Saturday 29 January 2011

The internet revolution debate-part three


To conclude this internet revolution article, I asked York Uno for his perspective on the following question:

"As the proliferation of “video classics” floods the internet, I ask the question, what are the positives and negatives of this situation?"

York Uno: 
It used to be expensive and take long time to produce a film. You had to buy a camera and editing software, took care of rights for music and burn them on DVD or VHS at the end. So only a few riders produced footages back then. This was not only a case for BMX, but also skateboarding and hip hop, such as other street cultures. Everything improves and gets easer day by day to release footages these days. 

The improvement of technologies open up opportunities equally for us to get exposed wherever you are. You can film your riding and deliver your new tricks through internet right away. That convenience has influenced our recognitions against tricks. 
You can check footages of riders all over the world at home. Your footage is watched on an equal footing with old footage and that breaks the boundary of perspective between “old” and “new” including editing skills.
Firstly I’m looking for a sample of sound when I work on composing music. As well as composing music, riders are looking for a trick for sampling.
A good part of old footages are available online, is that you can easily check “roots” of tricks which you are working on. You know what’s original. A bad part would be that you couldn’t produce a bare footage, without music and editing back then. (High standard was required for all footage at the time as it takes time and costs.) So rarity value of a footage may becomes pretty low now a days.
As to aspects of tricks, scuffing, switching,whiping, rolling and spinning are found in old footages. Turbine is only a few as Turbine is the latest techniques for Flatland.
Latest footages include valuable information about techniques and equipments. But they are found among bunch of “average” footages in fact. So you have to “judge” the value by yourself. There’s no creation acceptable for everyone, it means there’s no absolute definition of what’s “good” or “bad”. So you have to be a creator on your own to be able to judge the quality.




Editors note:
To conclude, everyone basically seems to be on the same path. Everyone is stoked that the old classics have been published online and continue to do so, yesterday Kala published the 2004 Intrikat Flatsphere dvd online, and this will continue.
I found that all these videos were being published right at the end of the decade, as if to archive a chapter in the history of flatland, December 2010 was a busy month in terms of the old "classics" being published online, I was blown away at one point, and starting to question whether I should be publishing these videos on the blog, hence this article was born.
Respect for the artists work has been mentioned a few times, i.e, if you are going to broadcast someones video online, take some pride in it, publish in good quality, and don't change the music.
As Bobby Carter said the internet revolution is here, ride that wave, we are nowadays spoilt for choice and it's all for free, apart from the cost of your internet connection of course, when I grew up riding, there were no videos in the beginning, just a monthly magazine, so a flatlanders inspiration now is far greater than 27 years ago, this can only be a great thing for future generations. I don't see any negative to that.
Because the internet is so vast, a lot of videos can be "slept" on, whereas videos back in the day were so few and far between, these videos would be studied, now a video edit is forgotten about a few days after it is published, not even that in some cases. Riders are already looking for the next fix. We are spoilt.
Distribution of information is the biggest bonus for me, whilst I don't think you will ever beat the feel of a printed page, and having that dvd in your hand, the fact riders "worldwide" can access new and old videos right away providing they have a good internet connection, is a really great thing.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to get back to me on this debate, some healthy conclusions have been drawn from this.

Effraim.

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7 comments:

phil dolan said...

Big E super stoked to see all this old footage up i had not seen chads 2004 video for example.Also its a record and a resource for anyone who may be intrested.and it reminds me of how many fantastic riders there where and are.phil

flatmatters said...

Yes Phil! Its definitely a very useful archive for us old timers still at, I often watch the old stuff more than the new stuff to be honest.
Just because something new doesnt mean it is better.

flatmatters said...

@Phil. Drool away at Nathans section, like damn!!!

phil dolan said...

yeah bloody amazing and pretty handy at pool,speakin spanol ,and drinkin

Mark "Rad Dad" Dandridge said...

Great Article E! I always enjoy reading what you have to say.

flatmatters said...

Thanks mark!

flatmatters said...

@Phil. Knew you'd mention the pool haha..