Farran Golding | Quartersnacks

Skate Smarter Not Faster

Daily News November 4th, 2024 · 12:00 am · 1

Central Park 📷 via Troy Stilwell

New York residents: You can find your pollsite here if you have not voted yet 🗳 If you live somewhere else, you can find your pollsite here.

“It’s not, ‘I don’t know man, I was just skating.’ That answer drives me nuts.” Our correspondent Farran Golding recently launched what he dubs as the skate-version of Longform.org: Skate Bylines. It is a new platform that aggregates and features works of skateboard journalism, rather than focusing 98% on video, like many of us do. Skate Bylines also creates unique pieces of its own, with the first feature being an interview with Chops from Chromeball about his interview process with history’s most legendary skaters. Also, R.I.P. Longform, but long live Longreads. Haven’t gotten on a flight without loading up the reading list with Longreads links in 10+ years. 🫡

Five Favorite Parts With Nicole Hause

Features & Interviews October 30th, 2024 · 12:00 am · 1

📷 Photo by Bailey Schreiner
📝 Interview by Farran Golding

We wanted to get Nicole for the QS Cup earlier this month, but unfortunately, she was recovering from an injury. (Anyone that went to the 2022 Dime Glory Challenge will remember that Nicole’s skating was one of the highlights.) The next best thing was a Five Favorite Parts.

Crab Cake Uncle

Daily News October 21st, 2024 · 12:00 am · 2

📷 via @n.rollings

The voter registration deadline in New York is this Saturday, October 26. Yes, you can register online or in person 🗳

Really enjoyed this twenty-minute dad cam edit from the Quartersnacks Cup. The angle on the last races between Nick and John is especially great for a different perspective from the other HD or iPhone videos you may have seen.

2024 QS Cup Champion, Nick Michel, has a quick new part out for Thunder Trucks, which features a beautiful full cab, among other things.

F.A. and Converse hosted a $2,000 Game of S.K.A.T.E. Invitational at Tompkins two weeks back, and Greg Navarro covered it for Jenkem. Obviously, Tony Hawk won.

Five Favorite Parts With Matt Militano

Features & Interviews September 11th, 2024 · 12:00 am · 1

🔑 Intro & Interview by Farran Golding
📝 Photo by Zach Sayles, originally published in Matt and Neil Herrick’s interview for Vague Skate Mag #25

Journeys through cities are a defining characteristic of east coast and independent skateboarding videos. It’s palpable in Matt Militano’s footage, most recently his opener for Zach Sayles’ ethereal production Veil (voted one of the top ten videos of our 2023 Readers Poll and available as a hardcopy directly from Zach for the enthusiasts.)

While skateboarding that is, frankly, very difficult comes packaged with an inherent sense of sincerity, there has always been a playfulness to Matt’s skating — a byproduct of the more unexpected influences he outlines here.

‘It Feels Like You’re Both Getting The Clip’ — A Reappraisal of Fisheye Videography

Features & Interviews September 4th, 2024 · 12:00 am · 6

📝 Words, Interviews & Top Graphic by Farran Golding

Skateboarding found its first industry standard filming rig when the Sony DCR-VX1000 video camera was paired with a Century Optics MK1 fisheye lens in the late 1990s. Fundamental to producing every tentpole skate video throughout the early 2000s, a precedent for skateboarding’s visual language emerged and footage captured through a fisheye lens became the defining trait of skateboarding cinematography.

Eventually, Panasonic HVX and HPX cameras equipped with an Xtreme fisheye succeeded the VX and MK1. Popularized by William Strobeck during the mid-2010s, this change of filming set-up coincided with long lens videography becoming the zeitgeist. Observing the Quartersnacks Top Ten (our closest thing to a longstanding data set) evidences a decline in fisheye use over the past decade.