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The Rebirth of Skateparks

This 70 minute documentary video has been out there for several months and is one that strives to weave together a visual lineage from the first wave of Southern California skateparks that emerged in the late 70s to the resurgent parks that have popped up all over the region within the past decade. However, I feel it falls a bit short. There were and are so many more parks outside of Southern California important to skateboarding’s history and present progression.

Of those featured, the first generation skateparks include Carlsbad, Concrete Wave, Montebello, Skatopia, Paramount, Marina Del Rey, Big O, Upland Pipeline, Lakewood, Whittier Skate City, Colton Skate Ranch, and Del Mar Skate Ranch amongst others. Current parks shown Glendale, Upalnd, Fontana, Montclair, Encinitas YMCA, Palm Springs, Chino, Vans Ontario (RIP), Vans at The Block, Etnies of Lake Forest and Laguna Niguel.

Following the opening montage of footage, Lance Mountain delivers a voiced over statement of the history and current state of skateparks and it’s quite clear that he’s reading directly from unfamiliar scripted words in a context void of any real emotion. In all honesty, this segment and all subsequent interviews would’ve sounded much better with a lapel microphone and a clean sound mix. Lance’s voice resonated as if he was speaking in a large empty room and it really didn’t mix well with the sunny outdoor skate footage displayed on the screen. But, perhaps the budget for this film was quite limited so the use of a good a mike wasn’t an option. But hey, this is a review and in my opinion it would’ve helped tremendously to record clean audio of those interviewed for this film project.

More importantly though, the editing really bothered me. The majority of the action footage was cut as successive “one trick” edits without giving the viewer a skater’s perception of line or flow of each skatepark or rider which is fundamental in bowl and park skating. These repetitive edits make much more sense in a skate video loaded with “hammers”.

Interviewed skaters include Eddie Elguera, Steve Alba, Don Hoffman, Lance Mountain, Pay Ngoho, Tony Hawk, and Grant Brittain. The inclusion of renowned skatepark builders such as Wally Hollyday, Tim Payne, Mark “Red” Scott, Mark Hubbard, Mike McIntyre, or Colby Carter would’ve have carried additional meaning and depth to this documentary.

One of the best things about this film is the previously unseen footage of the historic parks and the construction of Marina Del Rey along with hot shot skaters from a time before skate videos, double kicktailed decks, and online skate sites. Also, in the Special Features section, the skate session of the Fruit Bowl with Doug Schneider and Tony Alva is priceless. To view this unseen footage of one the largest underground pool scenes in the 70s is pure eye candy.

Order your copy of The Rebirth of Skateparks directly from www.socalskateparks.com and catch a glimpse of what was going on then and what’s going on now…in the skateparks that is.

- bk

01/04

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