Skip to main content

Week 13 - Curate Yourself


Trying to find content that interests me is pretty difficult, because usually when I’m done with homework I’ll try to meet up with friends and get out of the house as soon as possible. One format that I watch occasionally are inline skate videos, though! I skate, and the way I learned to do so was by practicing a ton, plus watching skaters who are better than me. At home in Colorado, I have friends who play hockey and regularly inline skate, but here in Florida it’s a little rarer. Because of that, I’ve found communities for inline, online. The community is actually really great because roller skating has hit a pretty massive slump from it’s dominance in the 80’s to 90’s, so the people who still skate are the most passionate, skilled, and do it mainly for the fun of it. Everyone in the community really takes a lighthearted approach to skating and don’t take themselves too seriously, and because so little people inline skate, the groups you form are tight. Nobody cares about image or appearing ‘cool’, everyone is in it for their love of skating.
One figure in the community is Bill Stoppard, a Toronto native (inline is much more popular in Canada), who makes youtube videos. Usually it’s just him skating, trying new tricks or new skates, or giving tips and tutorials to newer skaters. He narrates over the footage of him skating, and it’s pretty relaxed with some deadpan comedy. The guy is weird, but what’s great is that he doesn’t care in the slightest. He keeps his brand of weird consistent, and the videos are fun to sit back and watch. He’s also a very talented skater, so I’ve picked up a lot of my form and technique from watching how he skates. Here's a sample video of his where he skates around Toronto and gives a tour on the graffiti in the city.
Another kind of video I enjoy are speed skating. Again, it’s just fun to watch people out enjoying the same things you enjoy, and a group of people at that. They’re going insanely fast down these hills, balancing on one leg essentially, and they’re pretty goofy about it the whole time despite being one slip-of-the-ankle away from continuing down the road face-down.
This downhill skating video is just crazy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Week 8 - Being Director of Photography for "The Graduate"

I read the screenplay for “The Graduate” and immediately was captured by the strange dynamic between Ben and Mrs. Robinson. I got a good idea of the framing of the two within the shots as I read their parts. What’s interesting is their emotional distance when alone, but their secret closeness when among an unsuspecting crowd. If I were the Director of Photography, I would shoot around these two characters during most interactions, regardless of if a tertiary character was speaking. These scenes are always about how Mrs. Robinson feels about Ben’s behavior around her family, or how he presents himself. I would attempt to shoot mostly at eye-level to get a level of intimacy, and get both character’s in frame at a time. These shots could be facilitated by one character having their back to the other, which works contextually because they try to maintain a sense of unfamiliarity when around Mr. Robinson or Ben’s parents. You could have interactions happening in the background, but have t...

Response to "Marriage of a Thousand Lies"

I recently had the opportunity to read "Marriage of a Thousand Lies" by SJ Sindu and hear explanations of her work by Sindu herself. I found the book extremely interesting and was especially fascinated with how Sindu talked about rebellion. She talked about how she provided the main character with sisters to play against, who took different paths in life. One is in an arranged marriage, and one is off living a free, albeit disconnected life. The two sisters are both satisfied with their lives surprisingly, and I enjoy this part of the book because it provides us with a little complexity. A lot of writers taking on the subject of rejecting traditional norms would only cast an arranged marriage in a cold light, but Sindu chose to make it a successful relationship to give the impression that there are a variety of paths in life, not just two (the right and the wrong). One might choose not to rebel, but to bend to their society or parent's will, and still have a fulfilling li...

Week 11 - Twin Peaks

I watched Twin Peaks as an example of long-form television. I was already watching the series, but I continued with an analytical eye. Twin Peaks is primarily a crime/mystery/thriller show, but has undertones of the supernatural. The fact that it’s a visual media allows new clues and information, being revealed by the characters, to be segmented per-week. The story unravels slowly, but as the plot wears on many characters in the town Twin Peaks take a part of the spotlight. Some episodes will focus on some characters, and another on a different group. Most of the time it will feature at least some of the main plot-line and police force characters, but oftentimes episodes will be sprinkled in where the director focuses more on secondary characters, on a more personal narrative. I think this is how Twin Peaks became so popular, and how it really took advantage of it’s format. Television, specifically long-form, gives the director enough time to tell an, if not longer, wider story. A la...