There can only be so many full lengths and single parts, but the 24 hours skate cycle requires more content every day. Just like 411 of old there are lots of other types of edits that are just used to fill the requirement of “content.” Here are my least favorite genres of skate edit that I’ve seen lately.
Raw edits with no B-roll
This is essentially just a part that is not edited, but worse because its IS edited but they tell us it is not. I don’t even care if it was first try and that’s all we get. I want to see the talks in between, the kickouts, the bails, the screaming and board breaking. I do not care to just watch the part a second time where you don’t have to pay music rights. Some of the Thrasher edits are better than others and give us a glimpse into the background of a part and this is where the gems come in. When I look back at videos of the past, I tend to talk more about weird bails, people talking, and other b-roll more than I talk about the banger tricks. Beagle tapes are what im looking for. If it is a rough cut, give me something more than just the song removed.
“Joy of Skating”
If I have to watch another video where a group of skaters sit around as talking heads and try to explain why skateboarding is so great, I am just going to quit skating. The feeling of rolling and landing a trick you have struggled with is indescribable and therefore should not be described. Skaters who know do not need it explained and it will go over the head of everyone else. It doesn’t help that most skateboarders struggle to come up with sentences with vivid descriptive imagery, so we are stuck with bland statements like “It’s the best thing ever, skateboarding saved my life.” Do not tell me about the joy of skating, show me.
Slam Sections
There is nothing like getting hyped to go skate and having all of that excitement destroyed like body being thrown against the ground. We all know slamming is a part of skating, but it is one that we don’t need to see. In my opinion it is like gore. We know it happens, but it is wrong to show it happening. Slams are the type of thing that non-skaters love to see happen to skateboarders. It is horrible and is the least enjoyable thing for me to watch. Even worse when you have footage of the person in a hospital bed describing their surgeries and overwhelming medical bills that came with it.
Day in the life
I love seeing how people live their lives and what happens on the in-between moments of a session, but any “day in the life” section of any 411 comes off as totally manufactured. Getting a person to have their most pretend fun day ever that is nothing like their actual day is beyond boring, it comes across as ingenuine. It looks like a big ad and its even worse when someone grips a new board in the beginning as an excuse to talk about their setup. If we are going to watch a day in the life make it real.
Game of skate
The Berrics really had us watching a bunch of weirdo play skate in a tournament environment. They found a way to make something that is fun for warming up into a hyper competitive jock fest. I do not have much to say about this one because its just so obviously boring. Even the best flat ground skater is not interesting in this format. The best flat ground tricks come in lines in the streets. We will forever talk about Heath’s Nollie bs flip or Bobby’s sw tre but we will never remember any tricks that were done in the game of skate format. Playing skate is fine, filming it is not.
Really long stories
I don’t know if this counts as an edit format but if you just post like 30 clips from a session on your IG story I simply will not watch it. I do not have time for that. The only redeeming factor in this is that it gets closer to the slice of life that Day in the life doesn’t give us. Otherwise, its just boring and is a terrible format to watch skating in. A single clip on the story is great but I don’t need each try clogging my doom scroll with a long top line of clips.
eatthebologna 