http://vimeo.com/57763698
Words: Danny Wilson / more Gleaming The Cube
So much of skateboarding culture continues to take on a disconcertingly corporate complexion and more and more skaters that would previously be considered somewhat left of centre appearing with energy drink logos on their hats or strange, unnecessary sunglasses sponsors. The industry is getting a breath of fresh air, not for the first time, from a close-knit group skaters, artists. Filmers and ne’er-do-wells out of New York. The Green Diamond has been operating for years now as a sort of photoblog/webshop, essentially an all-purpose Internet outlet for some of the more remarkable individual’s in east coast skateboarding.
Independently produced content the like of which the Green Diamond releases has over the last year or two become of greater significance within skateboarding as a whole due to an eagerness by people within and outside of skateboarding to embrace and perhaps even co-opt their aesthetic the good people behind the diamond have yet to compromise their outsider credentials and absurdist sense of humour. Both of which could be seen to be present in the opening section of their latest video offering released during the week: The Dece Vid.
Dece Vid is needless to say fantastic and closes out with a full section from Brazil by way of Brooklyn, former Chocolate flow rider Yaje Popson. Popson was super hyped to be the next big thing a while ago and then kind of dropped off the radar so it’s nice to see some recent footage. But aside from Popson’s stand out solo part there are tricks dotted throughout the twenty minutes of footage from an abundance of relatively big names: Danny Brady, Nick Boserio, Lucien Clarke, Alex Olson, to name a few. The willingness to offer up tricks of a high standard to free, online and independent videos like this could be a testament to the relaxed nature of the skateboarding industry as a whole or could also be understood as a reaction to a change in sensibilities of the skateboarding audience as the notion of auteurship in video production comes more and more to the fore.
Independent skate videos are of course nothing new as nearly every small skate shop has been producing local scene videos for who knows how long but of late there has been a boom in videos coming out without with a distinct style of their own and no explicit industry backing. The notion of a “name” editor with a distinct style of his own isn’t an entirely new idea either but in the last half decade or so these independent “auteurs” are coming out with videos that are making a much bigger impression on skateboarding community as a whole as they make choices in terms of music and visuals that reflect various branches of skateboarding culture that have perhaps been overlooked by some of the bigger brand backed videos who are more eager to play it safe.
