When did some skaters decide they couldn't skate unless they had a filmer attached to their hip?!?
Whats happening with some of the younger skaters these days? So many have such an obsession with filming... everything!
I get a lot of sponsor me message, requests and emails asking 'what do I need to do or what do I need to know (trick wise) in order to be sponsored?' So I'll write them back and give them my thoughts on that. And sometimes they'll simply ask if I'll take a look at their footage. Now here's the nutty part. i'll write back and say sure.. Then they write back and say 'here's the link, it's of my throwaway footage" or "here's my footage... It's really old. I haven't been able to skate because I don't have a filmer."
So what I'm finding is that some kids wont actually just go skate unless they are able to film at the same time. What's the deal with that?! When did skateboarding and filming become so tightly fixed to each other? Now I know not every skater has this mentality.. Most don't actually. But I'm finding a growing collection in the younger newbies, where they seem to have a need for a filmer for all of their skating moments...
Back in the day, filming while skating was unheard of. Mostly because there weren't cameras like there are today and in so many households. But these days, kids who just started skating last week feel the need to film... Its one thing to film yourself learning a trick for the sake of trying to figure out how to make it work or make it better or simply to figure out why you haven't been able to land it yet... You can upload it to many of the skateboarding communities on the net and someone will tell you what you're doing wrong and how to fix it... But some of these kids are filming, just to be filming as if you can't do one without the other... Its really insane.
Way back when, if you were a skater, you'd get up in the morning, eat (maybe), get dressed, grab your board and head out. You wouldn't even pick up the phone and call your buds, you'd just go... Why? Because all of your skater buds would be doing the same thing. And once you got to your favorite spots, if they weren't there yet, they would be. And you'd simply skate. Nothing more. Get together and skate all day, every day you could. Have a great time.
Its sad to hear some of these kids say these things... It really means their heart isn't in the skating, but rather in the 'FASHION' of skating. I really hope it's a trend that eventually fades...
And on a side note, if you ever plan on sending a sponsor a link to your footage for possible sponsorship, don't send them to a video titled "My Throwaway Footy" or the "Just Messing Around" clip or the "My older stuff." Its really an insult to the sponsor. One, it says to the potential sponsor that you don't respect them enough to show them your best... you just want to be sponsored... Or, it tells them you are into skating enough to practice and ride often enough to have something other than 'your old throwaway' footage... Just a helpful FYI for ya...
Peace
I get a lot of sponsor me message, requests and emails asking 'what do I need to do or what do I need to know (trick wise) in order to be sponsored?' So I'll write them back and give them my thoughts on that. And sometimes they'll simply ask if I'll take a look at their footage. Now here's the nutty part. i'll write back and say sure.. Then they write back and say 'here's the link, it's of my throwaway footage" or "here's my footage... It's really old. I haven't been able to skate because I don't have a filmer."
So what I'm finding is that some kids wont actually just go skate unless they are able to film at the same time. What's the deal with that?! When did skateboarding and filming become so tightly fixed to each other? Now I know not every skater has this mentality.. Most don't actually. But I'm finding a growing collection in the younger newbies, where they seem to have a need for a filmer for all of their skating moments...
Back in the day, filming while skating was unheard of. Mostly because there weren't cameras like there are today and in so many households. But these days, kids who just started skating last week feel the need to film... Its one thing to film yourself learning a trick for the sake of trying to figure out how to make it work or make it better or simply to figure out why you haven't been able to land it yet... You can upload it to many of the skateboarding communities on the net and someone will tell you what you're doing wrong and how to fix it... But some of these kids are filming, just to be filming as if you can't do one without the other... Its really insane.
Way back when, if you were a skater, you'd get up in the morning, eat (maybe), get dressed, grab your board and head out. You wouldn't even pick up the phone and call your buds, you'd just go... Why? Because all of your skater buds would be doing the same thing. And once you got to your favorite spots, if they weren't there yet, they would be. And you'd simply skate. Nothing more. Get together and skate all day, every day you could. Have a great time.
Its sad to hear some of these kids say these things... It really means their heart isn't in the skating, but rather in the 'FASHION' of skating. I really hope it's a trend that eventually fades...
And on a side note, if you ever plan on sending a sponsor a link to your footage for possible sponsorship, don't send them to a video titled "My Throwaway Footy" or the "Just Messing Around" clip or the "My older stuff." Its really an insult to the sponsor. One, it says to the potential sponsor that you don't respect them enough to show them your best... you just want to be sponsored... Or, it tells them you are into skating enough to practice and ride often enough to have something other than 'your old throwaway' footage... Just a helpful FYI for ya...
Peace
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Samuel Robert Mitchell on -
If you don't have it on film how can you prove that you're better than someone else?
I understand where you are coming from. Here is a flow chart of how kids think skateboarding works.
Buy a skateboard > Learn Tricks > Buy a video camera > Film your tricks > Get Sponsored > Now you are having
Fun with skateboarding
When in reality Cameras and sponsors just add stress and obligation to something that is supposed to be fun, Where else is it fashionable to get frustrated and break things?
-
Permalink Reply by cory tate on -
I'm glad to say this is how it was/is for me
get a skateboard from a friend>have fun skateboarding>learn tricks>have more fun skateboarding>buy a video camera>have fun making a skateboarding video>camera is stolen>have tons of funs with skateboarding=]
lol
-
Permalink Reply by Urban Royal Flats Skateboards on -
Ha, yikes about the camera, but very cool to all the rest...
-
Permalink Reply by Urban Royal Flats Skateboards on
-
"Buy a skateboard > Learn Tricks > Buy a video camera > Film your tricks > Get Sponsored > Now you are having
Fun with skateboarding"
Haha, true and so sad...
