In case you haven't heard, Stacy Peralta (former Z-Boy and more recently award winning film maker) has begun his latest documentary, looking back on the crew that got him to pick up the video camera for the first time. A film that is going to take a look at the years and lives of the original "Bones Brigade" that he so masterfully put together in the late 70's and the through the 80's, as well as the time and the sport itself, what it went through and how it survived a complete commercial breakdown and then flourished.
Post Zephyr/Dogtown days Stacy became the world class spokesman for the sport, that he always seemed to be cut out for. Soon after his own skateboarding was no longer to be in the forefront of his personal agenda, he began to put together a team of skateboarders from far and wide, that he would hand pick and coach, to become some of the most influential and inspiring skaters in the history of the sport. By the early 80's he became the defacto cameraman, director, and editor of his own teams' videos, the very first ever made in the skateboard industry. The impact they made can not be downplayed at all, even from the least interested but knowledgeable skateboard history skeptic. Along with collaborator Craig Stecyk, whom Peralta befriended since the early Zephyr days, they would continue to make skateboarding, via the "Brigade" a world class attention getter, and an outlet for creativity in art, design as well as performance.
I was one of the dozens of people he corralled in late february to sit and talk for a while about the skaters, the era, and the videos, not to mention the lives, and the drama that ensued. What I can say is that on the day I was interviewed it was a ton of fun between Stecyk, Steve Olson, Tommy Guerrero, Alan "Ollie" Gelfand (yes he's the one who actually invented the trick) and myself. But from what i've gathered in the weeks since, and now that Stacy has had time to go over all the transcribed interviews, this flick is going to be a fucking monster. The emotions and lifes stories that spilled out of the guts of these guys, most totally unexpected, have revealed an underbelly of the "boy scouts" that they seemed, from the "den father" down, to an incredibly dedicated, heartfelt, motivated group of perfectionists who would do anything to promote the sport because what it had done for them, through the good times and bad.
Here's an exclusive peek from the set of some of the folks that have been interviewed, as well as a few vintage shots of my own that may make it in the film.
Stacy Peralta, Feb 2011
Stacy Peralta, late 70's
Lance Mountain, Feb 2011
Lance Mountain, early 80's
Lance Mountain and Steve Caballero, early 80's
Tommy Guerrero, Feb 2011
Duane Peters, Feb 2011
Mike McGill, early 80's
Shepard Fairey, Feb 2011(I will post more images from the production and my personal unseen archive over the next few days)
Now that the first round of interviews have been done, the film is currently only in it's earliest stages of post production. There is no trailer or anything like that even close to being cut yet. Any new information should turn up at powell-peralta.com before anywhere else, so keep your eye over there if you're interested.
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