Words: Miki Vuckovich
Photos: Various
In the wake of the Y2K scare, when everyone (admit it, you too) thought the world would end in a fiery ball of rabid electrons, let loose by date-crazed mainframe computers (read: SkyNet), skateboarders were locked in their basement studios editing the latest and (at that moment) greatest new video trickumentary ("Hokus Pokus for the new Millenium," they'd say).
While the rest of the world unplugged their PCs in fear, skaters would not be shackled and smugly fired up their Macs, assured that even the most antiquated of Apple products were Y2K-compliant. When the streets were empty and everyone else had shuttered themselves inside (lest the traffic signals go awry and vending machines turn their soda cans into projectiles), the skaters went skating.
Amidst the cultural hysteria, one small contingent of busy video editors took the Millennial sign of the times to heart and turned a corner in the evolution of skate videos. Not the U-turn sort of change, as happened when World Industries' Rubbish Heap bucked the big-budget trend of the 80s and made skate videos, well, cheap. But in 2000, from the very bastion of the rapid-fire trick videos (411VM), a new brand of skate video—dare I say a new genre—emerged.
Kirk Dianda had spent the 90s helping build 411VM into the juggernaut it became, but the video magazine's strict focus on footage (selling point) and the lack of narrative (not a selling point) got old fast, and Kirk proposed dedicating a section of 411VM to storytelling. Rather than show who flipped what, Kirk wanted to ask Who why he flipped it, who inspired him to flip it, and what he was thinking as he flipped it down the what. The rest of the 411VM staff resoundingly voted to toss Kirk and his stupid idea down the proverbial Wallenberg Four. But Kirk persisted, and eventually he was given a desk in the basement, behind a pile of boxes, and was ignored long enough to develop his idea with nothing but an old Mac and his trusty stapler to work with. For all his former colleagues knew, Kirk had fallen off the face of the Earth (Wallenberg). |
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Kirk Dianda |
He and a small crew of editors, cinematicians, musicologists, motion graphicologists—artistes—were actually busy producing the first issue of ON Video Skateboarding, a brazenly deliberate documentary-format video magazine that premiered in the summer of 2000 and, among other shorter narratives, dedicated a full 45 minutes to telling the story of Danny Way (who even then had more than made his mark on skateboarding). But ON took the highlights of Danny's career, balanced them with his own words, allowed comments from those who know him, and gave the viewer a sense of what makes the skateboarding machine tick (rather than just show how amazingly he ticks). The critics bought it, but more importantly, the snobby "I've seen everything and hate it all" crowd limited their comments to, "Finally …" ON Video was precisely what skateboarding needed at that point in time. It restored faith in the video medium as a vastly potent storytelling tool. It got people talking about the unique lessons we can all learn from Powell Peralta's Search For Animal Chin and it's insightful narrative style. It reminded us all of the fact that skateboarding's goofy past has led us directly here, and that some of skateboarding's stories and their lessons are timeless and should be preserved.
ON Video sought to capture the current stories that would become historical, and present the historic topics that have everything to do with what skateboarders are doing, thinking, creating now. I personally was a magazine guy. I had spent most of my life dedicated to putting ink to paper, and wasn't particularly interested in video and its "anyone can do it" rep. Still photography, writing, and crafting an article or an entire issue took time, patience, and skill. Skateboarding videos in the 1990s, on the other hand, seemed haphazard and rushed, and many were probably edited by monkeys. At least that's what I thought at the time. But ON was different. Its monkeys were more evolved. Perhaps even Cro-Magnon.
Miki, Kirk, John B, Kevin, Dag and Wing |
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In the spring of 2003, I gave up my life in magazines for a chance to sit in the cage and tell stories with the rest of the ONkeys. I found that video, if exploited for all of its potential, is perhaps the most effective medium for narrative storytelling. I had ON Creator Kirk Dianda and the OG ON crew, including Wing Ko, Dag Yngvesson, Douglas Lyle Thompson III, John Bradford, Kevin Barnett, Ryan Marcus, Ricki Bedenbaugh, John LaCroix, Natas, Mark Brandstetter, and the others who hate me because I forgot to mention them to thank for that lesson. Over the next several months we'd collectively mull over the life of Natas Kaupas, the impact of Blind's Video Days (a rare visual gem from the early 90s), and lament the loss of Love Park, among other things. We'd travel to the heart of skateboarding and stick cameras in everyone's faces (not just at their feet). We'd spend precious time with some of the greatest names to ever be associated with the sport/culture/cult of skateboarding. We'd relay their stories and let their voices enhance the impact of their skating. |
At least that was our goal. As much as the critics appreciated our efforts, the buying public preferred their pros skate and not talk so much. Shrinking budgets eventually spilt up the team, and the organic interaction among our staff became difficult, then impossible. Luckily, the same gang that made ON possible (Friedberg, Douglas, Brooks, Schillereff, Schmitt, and the others who hate me because I failed to mention them) kept the "brand" and its "catalog" intact and unaltered. ON Video Skateboarding is what ON Video Skateboarding was. And will always be—an earnest documentation of skateboarding's core. Almost as much about what it is to be a skateboarder as about skateboarding. Really, just what seemed important to a group of skaters sitting in a cage debating the finer points of insert your nuance of skateboarding here. Kirk Dianda had an idea whose time had come. For half a decade ON Video captured the stories we will all continue to tell each other—stories about who flipped what, and more importantly, what the fuck they were thinking. They are the stories that should be told—today, tomorrow, and always. Luckily, skateboarding is featured in films and has regular TV programming dedicated to it. So while ON Video has had its day, skaters can still find thoughtful narratives about their favorite sport/culture/cult on one of the action-sports channels, at the movie theater, or online. And if they preferred, they could also just sit around and tell stories about so-and-so and the what-he-did-where. That's kind of old-school, but still super relevant and cool. Kirk wouldn't mind a bit.
—Miki Vuckovich
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