-
Permalink Reply by Cameron Wood on -
"Way back when, if you were a skater, you'd get up in the morning, eat (maybe), get dressed, grab your board and head out. You wouldn't even pick up the phone and call your buds, you'd just go... Why? Because all of your skater buds would be doing the same thing. And once you got to your favorite spots, if they weren't there yet, they would be. And you'd simply skate. Nothing more. Get together and skate all day, every day you could. Have a great time." - This is how it is for me everyday. i love it. but i know what your talking about it's really weird. i dont know people these days just dont have the love of skating like they should. its all about getting sponsored.
-
Permalink Reply by Urban Royal Flats Skateboards on
-
I know its weird as a brand to say, but to some degree, you are definitely correct. I don't think its so much "all about getting sponsored" I just think with all of the "get sponsored" sites that have come to life online, its become way too easy to get sponsored. THIS is a great problem in my eyes because many of these kids getting sponsored from these sites are anywhere close to be ready and capable of truly being sponsored... This is a whole other heated topic for me! lol
-
Permalink Reply by fonz on -
hmmmmm
deep topic
i think it depends on why they want to get hooked up
like i want to get hooked up because i go through boards and shoes way too fast and i hate asking my parents for them, it makes me feel bad =/
but on the other hand i think wanting to get hooked up to be rich or famous or anything like that is a bad thing.
the only reason i want it is so i can keep skating and having fun doing it without the added stress of worrying about snapping a board
-
Permalink Reply by Urban Royal Flats Skateboards on
-
Well, not to turn this into a thread about sponsorship, but on a side note, there's so much more to it than that. Its not just a simple way to keep replenishing your decks. There's an inherited responsibility on the part of the skater to make it worth the sponsors efforts and product (otherwise known as MONEY)... It is in essence, a job. And if a brand is going to send you decks every so often, they expect you to produce something for them...
Now beyond that, I totally understand the predicament you are in... You want to skate, you shred, you destroy and need to replace your gear... And asking your parents to keep fronting the bill isn't the easiest thing to do... Especially when you dig and respect your parents... And even more so when they try to keep you on your skateboard...
I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Skateboarding is one of the only sports (that I know of at least) in which the athlete has to potentially replace his or her most important piece of equipment one or more times a month..." Buy a helmet for football, wear it for years... Buy a bat for baseball, use it for years... Buy a skateboard and shred... Replace it in two weeks!
-
Permalink Reply by cory tate on
-
I can honestly say that I only want to "get hooked up" so that I can be a part of something I can be proud of, be a part of a family. I want to make a career out of skateboarding because nothing else in my entire life has given the amount of experience and enjoyment that skateboarding has. This is my entire life. I watch Final Flare, and I want that to be my life. I want all the stress that comes with filming an amazing video part, and, on the other side, all the reward from seeing that part in a video with all the other people that you love, and having even just one person get excited over even just a single trick in the part. I really can't imagine not having a future in the skateboarding industry, and as such, even as I sit here hoping Charter will call me back about a job I interviewed for, I think of it as "something to do until I can live off of skateboarding."
You won't ever see me with some dumbass show or in a Got Milk ad, all I need is enough to live off of so that I can have fun skateboarding all day.
Also, I really can't understand how kids can even bring themselves to ask people to sponsor them: I feel like noone should have the audacity to feel so deserving that you just demand someone spend money on you and risk their reputation on you. I feel like, when its your time, or my time, to start moving up in the world of skateboarding, it'll happen for you. You will be discovered, you will get that big break if it's meant to happen. And that big break will happen if you maintain a Positive Mental Attitude in all that you do, and really believe that your time is gonna come. Reality is only made up of what you believe, after all, so anything you truly believe is reality.
-
Permalink Reply by Urban Royal Flats Skateboards on
-
Ok, so this thread has mutated a bit and I am going to keep at because you just said something that intrigues me...
You said "I only want to "get hooked up" so that I can be a part of something I can be proud of, be a part of a family." I can't even begin to count how many skaters have said these exact words to me before and I'll be honest, I don't fully understand where it is coming from. Maybe you can break it down for me. How being sponsored can fulfill this want...
And again, in all honesty, if you are a skater who is out there, skating his heart out, his muscle to total fatigue and you are out there riding clean, showing people that not ALL skaters are drugged out, alcoholics who only want to destroy public and private property, cause trouble and mayhem, then man, you are already part of something big... You are apart of the skateboarding world that for whatever reason, most of the public doesn't seem to see or believe.
I do however like what wrote as a whole.
-
Permalink Reply by cory tate on
-
What I meant was that I don't want to get hooked up for the sake of getting hooked up, I don't wanna have to bother some company with "Sponsor Me" requests, I just want to be able to skateboard for a living, a very modest living. I've lived the last year off of a total income of somewhere around $1000, so I don't exactly need a lot of money to survive. I was talking with my friend Daniel about this the other day, and he said exactly what I would love to happen: He is friends with everyone on the deck company he rides for. Things just kinda fell together for him, he didn't ask them to sponsor him or any of that mess, it just happened. Now they take care of him and take him on amazing trips, and he basically just has fun with his friends for a living now. That's what I would love, the trips, the camaraderie, all the crazy moments in a van completely full of skateboarders on the way to Miami. I feel like I could connect to Pete Eldridge's comeback, if you get what I mean, with him working odd jobs and just scraping by, skating everyday still,to him getting a second chance from JT and then getting on adidas. I've been working hard nearly my entire life, and I don't want anything I don't earn, so I'm not gonna be the type of kid that skates just to get sponsored, I'm skating for the rest of my life no matter what.
© 2009 Created by MyBerrics
