Over the weekend I was in San Diego working for Gravity, they bought my plane ticket and as soon as I arrived on Thursday I was driven to the factory where I spent the time observing the daily operations at the Gravity factory. The main lobby where the receptionist works is covered in old skate-posters, photos, old skateboard decks, and other paraphernalia. When you walk into the offices you're greeted by 4 or 5 dogs that populate the workspace. Gravity recently acquired Randal Trucks and have since been extremely busy running that company as well. Even competing longboard companies will buy Randal trucks to put on their boards before selling them as completes. In the Randal office there are blueprint-style mock-ups of new wheels and trucks that are being designed. Along the walls, a set of trucks from nearly every other company is on display so that one can easily see the differences between them. In the sales room, Kevin and Doug talk loudly into bluetooth phones with skateshop owners around the world, filling orders and talking about all the new product they have to offer. In the factory, there are stacks of boards 20 feet high, huge silkscreen machines, rows and rows of new wheels. Some of the workers in the back may spend all day just putting bearings into wheels or griptaping new decks.
The next day, we gathered as many team-riders as possible, threw the top ten bestselling boards in the back of the van, and caravaned to a few skateparks in Oceanside where I spent the day trying to film every single board for at least a few minutes. Breamo, the CEO of Gravity, and I did our best to set up a regimented schedule of places to go and boards to film, but there are many variables in skating. It is not easy maintaining a professional attitude when skateboarding is such a relaxed and fun sport by nature. I'd oftentimes feel tempted to put my camera down and skate around the park, but I resisted and got some good clips.
On Saturday we once again gathered as many riders as possible and drove out to Pala Indian Reservation. Here we spent half of the day at a skatepark, and the other half of the day on a hill. I got to use a brake-board (a skateboard with a handbrake) to film the downhill skating and ended up getting some really good footage.
Filming skateboarding is sometimes harder than it seems; the co-ordination involved in keeping up with someone skating 15 or 20 mph, keeping the camera stable and pointed at the subject, and not falling and destroying your equipment feels like a stunt in itself. I've already gone over all the footage and have begun naming and categorizing all of the clips of the hard drive that Gravity gave me for this purpose. I'll start editing now and hopefully the videos will be uploaded and embedded on the Gravity site soon.
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