Red Bull No Rewind: Santa Cruz
Video by Joe Perrin. photos by Tyre Grannemann
Red Bull No Rewind
4 skate teams are given a VX1000 with the rewind/eject buttons disabled and only 1 tape
Team: Santa Cruz Skateboards
Having to film a full edit with just one 60-minute miniDV tape and no instant playback could sound like hell in the modern age of iPhone clips and Instagram. But for filmmaker Joe Perrin at Santa Cruz, it was just another challenge—a way to flex a bit of creativity and have some fun with the homies. We had a quick chat about the nature of the Red Bull No Rewind contest, how he landed on the creative concept behind the shoot (hint, Birdman), and how arduous the post-production process can be for making seamless transitions on a “single-take” edit.
How did this project come about?
Jaime Owens hit us up on behalf of Red Bull. As soon as he said VX1000, I was like, yeah, let’s do this. That camera’s such a big part of skateboard history and my history in skateboarding. I have such an affinity for that camera, so it was like, whatever it is, I’m in. And the concept sounded so cool and so fun—just having one tape and not being able to see what you recorded. We did it in Nashville and worked it around Jake Wooten’s schedule. We only had a window of three or four days to shoot since Jake’s schedule was so busy and he was travelling for other skate stuff. We went into it like, whoever we can get for it, let’s make it happen and keep it tight, so we literally shot it in two nights to fit it in our window. But c’est la vie.
How did you land on the creative concept? Obviously you were hyped to shoot on a VX, but you guys also came up with a pretty complex edit.
We had a bunch of ideas. From the get go, we didn’t want to just go out and film clips. In my opinion, if we were just going to go out on the streets and film clips, we’d be downgrading peoples’ skating in some kind of way. What I mean by that is… Tom Asta came out here to finish this video we did called MISPRINTS. We filmed this switch flip back tail switch heel out on a ledge over a grate. And that was his ender for the video. So I was thinking about it, and if we only had one tape… If he wanted to do something like that or one up it even, we wouldn’t get many tricks out of the tape. So we thought about coming up with a fun concept, being more creative about it. We started throwing ideas out there, almost like the old TransWorld Skate & Creates. We wanted to do something fun along those lines. And it ties into Santa Cruz—Santa Cruz has always had really good skits and fun elements to the videos throughout the whole history of the brand.
Eventually we landed on the concept of the never ending line. But in the process we also brainstormed a few other ideas. We had this idea to have a whole bunch of Jakes, and everyone would be dressed up like Jake. We had another idea that would be a dream sequence of skating through Nashville and ending up in a honky tonk. We ended up kind of combining all of those things. We did the never ending line where it’s all one take and seamless, but then we also had some of the other stuff going on, like too many Jakes and some weird imagery.
Santa Cruz’s VX1000 customized by Aaron Felix. Photo by Seu Trinh.
Just having one tape and no rewind, it’s similar to doing a shoot on film, right? There are limitations and you’re not quite sure what you captured until Red Bull sends back the footage. If you messed up a shot, it’s too late... But that also means that you’ve gotta do way more planning if you’re gonna shoot something conceptual—you can’t just wing it, right?
Yeah, I think we just wanted to push the envelope a little bit. The whole thing to me is that we only had one tape, so that makes it exciting. We talked about it behind the scenes, like, if we don’t get all the shots that we need or something goes wrong, it’s going to mess up the whole edit. But also, there’s some fun tension in that process. If it doesn’t work out, that’s still a story we can tell. We can show the behind the scenes or the tension and stress. We were going to hope that it all worked out according to plan, but if it didn’t, we’d be able to adapt as needed and call an audible. Luckily it all worked out.
Do you like working under pressure? Does it help with the creative process, knowing you have to keep everything focused and on track? Sometimes it’s nice to have parameters, right?
I think so. It definitely kept us focused, for sure. And once we got going with it, it was fun to navigate. There were a couple scenes we had to shoot out of order, which stressed me out a bit since there was a lot to keep track of. Like the transitions between scenes—the very last scene, we didn’t actually film that last. So when we went back to shoot the scene that comes before it in the edit, I had to really pay attention to where everything was when we got to that transition.
There was one time where I looked at the camera before I pressed record and the fisheye had gone out of focus. I focused it again, but my mind was racing—was that whole scene I shot before this out of focus? If so, there was nothing I could do about it. And then waiting for the tape to get digitized, which took awhile, I was wondering if it was all going to be ok and usable. That was definitely the most nervous I had been throughout the whole project, just waiting to see what we captured.
“We talked about it behind the scenes, like, if we don’t get all the shots that we need or something goes wrong, it’s going to mess up the whole edit. But also, there’s some fun tension in that process. ”
Do you think the team riders felt the same sort of pressure? They’re usually used to seeing their clip right after it’s filmed.
From my vantage point, it seems like they handled it well. They were all focused and handle pressure really well. It may have helped in a way. It’s like getting kicked out by a security guard, “Ok, I gotta get it right here.” They had that mentality. They knew they didn’t have a lot of time to waste. They just went for it to make it happen.
