has an abridged history of any and all spot selection trends to take course over the history of skateboarding, though they left out some dismal low-points of recent spots on this side of the planet.

This feels like a clip that would’ve been on 48 Blocks ten years ago. In a good way.

Real is working on a documentary on Chicago’s Uprise Skateshop, and presumably ignoring a mountain of pitch emails from Paulgar about doing one on Autumn.

Jenkem with a lesson on pant sags and nut grabs in skate videos.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: NBA Champion, Nick Young.

Quote of the Week: “It’s easier to catch an octopus here than it is to get laid.” — Francesco

Chief Keef making Seaside Heights boardwalk music (and him sounding the most energized he’s sounded in years on it) is one 2018’s most unheralded developments.