So last night I went to Riverslide Skate Park to start filming the first few scenes I have planned for my doco. Tuesday night is always rollerbladers night but last night was different because it was also the first night the lights were kept on for the rollerbladers. I know this sounds like not such a big deal but to these little community of hard core in-liners, it means the world to them. Just like everyone of us who has commitments like uni and work, we sometimes fall out with our friends and lost contact with them, the same applies to these people. So last night was their chance to catch up with their friends and lights on until 10pm really is a blessing. Amazingly, what brought them together was a Facebook invitation to the skate park to commemorate the “lights on for rollerbladers every Tuesday starting from last night” night so it wasn’t surprising to see more than a hundred of these community members showing up to skate together, show and share some skills while some of us sit to cheer them on.
I didn’t really bask myself in the glory of it all though coz I was worried about getting the right kind of footage for my production. In my head, I wanted to replicate the things that I see in skating videos – follow the feet that grind, shoot that person flying over the ledge and just go crazy with the whole ambition of creating an outstanding rollerblading documentary – but it was so hard to keep up with these people.
The place was so packed that I didn’t dare get into the park, scared that I might get hurt again from the impact of being slammed into by a fast-rolling person. Believe me, the last time I got hit like that in that park, my back hurt for days! So I told my boyfriend to do it because he had his skates on, and he did, he helped but when he came back he said it was hard for him to keep up with them too! I saw it from where I was sitting as well. While he was recording a group of guys grinding their way on a ledge, another person behind him would do a high jump, succeed or fall, and then I thought, “Gee, that would make a really good footage!” And then when he started filming people at other spots, another person on this particular spot would ace a move and again I would think, “Man, that would’ve made a good one for the doco”.
Everything was so fast paced, with a lot of things happening in different places at the same time, that I tried filming from outside the park, but to no avail. So now I’m thinking of how I can make this doco into something better, not just make it look like a cheap 10 minute video that might make it look like something taken from a mobile phone. I had a chat with my boyfriend about this, since he’s the skate video expert from watching so many of them, so we came up with a solution: We are going to gather some of the skaters this Friday, find a spot, and make them act out their moves so the doco will look a lot neater and be viewer friendly. Hey, nobody likes motion sickness.