But I’d say the balloons and mini ramp scene was pretty hectic and stressful. I think those guys heard the concept and they kinda saw what we were gonna do, but didn’t realize how challenging it was gonna be. Once they dropped in it became a lot more difficult than we thought it would be. Dropping in, not being able to see your board, hearing balloons popping constantly, running into each other because of the way we had the shots planned out without seeing each other’s exit points… They got popped balloons around their wheels a few times, so there were some slams. John Gardner slammed really hard and I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep skating. So we thought maybe we bit off a bit more than we could chew. But once we got that done, it was all fluid afterward.
the preproduction planning is critical.
How much planning did you do in advance in terms of choreography? It’s not often you have to direct with that much precision in skateboarding, right?
Yeah, for sure. I went to the park a few times to do some walk throughs, take photos, and get a lay of the land. Lee Charron (NHS Creative Director) flew in a day or two early. He had an iPad and made a whole map of the park. He had this intricate drawing with arrows, where each arrow represented a different skater with a different number. So we could see where each skater was going to be and how many tricks they’d be doing in each shot. We mapped it out that way. When the gang came into town, we spent a full day, maybe two full days, just going to the park and doing dry runs. By the time of the shoot, we all knew what we had to do. All that up front planning was definitely crucial.
“The brand has so much history and heritage that you want to do it justice.”
I loved the single take effect. I was pretty fooled the first time I watched it. I definitely got some Birdman vibes from this edit.
I love Birdman. Lee brought that up as inspiration when we were talking about the never-ending line to make it look like one shot. But he also brought it up to convey this vision we had around the music, having a jazz drummer playing a tension-filled beat the whole time. I’ve always loved that movie, so it really clicked with me. I know they’ve done it in plenty of films, but I just loved the idea of the challenge. We had to come up with—sometimes on the fly—what we called our stitch points, considering how we were going to stitch the two shots together in the edit. When I got the footage back, going into post, that’s where it actually took me the longest. I had to do a lot of keyframing and masking and some rotoscoping. Some digital zooms too. Just to make it more seamless. There was one shot where I panned across some wood really fast, but the curvature of the ledge looked different because of the fisheye. I didn’t have it centered to the camera exactly the same way on each shot. And of course you want to make sure the vignettes line up because that’s such a big part of the look. Every single cut took me hours to make it feel seamless.
Obviously, this project is a celebration of the VX and the VX will always be revered in skate culture. But as a filmer, what do you personally love about the camera? Why were you so hyped on using it for this project?
I think the VX with the Death Lens is the most perfect combo of camera and lens that skateboarding has ever seen and probably ever will. Everything about it from the way it feels in your hand, the weight, the easy maneuverability. But it wasn’t so light that it felt unstable or shaky. The aspect ratio with the handle on it, the lens, the fisheye, it all worked so well. I don’t think there will ever be a camera-slash-fisheye combo like it.
What about the sound of the VX? Everyone talks about how much they love the microphone on it.
Yeah, that to me is so baffling. The fact that that microphone on that camera that’s from the 90s is still to this day the best sound you can get on a skate clip is pretty amazing. I don’t know why camera companies—or even Sony—haven’t thought about making a new camera with that same mic, or make a mic that has that sound. I know people have done it custom-style, but the sound of a VX1000 is so crispy. It’s almost like it’s made for skateboarding.
“I think the VX with the Death Lens is the most perfect combo of camera and lens that skateboarding has ever seen and probably ever will.”
Yeah, it’s like being back with an old friend.
One hundred percent. I spent so much time with that camera. Every single independent project that I made was filmed with that camera—or at least almost all of them were. I really love that camera and have a lot of nostalgia for it. Some of the videos that were filmed on that camera are the best videos of all time—like Ty’s TransWorld videos, Photosynthesis, Mosaic, all the Static videos—all that stuff means so much to me and to who I am as a skateboarder and skateboard filmmaker. The funny thing is I actually hit up Aaron Felix afterwards, who did all the custom VX cameras for this project, and I asked him if he could fix my personal VX. He’s mailing my VX1000 back to me right now. I think this project reignited my love of that camera.
You end the edit by celebrating Santa Cruz’s 50th anniversary. How hard is it to come up with something that feels truly unique and original for a brand with so much history?
It can be daunting, for sure. The brand has so much history and heritage that you want to do it justice. But I think Santa Cruz has always been eclectic in terms of the team and the overall feel, and I think that definitely came through in this. That’s kinda always in the back of our minds when we’re doing something: honor the history and the legacy, but do it in a way that feels fresh and modern. But we have a really rad team of people behind the scenes. Everyone from the top down. There are so many rad people who have such a solid knowledge of the brand’s history but also have really forward-thinking ideas.
Well, congrats on actually finishing the project and not having to end on a clip of saying, “Well, we blew it.”
I don’t know if I should admit this, but once we got done shooting, I looked at the tape and we actually had 20 or 30 minutes left on it. I was kinda freaking out, like, “There’s no way we got all of this done on that amount of tape.” But we did. It definitely gave me some mild anxiety for a little bit though.
Learn more about Red Bull No Rewind and vote on your favorite video submission here.
